June 21

Alright, this week was a bit of a trip because we were all a little miserable from Mr. Screamy-Scream the night before. So, in other words, we were all a little bit out of it and we all were not in too great a headspace to actually know what was going on. But! That’s what notes and the like are for, right? So, this week was towards the end of the Renaissance, named (quite appropriately) the late Renaissance. Pretty easy to remember, right? We think that a lot of the important stuff came about in the high Renaissance but we got some good stuff later too.

Firstly is the Gesu, which is the mother church of the Jesuits. We’ve actually been here a few times before, but this time we managed to get a little more backstory on some of the stuff that’s there. Let’s take the tomb of Ignatius for example; he’s surrounded by these statues representing “Faith Lashing Heresy” and “Religion Trampling Paganism.” Faith Lashing Heresy is actually pretty amusing because all over there are these little cherub babies just gleefully ripping pages out of Martin Luther’s Ninety-Five Theses which detailed everything he didn’t agree with in the Catholic Church, thereby sparking the Protestant Reformation. So in a sense, the statue is less aimed at heresy and more aimed at the Protestant Reformation, sort of like a commentary on them.




Afterwards was this little church called Sto. Stefano Rotundo. The pictures in there were kind of a hot topic back in the day, though, due to their depictions: the martyrdoms of saints. So you have these crazy gruesome pictures of saints being killed right in the middle of a church. They were painted by  Nicolò Circignani and were a little touchy depending on who you asked about it. Amusingly enough, the church is a highly sought after wedding church these days.



Now, the really major place that we went, though, was the Galleria Borghese. The Galleria is home to so many famous works of art and is split up in a pretty interesting way; you start on the top where all the paintings primarily are, and then you make your way through the second floor and then go down to the first floor once you’re done with that. The first floor houses the statues and the like, most notably two of some of the most popular statues by Bernini. The villa itself was owned by the Borghese family who collected all this art; Pope Paul V was born Camillo Borghese and was a member of this family, with his nephew Scipione Borghese having been an artistic patron to Gian Lorenzo Bernini, hence how the gallery has so many pieces by him. However, this gallery is a little out of place in our tour of Rome – Bernini was a baroque artist (if it ain’t baroque, don’t fix it), which is the period after the Renaissance. Therefore, this gallery should have technically been for this coming week, but hey, sometimes things don’t really work out like you expected.

Now, the two big Bernini statues that are in the gallery are actually pagan in origin. The first people are able to see when walking in is the statue of Apollo and Daphne – more specifically, Daphne being turned into a tree by her father while Apollo reaches for her. Now, this story probably deserves a little more backstory: Apollo has just killed Python and was feeling full of himself when he insults Cupid, saying that perhaps he shouldn’t be using such a large bow. Cupid, enraged, then shoots a lead arrow of hatred at Daphne and a Golden arrow of love at Apollo. For the next while, Apollo chases Daphne ( wo wishes to remain a maiden) through the forest, until she begs her father to save her. So, he turns her into a laurel tree, which then becomes Apollo’s sacred tree.




The other major Bernini was depicting the rape of Proserpina. According to that story, Pluto wished for a wife, a companion in the underworld and kidnapped her. Proserpina’s mother, however, was Ceres, goddess of the harvest. Due to her sadness of losing her daughter, the world is plunged into winter. Pluto agrees to send her back, however, Proserpina has eaten pomegranate seeds which banned her to the underworld for a certain amount of time: 3 months. So the seasons come from Ceres’ emotions of losing then regaining her daughter. This statue is crafted absolutely beautifully to show just how distressed Proserpina is, though – there’s anguish on her face that is so hard to gain. And you can see Pluto’s finger’s digging into her flesh as she tries to escape. This and Apollo and Daphne are beautiful images of pagan iconography.





-Savannah Kelly

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