Michael Nassar

It’s hard to say goodbye.  It’s even more difficult to be cavalier about leaving the cushy confines of the Rome Cavalieri.  Yet my time in Rome has come to an end.  As promised, I’ve eaten my body weight in pasta, consumed enough wine to float my way through the holidays, and am feeling like an extra out of 8 1/2.

More significantly though, I’ve had the chance to reconnect – albeit briefly – with the curious seventeen year old who long ago wandered the city’s maze of streets in awe of this world and the world inside him waiting to be born.  I may be filling my suitcase with pasta and coffee to take back home, but sitting here on my balcony and taking in the birds-eye view of St. Peter’s and the city spread out before me like a sumptuous buffet, I’m thinking I’ve already got myself the best of souvenirs.

While there is some dispute as to its veracity, today’s headline is said to be the phrase with which gladiators heralded the emperor before engaging in battle.  What is not in dispute, however, is the authenticity accorded to the life and times of the gladiators by Gruppo Storico Romano.

The Scuola Gladiatori Roma  – an arm of the Gruppo Storico – teaches you how to fight with the same weapons handled by the gladiators of ancient Rome.  Kitted out in sandals, a tunic, and the appropriate armor, you learn how to use the gladius, or typical battlesword. (the word gladiator is itself derived from the word “gladius”.)

But first things first:  let’s warm up with a few cigarettes and cups of espresso.

Then it’s on to training.  Mixing culture and sport you’re trained by doctores (the gladiators’ trainers) before crossing swords in mock battle, trying the deceptive nets and tridents, and studying the methodology of hits and movements in what is a really intense discipline.

There’s a reason those gladiators were so ripped:  this stuff is heavy. The best benefit of a few hours thrusting and sweating in the sun with fifty-plus pounds of armor on your back is the guilt-free amount of pasta you can consume later.

Though I have to confess the Latin geek in me got the biggest rush out of being presented with a certificate granting me the  citizenship accorded to a free man of the Roman Empire – the traditional just reward given to a gladiator victorious in battle.  Veni, vidi, vici!

Rome’s Capitoline Museum is a classicist’s nirvana.  Spread across three buildings in a piazza designed by Michelangelo atop the Capitoline Hill , it abuts the Imperial forum of ancient Rome and in one fell swoop binds the Renaissance to its forbears in antiquity.  Recent excavations under the hill have revealed the foundations of the precursor to what stands there now and the preserved balcony provides a view over the forum that’s worthy of an emporer.

The museum houses a bucket list of classical sculpture – along with a few mediocre paintings that are best avoided – and as a self-confessed Latin geek, it was easy for me to spend the better part of an afternoon here thoroughly enrapt.  Three pieces in particular have haunted me for many years for many different reasons:  The Dying Gaul, Cupid & Psyche, and an unknown warrior falling in battle.  Click the images for greater detail.

It’s well nigh impossible to visit Rome and not come into contact with the work of Bernini, the Renaissance sculptor and architect who was one of the leading artists of his time and a successor to the mantle of Michelangelo.

Gian Lorenzo Bernini was a genius – let’s just get that out of the way.  Moving beyond the creation of mere objets destined for adoration, he took into account the setting in which each piece would be situated, synthesizing sculpture, painting and architecture into a coherent conceptual and visual whole.  He used light in a revolutionary way, much like Carravagio did a generation before:  hidden, the light source was able to intensify a moment of religious adoration or enhance the narrative of a dramatic moment.  In marble, don’t forget; the man was able to bring this bear while working in marble.

Enjoying the patronage of the Popes, Bernini’s output was vast:  he designed the piazza and colonnade outside St. Peter’s, the Ponte Sainte’Angelo across the Tiber, a handful of massive fountain complexes that to this day remain a focal point of daily Roman life, and hundreds genre-bending sculptures admired for their dynamic movement.  The man also revolutionized the art of marble portraiture, eschewing the stony silent bust in favor of presenting his subjects in mid-conversation or leaning out of the frame.  To put Bernini’s life into a global context, understand that in his later years he was invited to present designs at the court of the Sun King, Louis Quattorze.

Above, the bust of Christ is his last known work.  Completed shortly before his death at the age of 82, it was discovered only recently discovered along the ancient Appian Way, inside the Church of St. Sebastian.  For a little contrast, below is a detail from the gargantuan Fountain of the Four Rivers that dominates the Piazza Navona and the Ecstasy of St. Theresa, which depicts Theresa of Avila anticipating the angle’s arrow and the piercing of God’s love.

Hands down, the honor goes to St. Sebastian.  Tied to a stake – or sometimes to a tree – Sebastian is never depicted as anything less than young and beautiful, a precursor to the ethereal beauty of Wilde’s Dorian Gray.

What’s so disturbing – or hot, depending on your mindset – is the juxtaposition of death against that useless beauty, because Sebastian is almost always depicted at the point of his martyrdom:  bound and shot full of arrows, the perfection of his alabaster flesh marred only by the bleeding wounds.  His face retains a glow of serenity, sometimes disinterest, and more often than not an almost pre-orgasmic ecstasy.  It’s as though, yes, this moment of immolation is inextricably tied-up with his desire.  Death and le petit mort become one.  The homoeroticism can’t be denied:  St. Sebastian is an S&M fantasy come to life.

Poor guy.  All he did was convert a few prisoners to Christianity.  Unfortunately, that happened to draw the ire of Emperor Diocletian and Sebastian was doomed from that point forward.  What intrigues me, however, is how many painters and sculptors were continually drawn to representing the duality inherent in this sainted archetype.

Just a little teaser today.  Come back over the weekend for my adventures at Gruppo Storico Romano.

Afternoon tea is one of those fabulous traditions more closely associated with Great Britain than Italy, yet at the Rome Cavilieri they do a gold-plated high tea against a spectacular backdrop:  a triptych of Tiepolos.

The three large Renaissance panels by Giambatista Tiepolo were bought by the owner of the Cavilieri at an auction of the contents from the Venetian Palazza Sandi.  The Sandi family commissioned Tiepolo back in 1723 and the panels had been hanging in the family home ever since.

Under the hammer at Sotheby’s the triptych – Hercules suffocating Anteo, Ulysses discovering Achilles among the daughters of Lycomedes, and Apollo skinning Marsia – set an auction record for a painting in Italy:  7 million euro.  As cultural patrimony they’re considered priceless and recognized as one of only fifty Italian works of art unable to leave the country without approval from the government.

Twenty euro for a proper tea is a steal anyway, but getting a private audience with your own Renaissance masterpieces is priceless.  Dressing like the Doge, alas, is optional.

My favorite monument of classical Rome is without question the Ara Pacis.  It is a humble piece of architecture but to me it represents the height of what Roman civilization was able to achieve under Caesar Augustus, aka Octavius.  Just imagine:  an altar dedicated to peace.  For an empire that had been continuously at war for hundreds of years, the concept of a public temple – for that was what the Ara Pacis ultimately was – dedicated to the peace and stability of a flowering empire was unprecedented.  Even today, the idea of any government paying lip service to – let along dedicating a monument to – peace is unimaginable.  It showed the citizens of Rome that a) Augustus was so powerful a leader that he could actually bring about a lasting peace that for once closed the doors to the temple of Janus, and b) that with peace across the Empire, a civilization could germinate: philosophy could reason, science enlighten and art reveal the people to themselves.  Without fear, society could flourish.  These are lessons learned over 2,000 years ago, yet still we struggle with such simple self-evident truths.

American architect Richard Meier’s travertine housing for the Ara Pacis has been as controversial as Mussolini’s decision to move the altar from it’s original location in the 1930′s.  Yet despite the contremps, Meier’s glass box is as refined as Pei’s Louvre pyramids; respecting the altar and the juxtaposition against Augustus’ neighboring mausoleum while contributing a breath of modernity into a city too often mired in its historical fantasy.

Salami di Fichi is one of those gastronomic curiousities that comes from the Marche region of Italy.  Made during the grape harvest it is a mix of figs and grape must – the leftover pulp of the wine-making process – shaped into the form of a salami and wrapped in grape leaves to dry.

Sliced and served with a few shavings of pecorino and apricot jam, it makes for a stimulating appetizer or a robust cheese course.  Here, as served at Trattoria Monti, it made for an ideal tease to a main course of fresh tagliatelle and porcini mushrooms.

In anticipation of this trip I haven’t had a carbohydrate in over a week, so let the food porn begin!

Lunch today at L’Uliveto was a simple, intoxicating three-hour affair deserving of a siesta afterward.  Prepare to drool.

Red tuna tartare with quail egg in an olive crust – scotch egg anyone? – and sweet potato foam.

Cappellacci pasta filled with eggplant smoked cheese and king prawns.

Wild sea bass with cuttlefish ink and basmati rice on green tomato cream.

Meringue mille-feuille with raspberries and white chocolate.