Our first stop was San Carlo alle Quattro Fontane. This little church was Francesco Borromini's first major commission in Rome. It was a budget project, but Borromini's innovative and intricate creation was an immediate architectural sensation. His design for both exterior and interior was fully of undulating curves and creative use of economical building materials. His oval dome, in particular, creates an illusion of being suspended weightlessly above the church.
In contrast, Gian Lorenzo Bernini's church of Sant' Andrea al Quirinale a short distance away was designed for the then-current pope and had no budget limitations. The materials are rich and the whole church is lavish and theatrical. Saint Andrew himself rises toward heaven over the altar straight up through the pediment. Bernini and Borromini were rivals. These two small churches, both designed and build in the middle of the 17th century, are exceptional in very different ways.
Bernini's theatrical genius is even more apparent in the Cornaro Chapel in Santa Maria della Vittoria, the third church we visited. There, we saw Bernini's "Ecstasy of St. Theresa" sculpture over the main altar. Bernini lights the scene with a hidden window behind the clouds through which the heavenly light pours in while the patron and other family members look on from theater boxes on the sides and gossip among themselves.
After our tour of exquisite little baroque churches, we went back in time 1500 years by visiting what is left of the massive Baths of Diocletian. The structure of a couple of the main rooms of this vast complex have been preserved in the church of Santa Maria degli Angeli. Michelangelo designed the church to incorporate these huge vaults from the baths, thereby re-purposing and ensuring their survival. Some of the original red granite columns from the baths still support the criss-crossed vaults in the middle of the structure.
After another delicious meal, this time at a nearby bar, we spent the rest of the afternoon at the Palazzo Massimo, which is the National Museum of Rome. Here are collected and displayed many portrait busts of emperors, their families, and others, statues, both Greek and Roman, reliefs, mosaics and beautiful frescoes from Roman homes, many unearthed by construction of the train station nearby and other local sites. It's hard to dig in Rome without coming up with treasures. The museum gives a great sense of the esteem with which the Romans held Greek art and culture, adopting, copying and interpreting it for their own purposes. After several hours in the museum, we trekked home and, once again, collapsed before dinner.
Sea creature mosaic, Palazzo Massimo
Mosaic birds, Palazzo Massimo
Pegasus fresco, Palazzo Massimo
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