Roman Holiday

Sweet Heavenly Mercy, why did no one tell me that you need at least 3 days in Florence?!  Rome was great, but Florence was love at first sight.  My interest in Florence had been mostly academic (the David, the Ufizzi, birthplace of the Renaissance, etc), and I guess I'd always heard of Tuscany spoken of in hushed reverent tones, but seriously, I had no idea--it's what Italy looks like in the movies, in your imagination, in your dreams.  They have a cathedral there larger and more opulent than a Temple--and that's not even one of Florence's main attractions! Most of my vacation was in Rome, but if I could redo this trip, I'd have spent most of it in Florence.

But now I talk like some spoiled brat who missed his favorite ride at Disneyworld!  Let's talk about Rome for a minute:

Rome is the James Dean of world cities--it left a beautiful corpse.  You can't swing a shovel without hitting ruins of priceless historical significance.  One ancient temple we came across was discovered while ground was being broken for new luxury hotels.  Needless to say, they did not build the hotels.

Other major cities, you see, have monuments to their current glory and power, their potency and virility--New York with the Statue of Liberty; Paris with the Eiffel Tower; Beijing with the Great Wall; London with Big Ben, etc--but in Rome, all the major landmarks are already fallen: the two-thirds remnants of the Colosseum; the wrecks of the Roman Forum and Palatine Hill; the half-broken Corinthian Columns scattered like weeds in the Jewish Ghetto.  Unlike, say, Paris, you cannot contemplate Rome's glory without also contemplating Rome's fall.

There's something almost more honest about that--Rome reminds you that your current glory is strictly provisional, that no matter how strong you are or how long you last, that even the mightiest must fall, for all things must fail. As Percy Shelley puts it more eloquently:

"Go thou to Rome--at once the Paradise,
The grave, the city, and the wilderness,
And where its wrecks like shattered mountains rise
And flowering weeds, and fragrant copses dress
The bones of Desolation's nakedness." (Adonais, 49)

Shelley, by the way, was one of three major English Romantics who lived in Rome, alongside Lord Byron and John Keats; the latter even died right next to the Spanish Steps at the tender age of 25, in a small apartment that is now a museum to the Romantic Poets.  (Oscar Wilde called Keat's grave the holiest place in all of Rome).  To be a Romantic, remember, means literally to be like unto the Romans.  The Romantics were trying to revive the ancient passion of the Romans.

Which revival brings up another important lesson from Rome: there is life after death.  Rome may be soaked in the ruins of the fallen, but Rome is most certainly not dead!  The Italians are as lively and animated a people as their reputation gives them to be; the streets are as wild and chaotic as anything I've seen since Latin-America (Romans would be the original Latins, after all!); Pilgrims both sacral and secular throng its paths; as capital of modern Italy, it remains the living seat of a G-20 power; as home to the Vatican, it remains the living seat of humanity's largest religion.

Rise and Fall; Life among Ruins; Death and Resurrection; Rome is a city of wild contrasts, encapsulating the whole human drama and comedy at once.  Go thou to Rome.

*One more note: The Leaning Tower of Pisa is hilarious. It really is leaning!  Not that I didn't know that, but once I finally saw it in person, I just bust out laughing!  Every time I need to cheer myself up now, I just think of it leaning and laugh again.  Here's someone who tried to construct an architectural masterpiece and failed spectacularly, but that failure is now more famous than its success ever could've been!  The error transcends itself.  I'm sure there's a lesson for us in there somewhere, too.

 Go thou to Rome,—at once the Paradise,     The grave, the city, and the wilderness;     And where its wrecks like shattered mountains rise,     And flowering weeds, and fragrant copses dress     The bones of Desolation's nakedness     Pass, till the spirit of the spot shall lead     Thy footsteps to a slope of green access     Where, like an infant's smile, over the dead A light of laughing flowers along the grass is spread; - See more at: http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/16154#sthash.amTP8xaR.dpuf

 Go thou to Rome,—at once the Paradise,     The grave, the city, and the wilderness;     And where its wrecks like shattered mountains rise,     And flowering weeds, and fragrant copses dress     The bones of Desolation's nakedness     Pass, till the spirit of the spot shall lead     Thy footsteps to a slope of green access     Where, like an infant's smile, over the dead A light of laughing flowers along the grass is spread; - See more at: http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/16154#sthash.amTP8xaR.dpuf