Week 2: Orientations and Permessi
Week 2 is crammed with lots of start-up procedures and orientations. On the governmental end, despite having an Italian government issued visa for study here for the year, I (and all the other fellows) still have to complete applications for our permessi di soggiorno (permits of stay in Italy). We need to go to a local post office to pay for the permesso application, and the attendant health insurance that it requires. Lines and waits can be staggeringly long at the post office – the sculptor Terry Adkins and I walk down to the post office together, and are there at 8:15 AM – the 4th and 5th people in line waiting for the doors to open at 8:30 AM. By 8:37, when the doors open, the line is 15 customers long! We take our numbers (deli style), and get the first round paperwork done. We complete and file the remainder of the formal application on Tuesday afternoon, and file with a postal official (step 2). In the near future, we’ll also need to go down to the local police station and have our fingerprint taken as part (step 3) of the permesso process. After that, they’ll take months to process our completed applications, and we may not actually receive them (step 4) until it’s almost time for us to leave Italy.
My tessera
On the brighter side of the governmental paperchase, on Tuesday, we each receive our tessera – this is a pass for free admittance to all the national museums and archaeological sites. The Academy applied for them for us this past summer. It’s obviously a nice thing to have in your pocket when conducting research on multiple historic sites in Rome. I also get a kick out of the fact that they rivet your photo to the back side of the tessera, and emboss it with an official seal, just in case you had thoughts of giving it to a friend and changing the photo with some gluestick…
Forum tour - Basilica Maxentius
I and all the other fellows promptly use our new tessare on Tuesday, for admission to the Forum for a walking led by Corey Brennan and Scott Craver. Corey leads us up a narrow path off to the side of the Via Sacra (the sacred way) to the Basilica Maxentius – missed by many who visit the forum because it is slightly off the beaten path and not really visible. Corey tells us that during the 1960 Olympic summer games in Rome, the Greco-Roman wrestling was held here in 3 rings, each one beneath one of the 3 massive masonry barrel vaults of the Basilica Maxientius. It must have been quite a spectacle.
Forum - Doors of Temple of Romulus
Given my interest in construction durability, I’m interested to learn from Corey that not only are the bronze doors to the Temple of Romulus original (1700 years old!), they still have their original lock, and it still works! Remarkable.
Curia Iulia
Brick masonry walls of Curia Iulia
Scott describes the Curia Iulia and its function in Roman life – it is one of the more intact buildings in the Forum, though heavily restored in the early 1900’s. The brick walls and mosaic tile floor are predominantly intact, and original to the building (284 A.D.), although the roof structure is entirely a modern restoration.
Villa Aurelia
On Monday evening we attend an AAR welcome reception on the rooftop terrace of the Villa Aurelia. Fittingly, the reception is held on the exact 100th anniversary of the date that the villa was bequeathed to the American Academy. Villa Aurelia sits atop the Janiculum hill, on the highest point within the walls of the city of Rome, and the views across the city from the rooftop terrace are spectacular.
View from Villa Aurelia
View from Villa Aurelia
The Villa is a circa 1650 Renaissance Palazzo, although it was heavily damaged and heavily reconstructed after the 1849 defense of the city against the French. As a result, many of the interiors are extremely lavishly decorated and gilded 19th century interiors that you wouldn’t normally expect to find in a Renaissance palazzo.
This week we began our intensive 3 hour per day Italian language classes. Our teacher, Francesco, speaks only in Italian and only allows us to speak only in Italian. Speaking in English to a classmate incites finger wagging and a friendly but firm reprimand from Francesco of “in Italiano”.
We take an orientation tour of the library led by librarian Rebecka Lindau. Rebecka and her staff are very knowledgeable and helpful. To my delight, they have an entire shelf of Vitruvius, in numerous translations and editions from numerous centuries. I hadn’t anticipated that they would have many references on construction techniques and details from various periods, but to my surprise they have more than a few.
The highlight of this week for the entire academy are the series of 5 minute presentations by each of the 29 Fellows in the Arts and Humanities for this 2009-10 academic year, on what they will be doing as their project. The 29 presentations are spread over 2 nights. The presentations convey to me even more clearly the deep passion, across the board, of each of the Fellows for their project and their field. The 5 minute time limit is a recent tradition, as is strictly enforced by Academy director Carmela Franklin timing each of the presentations with a plastic kitchen timer. In recent years, Carmela has used a red bell pepper plastic kitchen timer, but this year she switched to a plastic cheeseburger timer, perhaps in a nod to American pop culture.
Friday is the first and only weekday that we didn’t have anything scheduled. I take advantage to begin scouting for candidate sites for my project. Ideally, I’d like to find buildings to study that are under restoration, for 2 reasons: 1), the scaffolding will allow me up-close access to parts of the building that are normally inaccessible, and 2) during restoration, certain details of construction that are normally concealed will be visible, as certain materials (e.g., interior finishes, roof tiles) are removed in some locations.
Consequently, I begin this project in what might seem like an odd way – on a “scaffold hunt”. I walk the streets of the historic center with map/guidebook of historic buildings in hand, from historic building to historic building, looking for scaffolding. This unorthodox methodology actually proves fruitful – I find several candidate study buildings.
Basilica of S. Andrea della Valle
As I approach the Basilica of S. Andrea della Valle (on Corso Vitorio), from a distance I notice that the exterior envelope looks in rough shape – plants the size of bushes and saplings grow from the clerestory, and on its massive dome (the second largest dome in Rome after St. Peter’s), the glaze/coating is flaking from the roof tile. It’s an enormous c. 1625 building designed by Carlo Moderna, with a later 1665 façade by Carlo Rainaldi. It’s also well known to opera fans as the setting of the first act of Puccini’s Tosca. Good fortune is with me – as I turn the corner to the main façade, workers are just beginning to install scaffolding on the exterior today.
Museo di Roma, in Palazzo Braschi
The Museo di Roma, in Palazzo Braschi, appears to be undergoing a major gut-rehabilitation of a large portion of the building. Although “gut-rehabs” aren’t exactly historically sensitive, the extent of removal of interior finishes may allow full views of structure, structural connections, floor system, and masonry details that are normally concealed. It’s a neo-renaissance building, designed by Cosimo Morelli, with the construction begun in 1790, and completed in the very early 1800’s.
In the early evening I come upon the Palazzo Borghese, a 16th to 17th century building (it was enlarged several times, by different architects). It is completely scaffolded on the exterior. As the scaffolding is well shrouded with debris netting, and the workers have already stopped for the day, I’m unable to get a sense of the exact nature of the work, although it appears extensive.
Some other buildings with scaffolding appear less promising as study buildings. San Luigi dei Francesi (an early 16th c. structure) is 3/4 of the way through a year-long façade cleaning and stone consolidation project, slated for completion by December 2009. As the nature of the work doesn’t tend to expose any normally concealed details, this has less promise as a candidate study building.
Portico of the Pantheon
Certain buildings that don’t have scaffolding still may be excellent candidates for my study. The Pantheon (124 A.D.), and Curia Iula (284 A.D.) are so remarkably intact for their age, that their construction must have something to teach us regarding durability. The exposed roof structure of both the portico (timber) and dome (unreinforced concrete) of the Pantheon also contribute to its promise as a good study building. Similarly, the load-bearing brick masonry walls of Curia Iula are entirely exposed – inside and out.
Other non-intact, non-scaffolded buildings or ruins also may be fruitful to study because there is at least enough of the structure intact to study, and the predominant absence of interior or exterior finishes make clearly visible for study the surviving construction details and masonry coursing. The Basilica of Maxentius in the Forum, and the Baths of Caracalla appear to fall into this latter category.
On Monday, I will go to see Ann and Giulia in the AAR programs office to solicit their expert help in obtaining permessi (permissions) for hands-on access to my first round of candidate study buildings. These days, it’s still all about permessi, permessi…
mbronski
