Popes, Power and Parties

Saturday, October 10

After breakfast we took a cab to Piazza Farnese where we met our docent, Jose, who took us on a three-hour walking tour (which ended up being almost four hours) run by Context Tours.  The title of this walk is “Popes, Power, and Parties” and the description can be found here: https://contexttravel.com/city/rome/walking-tour-details/popes-power-and-parties . 

Marcia and Eric had taken Context Tours in other cities and had found them excellent.  Our guide was Cuban who had come to the USA with his family and who now lives and teaches art and architecture in Rome.  There were six of us on the walk.  The weather started out drizzly and dark and deteriorated into a flooding downpour; we were soaked by the end.

Here is the flower market in Piazza Farnese:

Rome in the 1502 was a warren of small streets, and was quite unsafe.  The first broad straight street in Rome was a major development, created by the architect Bramante, the same one who created St. Peter’s.  Here’s the Via Giulia today:

Standing in the drizzle, Jose gave us quite a lecture on the 12-sided figure formed by equilateral triangles which formed the basis for many arches in the architecture of the time:

He related this to the famous Vitruvian Man of Leonardo:

We then walked to the Ponte Sisto while hearing of the popes of the Italian Renaissance and their influence on the art and architecture of the city.  This bridge had tremendous importance, joining the city with the farmlands on the opposite side of the Tiber.  It was commissioned by Pope Sixtus IV in 1473, and was designed by an architect named Pontelli who also designed the Sistine Chapel and the Medici Library.

As the rain became a downpour, we arrived at the highlight of the tour, the Villa Farnesia, built in 1506 for the rich Sienese banker Agostino Chigi:

It was built in the style of a Medici villa, and contains wonderful ceiling frescos by Rafael telling the story of Cupid and Psyche:

Their wedding banquet:

The arches on the ceiling are painted—the walls are flat, and things look perfect from only one spot in the room:

Upstairs is the Perspectives Hall.  The wall continues the floor into the “outdoors”, all painted:

We then walked back to the Piazza Farnese in the pouring rain and, in a dry doorway, continued the final part of the lecture on the popes of the Italian Renaissance as we dripped.  A local restaurant was recommended and after the talk we had a wonderful lunch with a great bottle of Apulian wine.  It was very cozy, and we then took a cab back to the hotel and we all slept until dinner.  We’re close to being over the jet lag.