Why, Hound, Why?

How did I wind up in Italy in the first place this month? With outrageous airfares and the lousy euro-dollar exchange rate? Did I win the lottery? Well, kind of. My very generous brother and his wife offered to send me to the Playwrights Retreat at LaMama Umbria in Spoleto. It’s ten days of workshops and writing time with a master playwright- this year’s was Naomi Iisuka, whose “36 Views” I like a lot. She also runs the master’s program at U.C. San Diego. Good group of writers at various levels of experience. Gorgeous setting. Wonderful people run it: David Diamond (who I replaced in a job at USITT many years ago) and Mia Yoo. Fantastic food. Great vibe about the whole place. Can’t say enough good things about it. I got unstuck from a play that hadn’t been going well since last fall, and finished the first draft of the second act.
These photos are the courtyard, where we ate lunch and dinner; the field, which has a platform stage where you can make out the rigging; the olive trees are basically the front yard; and the path up to the field where the laundry hangs.

Villa Medici

Remember Galileo? That innovative thinker who the Vatican got around to pardoning about a decade ago? This building, that now houses the French Academy, was once the Villa Medici, and this is where the pope kept Galileo in prison. It is on the edge of the Borghese Gardens, near the Spanish Steps. Here are two views of the villa, and a view from its front.

Basilica of Santa Maria sopra Minerva

This is the Santa Maria sopra Minerva in Rome, not the Santa Maria sopra Minerva in Asissi. Though it seems to me like some was going around building churches on top of Temples to Minerva. In front of the basilica, which is about twenty steps away from the Parthenon, is a beautiful Bernini sculpture of an elephant with an obelisk on his back. Inside the church are some of the remains of St. Catherine of Siena. If you’ve ever been to Siena, you’ll remember her head in a reliquary in the duomo. Recently I’ve learned that some hagiographers now think St. Catherine was definitely anorexic, and possibly crazy. Still, she convinced the pope to end the Babylonia Captivity and surely your average woman in that time couldn’t have done that.

Palazzo Barbarini

Finding the entrance to this museum is not easy. Its street address is on Barbarini, but there’s no ingress there- the entrance is a block and a half away. It was built by a cardinal who became Pope Urban VII. It is part of the National Gallery. It includes paintings from the 12th to 18th centuries. There is Caravaggio’s Judith holding Holofernes’ head; a copy of Holbein’s Thomas More, and one of Holbein’s Henry VIII. The museum is undergoing renovation so only one floor is open. The lion below greets you just as you get to the gift shop.

Houses

I saw several famous houses in Rome. The first photo is the view out the window of the Keats-Shelley house, from the room where Keats died from tuberculosis. It’s a quaint little museum. They have Penguin editions of Keats, Shelley, Byron and Mary Shelley, which you can sit and read as you soak up the atmosphere of the place.

The exterior house photo is of a building just off the Piazza Venezia. Michelangelo lived and died in this house. You can also see the back of my friend Daniela’s head.

Santa Maria Maggiore

Santa Maria Maggiore is one of Rome’s basilicas. I still haven’t exactly figured out the difference between a basilica and a duomo (cathedral). The Archdiocese of New York has a cathedral (St. Patrick’s), while the Diocese of Brooklyn has a basilica (big hulking building in Sunset Park). Santa Maria Maggiore is built on the spot where the Blessed Virgin caused snow to fall in Rome; they re-enact this each year by scattering white flower petals. It is also the church where Palestrina was Kapellmeister (not sure what it is in Italian, so German will have to do).

There is also a statue of the Virgin doing what Tom calls "the big arms thing." You rarely see this in art; usually, only Jesus does "the big arms thing." In its treasury, there is a lovely presipio (crèche scene) carved out of stone.

Santa Bibiana

Careful readers of the New Yorker some months ago would have noticed a reference to Santa Bibiana, who is known as the patron saint of hangovers. Anyone who remembers what a hangover feels like has no reason to doubt the condition needs a patron. An “insider guide” to Rome on the web assured me that St. Bibiana’s Church at 154 Via Giovanni Giolitti was open every day all day. Tom and I had walked past it often on our last trip to Rome and never remembered seeing it open. Both the façade and a statue of the saint over the high altar were made by a 27 year old Gian Lorenzo Bernini.

I did find a reliquary which held (well, held once; I can’t tell now) Santa Bibiana’s relics in the treasury under Santa Maria Maggiore.