Update: The Swiss Guards were fakes!

Earlier I wrote about seeing Swiss Guards in Piazza Collegio Romano. A journalist with the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops immediately knew that they were not the real thing! This evening I found out from a priest who lives in the neighborhood that the "guards" were actors in costumes connected with the movie "Angels and Demons," opening next week in New York.  I understand that today there were also other staged sets around the city of Rome.

Sighting: Swiss Guards

I always experience a little bit of excitement when I see Swiss Guards with their halberds and fantastic uniforms of blue, yellow orange and red. (Legend attributes Michelangelo with the design of the garments.) This afternoon in Piazza Collegio Romano, behind the Church of S. Ignazio, we spotted two Swiss Guards in front of Ex Chiesa di Santa Marta, a de-consecrated church. This small church is used for government meetings and exhibitions. 

What was the occasion?

Chiesa Santa Marta

Saint Ignatius established Casa Santa Marta (1543-44) as a church and residence for penitent prostitutes. Prostitution was a significant service industry in Rome and was more or less accepted in the fifteenth century, but the advent of syphilis and the changing moral tenor led to sixteenth-century reform movements. (In 1520 the Oratorio del Divino Amore had established a convent for former prostitutes, based on the earlier monastic model emphasizing a strict life of penance.)
 Santa Marta aimed at rehabilitation of former prostitutes and their reintegration into ordinary social life. In a sense, it was similar to what we now call "half-way houses." Among the 170 founding members of the confraternity that administered the work were 15 cardinals, seven bishops, and several ambassadors to the papal court. Leaving financial and material matters to the lay people, Ignatius provided spiritual direction. (from www.sjweb.info)

The facade of Chiesa Santa Marta.

The baroque ceiling of the nave.

Casa Santa Marta is now used by Il Ministero per i Beni Culturali e Ambientali, the Ministry for Cultural and Environmental Assets. The church building is de-consecrated and used as a meeting and exhibition space.

The former sacristy of the church.

Hard Rock Cafe ROME

Last week I went to the Hard Rock Cafe with friends from work to celebrate the birthday of a colleague. When I arrived I was greeted by a gaggle of teenagers hanging out on the sidewalk. Inside, like the Hard Rock Cafes around the world, it is a temple to pop music culture!

From an "American styled" menu we selected appetizers that included chicken wings and potato skins. Delicious! (I am the second from the left.) For my meal I had fajitas while most had Bacon Cheeseburgers... well, they were out of bacon, so when the meals arrived at the table the waiter announced each one as a Bacon Cheeseburger "senza" bacon.

Outside the restaurant on the Via Veneto you can "enjoy" stained glass windows depicting musical idols set against Roman scenes.

Campo dei Fiore: Our Favorite Bar is Gone!

Vendor leaving the Campo dei Fiori at the end of the day.

The Campo dei Fiori is a colorful space that hosts a fruit, vegetable & flower market on weekdays and Saturday mornings. In the summer and spring it is a great place to stop for some fruit on the way to a picnic lunch on the nearby banks of the Tiber River. We found ourselves going there often because our favorite Roman coffee bar was located on a corner of the Campo.
Since 2006 we have enjoyed sitting in the "window bar" watching people on the Vicolo del Gallo going to and from the Piazza Farnese. After lunch on a recent Sunday we went to our bar for a coffee and found that it is closed. Even in Rome some things do not last forever.

Speaking the Truth

Bocca della Verita

The other day I was on the bus going past the Church of Santa Maria in Cosmedin and saw that there was no line to get into the front porch of the church. Usually there are scores of tourists waiting for a moment to approach the Bocca della Verita (Mouth of Truth) and take a picture with their hand in the mouth of the large stone face. ( Audrey Hepburn did this in the 1953 film Roman Holiday.) I jumped off the bus and took the opportunity to get a photo of this ancient Roman artifact.

I have no idea how this 12th century porch became a place for the display of the Bocca della Verita. For centruies people have said that the mouth would bite the hand of liers. It was even used as a lie detector during trials of adulterous wives during the middle ages. The men associated with these accused adulterers must have arranged for this stone to determine innocence. Attempts to identify the stone face have called it an ancient fountainhead or a manhole cover from the near by Cloaca Maxima.

The Cloaca Maxima is a sewer system adjacent to where the church stands today. Dating from the 5th Century BC, the sewer was one of Rome's great technological accomplishments. The first branch of it, which is still used today, drained the area of the Forum. It was later extended elsewhere in the city, with tunnels said to be wide enough so that inspections could be done by men on chariots.

Just outside the city walls I have found another "bocca" at the Hotel Abitart. This is called the Bocca della Bugia, the Mouth of Lies. I wonder if we will ever see lines of tourists waiting to have their pictures taken while they put their hands in this "mouth."

Lunedì Letterario

Barack Obama
Our 44th President
by Beatrice Gormley
December 2008

If you have not read Obama's Dreams from My Father and The Audacity of Hope, this children's biography of the 44th President of the United States can give you many of the factors mentioned in Barack Obama's writings that inspired him to ultimatey seek (and win) the White House. This book is written for 8 - 12 year olds and traces Obama's ancestory from Kenya and Kansas, his early life in Hawaii and Indonesia, and the educational and political career that made him the winning presidential candidate in the 2008 elections.


and to the Big Screen...

Another children's book  is opening this month as a movie. It is Cornelia Funke's INKHEART, originally written in German and immediately translated into English. Both editions were published in 2003. In the novel, Mortimer "Mo" Folchart and his 12-year-old daughter, Meggie, share a passion for books. What they also share is an extraordinary gift for bringing characters from books to life when they read aloud. But there is a danger: when a character is brought to life from a book, a real person disappears into its pages. Cornelia Funke has woven an amazing tail of mystery and suspense that can be enjoyed by adults and children.

INKHEART
by Cornelia Funke
2003