The Ancient and The Modern

No, it's not the name of a soap opera, but the two places I visited in Rome last Saturday. The first is a place that I've passed by so many times and finally went in.

Piazza Repubblica, a great oval, is actually the former entrance to the Baths of Diocletian, built in 306. In art history we learned that these grand baths were built in the NE corner of the city to be closer to the military camps and thereby appease the soldiers who up until that point had to haul themselves a few kilometers to the Baths of Caracalla.

The Baths of Diocletian fell into disuse and sat empty for a few centuries until the 1500's when the remnants were used for religious purposes. Michelangelo took part in the designs and turned the large frigidarium into the transcept of the Chiesa Santa Maria dei Angeli. Talk about reuse of abandoned buildings!

One of the coolest things inside the transcept is this diagonal sundial, built along the meridian. Here at the spot closest to the wall, is where you see the sign of Cancer. The sun hits here around noon when it is highest in the sky, the longest days of the year.

Way on the far wall, the waterbearer, Aquarius.

So typically Roman/Italian. There is a modern road built through the ruins of the baths.

Up in the northern part of town, the newly opened Maxxi Museum of Contemporary Art. I've kind of become a fan of modern art for some reason. I take it at face value and sometimes it really does speak to me.

The Maxxi is built right into a Roman neighborhood and the juxtaposition of the buildings is fascinating.

Is it a bird? Spiderman with a beak?

The artist spent a great deal of time rolling newspaper into a cord of rope.

I thought it was an homage to tobacco, but it was supposed to be bark. Art is about interpretation, yeah?

I have to give credit to architect Zaha Hadid for I was never able to place where I was in the museum. I have a great sense of space and direction but I kept getting turned around and finding new unexplored galleries. That is a fun feeling to have, which I rarely get to experience.

This piece is the "wailing wall" of all those people have had to pack up and leave their homes.

My absolute favorite piece in the Maxxi was this modern "Trajan's Column." The real column has a frieze which tells the story of Trajan's victories over the people of the East. This set of televisions is pictures of those defeated but unable to tell their story.