Another Italian Man--Fabio

For whatever reason this blog is Being translated from Italian to English back to English so there are inevitably Some pretty glaring grammar mistakes That I Have Noticed - my apologies . I Thought Were intelligent computers ... Please excuse the typos .

A lesser known from Bernini's San Andrea delle Frate ( ps I've Decided I like the European pronounciation of my first name Better Than The Americanized . Please Refer to me as Undrew / AndreasFrom Now On ...

<>

Baroque Wall Fountain, Anon . Villa Sciarra . Our muse for the first afternoon of classes.

Professor Clarvoe reading to us from Hawthorne 's The Marble Faun in the Villa Sciarra .

The Fontatoni and Fiat in situ atop the Janiculum .

The Spanish Steps.

In view of the Vatican

Sculpture in the Piazza del Popolo

Michelangelo 's Pieta . He Was 23 When He Was commissioned for this piece.

You might ask yourself what Fabio, GHB (the date rape drug) Strawberrymisu, the Vatican, coffee, blisters and art supplies have to do with one another--at least I'd hope you would be asking yourself by now.

The past few days have exacted a heavy toll on my fragile body. I can't fathom how many miles I have walked up and down the Tiber. My back is sore, I have blisters on my feet, and a laundry bag full of sweaty clothes. It is quite here during the day but around 16:00 or 17:00 it cools down enough to an almost bearable temperature.

To escape from the heat I am now relaxing in a neighborhood pizzeria in Trastevere--the same one in fact where I enjoyed my first gelato the other day--a tasty, yet unique hybrid of strawberry and tiramisu. There was a bit of a communication breach between myself and the waitress.

Later that night we went to celebrate our housemate's, William Heus, birthday in Trastevere. There, at an overwhelmingly Italian discotech I befriended two British girls from Nottingham. It came as a shock to learn they considered I had a STRONG accent and that they think Americans' lives are like "one big epsiode of Friends." One of them, a Salvadorian had a drug slipped in her drink and became quite ill. An ambulance was called for an emergency trip to the oespedale for treatment, and because they were by themselves I was offered a ride by two Italians, Fabio and Salvatore to the hospital to help.

We stayd together in the hospital from 3-11 AM where I witnessed firsthand some of the difficulties of a socialized health care system (Pat Ann, I know there are positives, too) particularly at a hospital with an insufficient number of doctors and an entire medical staff who took breaks for cigarettes every 30 minutes. Anyways, the Brits were treated and released and upon my return to my residence in Trastevere I slept soundly for 7 hours without regard to the cacophony of traffic below my window.

Our first day of classes was today and although the first day is generally considered Syllabus Day both classes ran for over two hours and each included a field trip. Professor Clarvoe's course, Poetry and the Visual Arts, met and we ventured up to Janiculum to the Villa Sciarra where we encountered a Baroque Wall Fountain (pictured above) a muse for Richard Wilbur's poem of the same name. Professor read to us a lengthy passage from Hawthorne's The Marble Faun concerning the Trevi Fountain and she instructed us to write about how we felt. Clarvoe's course, highly celebrated in the Kenyon community will focus on the ecphratic nature of poets and painters/sculptors who have withstood the test of time. There is a baton of high classical information and responses passed on from Princes of Art stretching from Ovid to Shakespeare to Keats, etc. perhaps resulting in one of the greatest ironies of modern art--that Keats, the poet famous for his "Ode to a Grecian Urn", is buried under a grave (itself a sculpture of sorts) which reads "Here lies One whose name was writ on Water" an allusion to Shakespeare's Sonnet 55; "Not marble, nor the gilded monuments/ Of Princes, shall outlive this powerful rhyme/". Speaking of Keats, I visited the Spanish Steps before class this morning and on my way to school I stopped at the San Andrea delle Fratte where there are two lesser known Bernini's.

Later in the day I decided to attend Professor Anaganos' class, Intro to Drawing. I would never have considered taking a studio art course but I was encouraged by Professor who insisted sketching is a teachable skill (I will let you know if it is learnable, too.) To intorudce us to drawing materials Professor Anaganos took our class of 6 to three art supply stores in Rome and treated us to coffee at Sant Eustachio, considered the best coffee in town. At our last art supply store I recocgnized a familiar Italian behind the register.

"Fabio?"

"Andrea?! Mi amigo! Como estai?"

Fabio had been a true altruist on Saturday, offering a ride to the hospital and even staying for a few hours to act as my translator. His family owns a prominent art supply store by Piazza del Popolo and both of us were astonished by the coincidence. He gave my class a 20% discount on all of our purchases and I left with a kiss on the cheek and my first Roman friend.

The proximity of Fabio's art supply store to the Popolo was too tempting to turn down and the opportunity to stray from a few heinous Kenyon girls proved to be too much. I went to visit S. Maria de Miraculi and Santa Maria del Popolo. I immediately recognized a few works of Caravaggio's from my High and Late Renaissance course from freshman year and was so inspired that I decided to trek the 25 minutes to the Vatican City. I was overwhelmed by the magnificence of the Basilica and its' impossibly gilded barrel vaults and its elaborate decorations. It is the most powerfully charged building I have ever been in because of its significance to the art world. I was there for closing at 18:30 (a good time to go, I might add) and almost had the Basilica to myself, the only place besides St. Peter's Square that I was able to spend any real time but on imminent ventures I will be surely able to express my pontifical experience better. 

My suggestion to those who are coming to visit (can't wait to see you, by the way)---get in shape for a lot of walking; read up on some art history; and watch your drink at all times so you ensure a GHB free night.

Much love to all.