During holiday months, if not busy with long trips, it's easy to find people from the provinces in the big 'città d'arte', cities of art, to visit, playing tourists in the homecountry, the immense treasures of the BelPaese without the city chaos, while the stressed inhabitants of the metropolitan cities massly direct to the Italian province looking for some relax and contact with a more human dimension of living nature and urban areas. When going to a city so rich in must-sees as, for instance, Rome, it's just beautiful to wander around and get transported by the humourous fluxus of the moment, walking on paths and roads to discover art and culture, or delicacies that are for sure to be found in the city, or of shopping and restaurants. One of the many ways to get to know Rome and the big Italian cities is to venture on the streets looking for art and culture, of those wonders and treasures that Italy could, despite all, preserve during the centuries in the spectacular Catholic churches and basilicas or in the 'palazzi' of the powerfuls of all times.
Let's start with the path on the footsteps of Caravaggio, Raffaello and Michelangelo in the Eternal city, during holidays preferably, when the city get rid, for some kind of magic, of that stinky trafic that make the heat unbearable, the walking heavy and the trips difficult, always being keen on the opening times of the worship places, often closed on Sundays.
So, let's start with the absolute masterworks of Caravaggio, Raffaello, Michelangelo and Bramante. Artists with a quite different charachter and style, indisputable genius of world art. If Raffaello (1483-1520) and Michelangelo (1475-1564), together with Bramante (1444-1514) who provoked less interest on his private life during the following centuries, represented the diverse faces of the inspiration during the papacy (1503-1513) of Giulio II (1443-1513), pope who, luckily for humankind, loved art and wanted in his court the greatest artists of his times commissioning absolute masterpieces kept safe for centuries in the Catholic buildings, Caravaggio revolutioned the way of painting for the generations to come, passing as a hurricane at the crossroads of two centuries in the Rome (1592-1605) of Pope Clemente VIII (1536-1605).
In the capital, with a bit of good will and sneakers, you can really enjoy these wonders just walking on the streets and entering some of the most breathtaking churches of the entire planet.
In the capital, with a bit of good will and sneakers, you can really enjoy these wonders just walking on the streets and entering some of the most breathtaking churches of the entire planet.
Imagine a summer day, refreshed with the typical Roman 'venticello', wind, and let's start with the latest artist in chronological order, the unquiet Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio (1571-1610), a bad guy with a complicated life, an awful quarrelsome and violent temper, gifted with the talent of drawing, an extraordinary talent that simply revolutioned not only the way of painting in his epoch but the way of seeing the world, the visual imaginery of all the following generations, so to be considered the first movie director in history, even if cinema would have been invented three centuries later. And, seen that the French could always fully appreciate Italian beauties highlighting them in their most beautiful buildings, let's start this mini-tour from the national French church in Rome, San Luigi dei Francesi, closed on sundays, that treasures in the Cappella Contarelli three of the most reknowned paintings of Caravaggio, the Martirio di San Matteo (Martyrdom of Saint Matthew), San Matteo e l'angelo (The Inspiration of Saint Matthew) and Vocazione di san Matteo (The calling of Saint Matthew).
Any description is useless, if we can't recall them just open any art history book to have a detailed analysis. Stepping out with the eyes full of the contrasting Caravaggio's light, we walk for some hundreds metres to the Basilica di Sant'Agostino, and the Madonna di Loreto o dei Pellegrini, one of the very few Virgin Mary with child where the focus is on the child and not on the mother. In this church of the Roman Reinassance also Raffaello Sanzio pokes out almost wanting to remember to tourists and pilgrims that Rome inspired most of his masterpieces or simply that life can be lived and looked at also from a different happier perspective, and that divine enlightment can be found also in the light-heartedness gaiety joie de vivre. Yep, because Raffaello Sanzio, was not only an infant prodigy who, not even 17, was already considered a 'maestro', he also had a diametrically opposed lifestyle to his contemporaneous Michelangelo, a genius in the deepest meaning of the word, animated by unrestless ispiration. Raffaello was an artist and a 'bottegaio', 'bottega' being a laboratory craft shop where painters especially during the Reinassance learned the art, he could mix the pleasures of life with the research of the beautiful managing a group of collaborators who could keep in the bottega, a sort of small handcrafts industries of the time, thanks to the cospicous Vatican commissions. He suffered enough in his life to be willing to suffer for the art and, while his contemporaneous Michelangelo found true inspiration in the research of the the Beautiful, lavished this deeply rooted love for life in his works, without denying the pleasures and comforts of well living that the appreciation of his art gave him. A more quietness of soul is clear in his works that communicate to the viewer the holy feeling more through grace of celestial enlightment than through the contrast with the rawness of the Caravaggio's everyday life seedily dense or via the imposing Michelangelo's strenght of the sublime.
To keep on going with this imaginary dialogue between Caravaggio and Raffaello we have to pass through Piazza del Popolo and head to the Basilica di Santa Maria del Popolo, closed on Sundays, but if we want to keep on discovering Reinassance, a few steps forward crossing piazza Navona to Via della Pace, with the church Santa Maria della Pace, closed on Sundays and on most days of the week, but with the adjacent Chiostro del Bramante, open on Sundays from where it is possible to admire the Sibille of Raffaello at the sight of the arch from a wonderful window, enjoying a delicious aperitif in the cloister or a tasty pizza in the small piazza opposite the church.
The minitour can continue on foot towards the Galleria Doria Pamphilj,open on Sundays, an actual case of art in the street of mass shopping via del Corso, or by bus towards the lively and popular Rione Monti, crossing Via Cavour to the church, open on Sundays, of San Pietro in Vincoli where you can admire the relic of the chains with which Saint Peter was enchaned and the grave of Giulio II built by Michelangelo, with the Moses that could never satisfy the genius and that actually delights the glances and the souls of visitors, tourists and pilgrims.
The tour can go on with a small deviation on the main theme to dive into a different era, in via dei Fori Imperiali, pedestrian area on Sundays, and jump into centuries to admire the Coliseum and the Fora area, walking within the Michelangelo work of the Campidoglio square (that you can easily find in the back of the Italian 50 euro cents coins) before going back to the provincia to taste the fresh summer dishes and plan the next raid to the city while Romans returns in rivers of trafic from the out-of-town trips.
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