Rome and the ancient sagacity
How do you feel entering nightime into the Colosseum and finding yourself in another world... outside the noise of cars still running on the streets, and inside an absolute silence and the darkest night. But sometimes the moon lights the ancient steps of the monument giving life to hundreds shadows of an exicited crowd... and the wind, passing through those arches, seems the people screaming for their heroes. The magic of Rome that you can find in a hundred other places, the magic to feel yourself a part (even if a little part) of his history , of something greater, of universal, of something of the past and of the future...
Rome and the ancient sagacityIn the Roman forum you can still see an ancient hole (the Lacus Curtius); the oracle said it was like a misfortune that would have fallen down on the city if it has not sacrificed the dearest thing of Rome; Mark Curzio, that everybody considered him the hero of Rome, thrown himself with his horse in the hole to permit the safe of the city.
Public bathrooms that you find all around in the center and that they are commonly called 'vespasiani' takes their name from those installed there from the emperor Vespasian. He fixed a tax for those people that used them and an infringement for those that instead didn't use them; to his son Titus, who was asking him for that unhappy way to gain money he answered shaking under his nose a sesterzio (the roman coin): "Smell! Do they smell bad?".
Rome and the hardness of the ancient peopleThe southern top of Capitol hill is the Tarpea Cliff from the name of the daughter of Spurious Tarpeo, defender of the hill during the war against Sabini in VII century b.C. She became guilty of betrayal and she was executed by to be thrown down from this cliff; since that moment every traitor suffered the same treatment in the same place.
Everybody knows that the crowd of Coliseum, during the gladiatorial ludii expressed the wish of decree the death or of make the grace to a loser fighter; in the first case the people turned the thumb downward shouting "Jugula"; in the second case (despite it's commonly thought that the thumb was turned aloft) it was the second finger to be lifted, or the people expressed shaking a piece of cloth and shouting "Mitte". Both the judgments however had subjected to the decision of the emperor or of the editor, the organizer of the plays.
In Saint Maria in Cosmedin church there's a big mask commonly known as the mouth of the truth, that in middle age it was used like an oracle that cut (better the executioner staying behind) the hand to the guilty that didn't tell the truth.
Rome and the roman spiritOn the floors of Basilica Julia there is still the holes of the Tavole Lusorie corresponding to the game of fillet. There jobless and other people spent many hours of fun in the city center.
The existing rivality between Bernini and Borromini made a legend about the statue of Rio of Plata in the fountain of the four rivers in Navona square; it was built by Bernini and it looks like for taking refuge from the overlooking facade of St. Agnese church (by Borromini's hand); so do the statue of the Nile that seems to cover his face to don't look at her ugliness. By the way Bernini wanted to manifest the fact (by this veil ) that at that time nobody knew the location of the sources of that river.
Like the episode of the fountain of the four rivers is the one about the elephant statue placed in Piazza della Minerva by Bernini; he was exasperated from many different variants to his project because of pope Sisto V, and when he accepted the final sketch of the elephant, a Dominican prelate from the convent just in front of the monument, expressed serious doubts on the stability of the work. Once again Bernini changed the plan changing the direction of the backside of the "animal" so to direct it towards the entry of the convent. The epigraph on the base said: "a strong mind to support a solid intelligence."
Many statues placed in several places have revealed themselves able to speak; it was due to messages placed on and written by unknown people during the centuries, and destined to powerful men of the government of Rome. The speaking statues are: the one of Pasquino, of Marforio in the courtyard of the Capitol museums, of Madam Lucrezia in the little square of St. MarK, of the Baboon, of the abbot Luis and of the "laborer". Among the most famous "pasquinate" (writings of Pasquino) were: "Things that barbarians didn't do, the Barberini did" ( Urbano VII Barberini stole the bronze of the portico of Pantheon to make the canopy of St.Peter), "Why are you so sad, Peter (St.Peter) ? Do you need a doctor? - Oh but the Medici are guilty of my illness ( in italian the surname Medici means doctors)" (Leo X Medici elected as pope), "Poor my Rome made of marble, they have dressed you with cardboard, to be looked from a painter" ( about the celebrations in 1938 for Hitler's visit). "Seventh: don't steal." (election of the cardinal Chiaromonti to be the Pope with the name of Pious the Seventh).
Some "particular" writings are on a fresco showing the legend of Sinsinnio in St. Clement basilica at Celio: "Son of bitches" and "Stick it in your ass" both in arcaic Italian.
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