Skulls in the Stars

Final part in a series of photo essays on my recent trip to Rome. Part 1 can be read here,  Part 2 can be read here, Part 3 can be read here, and Part 4 can be read here.

Sunday was our final day in Rome, and it would be a short day: our flight out was at around 4:00 pm.  However, we had enough time to see one more major sight, and decided to do something a little further out of the city. In fact, the sight in question is literally a way out of the city: Via Appia, known in English as the Appian Way.

The Appian Way is the remains of one of the original and most important Roman roads.  It is a wonderful excursion into more of the countryside around the city, and is dotted with historical relics of ancient Rome, as well as villas of some of the modern city’s wealthiest citizens.

The Appian Way closer to the city.

See the large, flat stones in the photograph?  Those are parts of the original Roman road, which began construction in 312 B.C.E. as a way to transport military supplies and troops from the city to the various campaigns.  The road was ordered built by the Censor of Rome, Appius Claudius Caecus, who started construction without even waiting for approval from the Senate!

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Part 4 of a series of photo essays on my recent trip to Rome. Part 1 can be read here,  Part 2 can be read here, and Part 3 can be read here.

On day 4 of our Rome adventure, we decided to finally venture inside some of Rome’s wonderful buildings!  Most of our time had, up to this point, been spent walking the city and viewing the architecture from the exterior or, in the case of the Colosseum, interior but still outside. Now we were interested in seeing some of the non-architectural artwork of Rome and, to be honest, get out of the heat for a while.

Our major stop would be the immense museum complex of the Vatican, which we will get to in a moment.  The Vatican has a dress code, however, and generally bans shorts on men and short skirts on women.  So we put on our long clothes — in 90-degree heat — and headed out for the day.

If we were going to be uncomfortable, we decided we might as well make the most of it.  Non-casual dress is expected in most of the city’s churches, so as long as we were dressed the part, we made plans to visit a few other such sites of interest.

Our first planned stop was the Chiesa di Santa Maria della Vittoria, which possesses one of Rome’s most beautiful and famous sculptures. But along the way we passed the Fontana dell’Acqua Felice (also called the Fountain of Moses).

The Fontana dell’Acqua Felice.

Built between 1585 and 1588, this fountain marked the end of another Roman aqueduct that was restored long after the empire’s collapse.  The restoration was ordered by Pope Sixtus V, and the new aqueduct was named the Acqua Felice, after the Pope’s birth name of Felice Peretti.  The new source of water helped the rather crude and unpopulated section of Rome grow into a thriving neighborhood.

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Part 2 of a series of photo essays on my recent trip to Rome. Part 1 can be read here.

Day 2 of our Rome trip was a combination of work and vacation. The choice of Rome as a destination was originally motivated by an invitation from an optics colleague to visit him at Roma Tre University, and my former postdoc advisor and I both volunteered to give short talks about our research.  We were scheduled for pre-lunchtime presentations, so we slept in a little bit and then took a taxi to the university.

Even a taxi ride in Rome can be interesting, though, as we passed several ancient landmarks of note along the way!  Three of them appeared in a single photo I snapped on the road.

The Piazza Bocca della Verità.

In the foreground of this piazza is the Fountain of the Tritons (Fontana dei Tritoni), completed in 1715 under order of Pope Clement XI as a monument in his memory.  Right behind that is a significantly older structure, the Tempio di Ercole Vincitore (Temple of Hercules Victor), which dates to the 2nd century B.C.E.!  The roof on the structure is not original, but was added later; the columns are original.  On the far right of the photo is the Tempio di Portuno (Temple of Portunus), originating in the 3rd or 4th century B.C.E. but rebuilt somewhere around 100 B.C.E. It, and the Temple of Hercules Victor, were both converted to Catholic churches at some point in their history and probably owe their survival to this.

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