Another in my Portraits of Ordinary Objects series.
Payphone, Florence
I’ve been working on this series for a while now, photographing common things we see every day and take for granted. I keep on doing this around the world, photographing pay phones, mail boxes, trash cans, fire hydrants, all the little things that populate the overlooked corners of our daily lives. The interesting thing about them is that despite cultural differences (mailboxes in France are yellow, in the US they’re red and blue) they’re pretty much instantly recognizable across all cultures. You don’t have to be a Spaniard to recognize a Spanish mail box, pay phone, or trash receptacle.
It’s so easy to be overwhelmed by St. Peter’s – the space is so vast, even when full of tourists it doesn’t shrink down.
The baldacchino over the high altar at St. Peter’s is one of the more recognizable objects. Cast from bronze allegedly taken from the roof of the Pantheon, it was designed by Bernini (remember the staircase from earlier?) and marks not only the center of the crossing under the dome, but the grave of St. Peter. While one of its alleged functions is to provide a bit of human scale to the vast space of the basilica, it is so massive that it only compresses the space if there are no people around to provide comparison.
Baldacchino
This view into the transept from the crossing with the people in the foreground I think really helps give you a sense of scale for the place.
Crossing the Nave, St. Peter’s
This is a view of the entrance with its two clocks, as seen from the mid-nave.
St. Peter’s Entrance, Clocks
On a separate but related note, it’s interesting how we refer to Rome and the Vatican interchangeably when we speak of the seat of the Catholic Church, when in fact they are two distinct entities. This was not always true, of course- especially during the Renaissance through the early 19th century, it was literal truth to say that Rome was the papal seat. Now, of course, the Vatican is in fact not only a separate city within the city of Rome, but in fact a separate nation, complete with its own passports. The Vatican is in fact the world’s smallest country.
This is where I went to catch a bus to go to the Vatican Museum on my first day in Rome. It’s a vintage bus shelter, hard to date, but I’d guess post-war, maybe as late as 1950s. What you can’t see in the picture is that in the middle of the structure is a news-stand. Today it’s not so bad, but I wouldn’t want to have had to work there even as recently as the 1980s when diesel exhaust was much heavier than it is now.
Vintage Bus Shelter, Rome
That’s actually a sense-memory I kind of miss – you knew you were in Europe when you smelled the diesel exhaust everywhere. That and certain kinds of tobacco. It’s still a noxious odor, but the emotional context of it is so positive. I suppose geologists feel that way when they smell sulphur or biologists with methane.
While exploring St. Peter’s basilica, I saw this amazing light falling on the confessional booths, which were in themselves magnificent pieces of furniture. Something about them feels a little ominous, though, don’t you think? Or perhaps a touch funerary.
Confessionals, St. Peters
Even though I’m not myself Catholic, I don’t know that I’d want to give confession in that confessional booth- it would feel a little bit too direct.
There’s something about fish in the market that makes them look especially good in black and white, don’t you think? It’s funny that most of the fish we eat are shades of black and silver and white – there are really only a couple fish that are colorful that we eat (red snapper, bluefish, Yellow Mackerel), the rest are enjoyed as visual treats when snorkeling, diving or in an aquarium.
Fish, Mercato CentraleFish, Mercato CentraleFish, Mercato CentraleFishmonger, Mercato Centrale
I found this composition while walking the ramparts and courtyards of the Castel Sant’Angelo, which is a very easy place to get lost in if you’re not paying attention. There are so many levels and layers, both physically and historically. The building was built originally as the funerary monument for the Roman emperor Hadrian. Later it was converted into a fortress for the protection and safety of the Pope. A residential suite complete with reception rooms and treasury (three massive barred iron chests with multiple locks, each of which only one person had the key to, so it would require all the key holders to open each chest) and balconies with sweeping panoramic views of the city were put on the upper tier, and the burial chamber of the emperor Hadrian was converted into a dungeon where prisoners could be thrown to wither and die in darkness and misery.
I had mentioned in an earlier post about Michelangelo and the “Unfinished” sculptures. Here are some of the pieces in the Accademia’s main hall.
Unfinished Sculpture
If you look carefully at them, it’s hard to truly call them unfinished – there is a certain deliberateness about what is carved finely and what is left rough.
Unfinished Sculpture
The coarse textures blend very naturally with the revealed forms. To my eyes, and from my (granted rather limited) experience of stone carving, this kind of texture and modeling is something done very intentionally.
Unfinished Sculpture
While there are certainly areas that are unrefined, the transitions are fascinating and at the very least provide an insight into the working technique of a genius master sculptor, and given how far ahead he was in so many other aspects of his art, it is entirely possible for him to have been five centuries ahead of his time in his thinking, much the way Caravaggio’s paintings were.
Unfinished Sculpture
And I couldn’t let the opportunity pass without remarking on something that virtually everyone who’s ever looked at a Michelangelo painting or sculpture of a woman has noticed- his women are really just men with boobs and long hair. The hand of Mary that’s supporting a very robust looking Jesus in this “unfinished” Pieta is one of the manliest hands I’ve ever seen on a woman.
As promised in the previous post of the ceiling of the Sagrestia Nuova (also a Michelangelo design), here are the Michelangelo sculptures decorating the tombs of Lorenzo di Piero de Medici and Giuliano di Lorenzo de Medici. The great irony of this is that the greatest tombs in the Medici crypt go to the lesser members of the family – all the famous Medicis (Lorenzo Il Magnifico, Cosimo I, Guiliano, etc) are buried in the awe-inspiring-but-somber-and-over-the-top Medici Chapel, a giant domed octagonal chamber lined with dark marble mosaics and sarcophagi, or in the crypt below it.
Lorenzo di Piero de Medici, with Dusk and DawnGiuliano di Lorenzo with Day and NightDusk, Medici Tomb
The male figures of the tomb decorations both appear to be “unfinished”. While Michelangelo did leave Florence for Rome permanently before the sculptural figures were installed and all the tomb decorations complete, there is a debate in the art historical world about how “unfinished” they actually are, thus my use of quotation marks on the word unfinished. Michelangelo left behind enough sculptural works in rough form that some say he was really bad at completing projects, whereas others will argue that they are as finished as he intended them to be. Certainly his reputation as one of the greatest stone carvers ever to live has not been diminished by his “unfinished” pieces.
You can see more of his “unfinished” pieces at the Louvre in Paris and at the Accademia in Florence (the pieces at the Accademia are forthcoming in another blog post).
As part of my Michelangelo pilgrimage (the secondary pilgrimage, with the Caravaggio quest being the first one), I wanted to see the Medici chapel with the famous tomb sculptures by Michelangelo. Photos of those sculptures are forthcoming, but first I wanted to lead off with this architectural view of the ceiling.
Dome, Medici Chapel, San Lorenzo
I wasn’t even thinking about it when composing the shot, but in looking at it afterward, there are all these repetitions of threes in the scene – three windows in the lantern, three circles, the lantern and the windows together forming not only a trio of light sources but a visual triangle, and so on.
In 1625, then-Cardinal Barberini acquired a property from the Sforza family in Rome that had a vineyard and ‘palazzetto’. It was on this property he decided to build the Palazzo Barberini. He would go on to become Pope Urban VIII. He hired the famous architect Carlo Maderno to design and build his palace. Along with Maderno was his nephew, Francesco Borromini, who would go on to become one of the best known Baroque architects in Rome. He is largely responsible for the design of the facade, as well as the grand salon, and perhaps most famous of his creations at the palace, the oval staircase.
Borromini Staircase, Palazzo Barberini
Partway through construction, his uncle Carlo Maderno passed away. Completion of the project was then tasked to a new young upstart architect better known at the time as a sculptor, Gian Lorenzo Bernini. Bernini would design a second staircase for the palace, this time a square. The two, Borromini and Bernini would remain professional rivals until Borromini’s suicide in 1667.
Bernini Staircase, Palazzo Barberini
At the ground level, an arcade connects the two staircases. This shot was taken from the entrance to the Borromini staircase, looking down the arcade to the Bernini staircase entrance.
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