The Glory of Rome

Did you ever think there was something that was just so amazing that you wanted to tell everyone about it? Or maybe you wanted to do something that showed everyone just how important this thing was? Did you think to yourself, I’ll just construct a building over a seventh of a mile long and 450 feet tall without using any power tools or modern machinery, and the I’ll cover every square centimeter of its surface in carved marble, gold, or renaissance and baroque artwork that should last thousands of years?

Because that’s basically St. Peter’s Basilica

And that’s basically how they build things in Rome. I’m pretty sure the phrase “bigger is better” was Roman long before Americans started using it. Yes, those are people down there. It does look like they stole this cathedral from a nearby horde of giants, doesn’t it? (If the Statue of Liberty visited she could wave her torch around her head and not hit the ceiling of the dome. I looked up the dimensions)

And yet Rome is a big city in a much different way than the city from which the Statue of Liberty hails. It's not a city of metal and glass and skyscrapers on the horizon. 

Around practically every corner in Rome you're confronted with a relic of the past. It may be crowded by apartments built within the last hundred years, vying for space in dense, modern city. I imagine something like the Pantheon once dominated a vast plaza, so that back in 100 AD, Romans could admire its beauty from all sides, but now it's impossible to take a picture of that building without also capturing the hotels and shops and such that have been built just beyond its walls. And yet, that's something amazing about Rome. Rome is not a museum; these monuments have not been cloistered. Rome is still a living, growing city, and the monuments of ancient times have been incorporated with the present. The Romans here live with history as a visible part of their everyday lives. The glory of Rome continues.

Venice, on the other hand, is a museum. It's a beautiful city, don't get me wrong. Sitting down next to some small canal and watching the decorative gondolas paddle slowly past Venetian architecture, where the houses are just as likely to have a door to the water as to the street, 

enjoying a glass of wine and the sardines freshly caught off the coast of the city that now make your pasta taste oh-so-good...

That's hard to beat. But Venice is a museum, in that this city on an island ran out of room hundreds of years ago. Almost every part of Venice seems like either an exhibit or a gift shop, and it may have more "gift shops" than any other museum in the world. You could almost believe that every Venetian that lived there simply worked for the tourists, and a Venetian business man or factory worker would have seemed out of place. I did once see some post office workers, delivering mail by boat, but if Rome is a city of giants, Venice is certainly a city of tourists. Maybe the city would have been more interesting on a boat. As Hannah and I made our way through the haphazard maze of narrow alleys and bridges that is Venice on foot, we got lost several times, 

but I've heard that Venice makes complete sense when traveling by boat. In that aspect, it really is a unique city, and although overcrowded, still a place worth visiting. Also, St. Mark's Basilica was one of the most beautiful buildings I've ever seen in my life.

Really, it was hard to go back to lab on Monday. But, fortunately for me, I'm guaranteed a visit back to the glorious city of Rome someday! Or at least that's what they say about throwing a coin into the Trevy fountain.