Friday, 20 December - Statues, Seagulls
On Friday, 20 December our first port of call was to Magia, Magica – Tra Palco E Realtà; also known as Between Stage and Reality. This was on Johan’s list of “must see” places so we went to visit this treasure trove for magicians – we had a look at everything they had in the shop and made friends with the shop’s King Charles spaniel puppy who was a real cutey and rolled over for a tummy rub.
From Magia we walked over famous bridges across the Tiber, explored another Church, looked at Castle Sant’Angelo and ventured to St Peter’s Square at Vatican City.
We spotted a Christmas tree adorned with pasta filled baubles. This tree was appropriately outside a restaurant - very innovative and topical form of Christmas decoration!
A view of the Castel Sant'Angelo and the Ponte Vittorio Emmanuel II on the right, a bridge over the Tiber River. This bridge is decorated at the ends with high socles (socles are short plinths used to support a pedestal, sculpture or column) carrying colossal bronze winged Victories and over each of the piers with massive allegorical travertine sculptural groups.
San Giovanni dei Fiorentini Church in Via Acciaioli, Rome
We came across Ponte Vittorio Emmanuel IIn our Friday perambulations. This church is a minor basilica and a titular church in the Ponte rione of Rome, Italy.
This church is dedicated to St. John the Baptist, the protector of Florence. It was the new church for the Florentine community in Rome started in the 16th century and completed in the early 18th, and is the national church of Florence in Rome.
When we went into the church, it was clear that a rehearsal for a musical recital had just finished – there were adult and children musicians, musical instruments, musical stands and a dignified sense of chaos!
Candles lit for my late Dad and other loved ones who have gone before us
Statue outside L'Ospedale di Santo Spirito in Sassia / The Hospital of the Holy Spirit
Terenzio Mamiani, Count Mamiani della Rovere (born 19 September 1799, died 21 May 1885) was an Italian writer, academic and politician. He was committed to the cause of the unification of Italy under the Sardinian monarchy and he was one of the leading figures of Liberal Catholicism (we had seen the other statue commemorating him the day before near the Vittorio Emmanuel II Monument)
Ponte Sant’Angelo / “Bridge of Angels”
Ponte Sant’Angelo / “Bridge of Angels”
The 1349 bridge was built between the banks of the Tiber river in 134 AD by Emperor Hadrian to connect the centre of Antique Rome with his newly built mausoleum (the Castel Sant’Angelo). The bridge was originally known as the “Aelian Bridge”, which simply meant “Bridge of Hadrian”.
Pope Clement IX, in 1669, commissioned the making of the ten angel sculptures from famed Baroque sculptor Gian Lorenzo Bernini, who decided to perfectly fit the statues with the bridge’s name and purpose. Bernini’s beautiful angel sculptures, lining the spectacular travertine marble resulted in the “Aelian Bridge” becoming “Ponte Sant’Angelo” or “Bridge of Angels”. Each sculptured angel symbolises a part from the story of Jesus Christ’s suffering and death by crucifixion with statues of the Saints Peter and Paul watching over the entrance way of the bridge.
Bernini himself only finished the actual making of two angels which were the Angel with the Superscription “I.N.R.I.” and the Angel with the Crown of Thorns (these two though were kept by Clement IX for his own pleasure and they are now visible in the church of Sant’ Andrea delle Fratte). Bernini’s design and vision of the bridge were kept in mind and his successors brought them to life.
Castel Sant'Angelo
Heading towards Piazza San Pietro / St Peters’ Square, St Peter’s Basilica, Vatican City
The presepe/nativity scene in St Peter’s Square came from Scurelle, in the municipality of Valsugana in the province of Trento, Italy
On 29 September 2019, in a special mass on the 105th World Day of Migrants and Refugees, Pope Francis unveiled a monument to migration in St Peter’s Square as an homage to the displaced.
Canadian artist Timothy P Schmalz, created the monument, Angels Unaware, depicts 140 migrants and refugees from various historical periods travelling on a boat and includes indigenous people, the Virgin Mary and Joseph, Jews fleeing Nazi Germany and those from war-torn countries. The Vatican’s Office of Migrants and Refugees requested the monument and it funded by the Rudolph P Bratty Family Foundation.
Such an incredibly evocative monument
Piazza San Pietro - A different view of St Peter’s Square from Johan’s sunglasses!
The steps we traipse up and down daily from the metro and one of the bus stops, to Via Vaticano where Domus Getsemani was situated
