Rome, Italy Trip
September 22 & 23, 2011
The
Papal Basilica of Saint Peter (
Latin:
Basilica Sancti Petri), officially known in Italian as
Basilica Papale di San Pietro in Vaticano and commonly known as
Saint Peter's Basilica, is a
Late Renaissance church located within the
Vatican City. Saint Peter's Basilica has the largest interior of any Christian church in the world.
[1] While it is neither the official
mother church of the
Roman Catholic Church nor the
cathedral of the
Pope as
Bishop of Rome, Saint Peter's is regarded as one of the holiest Catholic sites. It has been described as "holding a unique position in the Christian world"
[2] and as "the greatest of all churches of
Christendom".
[3]
The
Colosseum, or the
Coliseum, originally the
Flavian Amphitheatre (
Latin:
Amphitheatrum Flavium, Italian
Anfiteatro Flavio or
Colosseo), is an elliptical
amphitheatre in the centre of the city of
Rome,
Italy, the largest ever built in the
Roman Empire. It is considered one of the greatest works of
Roman architecture and
Roman engineering.
The
Vatican Museums (
Italian:
Musei Vaticani), in Viale Vaticano in
Rome, inside the
Vatican City, are among the greatest museums in the world, since they display works from the immense collection built up by the
Roman Catholic Church throughout the centuries, including some of the most renowned classical sculptures and most important masterpieces of
Renaissance art in the world.
Pope Julius II founded the museums in the early 16th century. The
Sistine Chapel and the
Stanze della Segnatura decorated by
Raphael are on the visitor route through the Vatican Museums. They were visited by 4,310,083 people in the year 2007.
[1] The Vatican Museums broke attendance records in 2011 with just over 5 million people.
Piazza del Popolo is a large urban square in
Rome. The name in modern
Italian literally means "People's Square", but historically it derives from the
poplars (
populus in
Latin,
pioppo in Italian) after which the church of
Santa Maria del Popolo, in the northeast corner of the piazza, takes its name.
The piazza lies inside the northern gate in the
Aurelian Walls, once the Porta Flaminia of
ancient Rome, and now called the
Porta del Popolo. This was the starting point of the
Via Flaminia, the road to
Ariminum (modern day
Rimini) and the most important route to the north. At the same time, before the age of railroads, it was the traveller's first view of Rome upon arrival. For centuries, the Piazza del Popolo was a place for public
executions, the last of which took place in 1826.
The
Trevi Fountain is a
fountain in the
Trevi district in
Rome,
Italy. Standing 26 metres (85.3 feet) high and 20 metres (65.6 feet) wide,
[1] it is the largest
Baroque fountain in the city and one of the most famous fountains in the world.
Fontana della Barcaccia (English: Fountain of the Old Boat) is a
Baroque fresh-water fountain in the
Piazza di Spagna in Rome, Italy, just below the
Spanish Steps. It is so named because it is in the shape of a half-sunken ship with water overflowing its bows. The fountain was commissioned by
Pope Urban VIII and was completed in 1627 by
Pietro Bernini and his son
Gian Lorenzo Bernini.
The shape was chosen because, prior to the river walls being built, the
Tiber often flooded and in
1598 there was a particularly bad flooding and the Piazza di Spagna was flooded up to a meter. Once the water withdrew, a boat was left behind in the square
[1].
The
Spanish Steps (
Italian:
Scalinata della Trinità dei Monti) are a set of steps in
Rome,
Italy, climbing a steep slope between the
Piazza di Spagna at the base and
Piazza Trinità dei Monti, dominated by the
Trinità dei Monti church at the top. The
Scalinata is the widest staircase in Europe.
[1]
The monumental
stairway of 138 steps was built with French diplomat Étienne Gueffier’s bequeathed funds of 20,000
scudi, in 1723–1725, linking the
Bourbon Spanish Embassy, and the Trinità dei Monti church that was under the patronage of the Bourbon kings of France, both located above — to the
Holy See in Palazzo Monaldeschi located below. The stairway was designed by architects
Francesco de Sanctis and
Alessandro Specchi.
The
Pantheon (
/ˈpænθiːən/ or
US /ˈpænθiːɒn/;
[1] Latin:
Pantheon,
[nb 1] from
Greek:
Πάνθεον, an adjective meaning "to every god") is a building in
Rome,
Italy, commissioned by
Marcus Agrippa as a
temple to all the gods of
Ancient Rome, and rebuilt by
Emperor Hadrian in about 126 AD.
[2]
The building is circular with a
portico of large granite
Corinthian columns (eight in the first rank and two groups of four behind) under a
pediment. A rectangular
vestibule links the porch to the
rotunda, which is under a
coffered,
concrete dome, with a central opening (
oculus) to the sky. Almost two thousand years after it was built, the Pantheon's dome is still the world's largest unreinforced concrete dome.
[3] The height to the
oculus and the diameter of the interior circle are the same, 43.3 metres (142 ft).
[4]
The
Monumento Nazionale a Vittorio Emanuele II (National Monument to Victor Emmanuel II) or
Altare della Patria (Altar of the Fatherland) or
"Il Vittoriano" is a monument built to honour
Victor Emmanuel, the first king of a unified Italy, located in
Rome,
Italy. It occupies a site between the
Piazza Venezia and the
Capitoline Hill. The monument was designed by
Giuseppe Sacconi in 1885; sculpture for it was parceled out to established sculptors all over Italy, such as
Leonardo Bistolfi and
Angelo Zanelli.
[1] It was inaugurated in 1911 and completed in 1935.
[2]
My travel buddies, Gina and Joseph, inside of Saint Peter's Basilica.
Travel buddies, with a Filipino priest, at Saint Peter's Square.
