 |
|
 |
 |
Bob, Reese, Jocelyn and I have returned from two weeks in Rome. It was the perfect time to be there, warm, everything in bloom, not yet crowded. Bob and I frequently traveled there when we were together, and this was our first trip back, indeed our first trip anywhere since our breakup in 2003. We all worked together as a team: I the documenter; Jocelyn the navigator; Bob the cook; and Reese… well, the teenager.
 |
 |
Much has changed since my last visit, including a major cleanup of all the monuments, a reorganization of the national museums, and some new museums for contemporary art, including Zaha Hadid’s MAXXI. The food was exactly the same, consistently amazing. Even a simple dish like rigatoni cacio e pepe brought tears to my eyes. Highlights were the sculptures of antiquity fabulously exhibited in a former power station, the Museo Centrale Montemartini; a day in the country of the Sabine women, eating lavishly of the bounty of the surrounding countryside—prosciutto and pecorino, artichoke fettuccine, cicoria, grilled bunny, house-made wine; the hilltop town of Montopoli; the 7th century Benedictine abbey of Farfa; gelato at Giolitti; Bernini and Borromini’s staircases and Pietro da Cortona’s ceiling fresco cycle at the Palazzo Barberini; carciofi alla giudia; fiori di zucca fritti; the Caravaggios all over town…
I revisited my old favorites: Bernini’s slyly subversive Apollo and Daphne at the Galleria Borghese, Daphne’s twig gently brushing between Apollo’s legs; Stefano Maderno’s tender and brutal Martyrdom of Saint Cecilia at Santa Cecilia in Trastevere; Bernini’s orgasmic Saint Teresa in Ecstasy at Santa Maria della Vittoria; Raphael’s brilliant frescoes in the Villa Farnesina and his proprietary la Fornarina at Palazzo Barberini; all of those humpy river gods and my guys Hadrian, Silenus and Hercules, all over town; the mosaics, 1st century BC frescoes from Livia’s Villa and the poignant hellenistic bronze Boxer of Quirinal at Palazzo Massimo alle Terme; the delighful turtle fountain in the Piazza Mattei…
It’s very hard to come back home to houses that are less than 500 years old and public sculpture that wasn’t created around Augustus’ time, but I’m settling back in. I’ve recreated most of the dishes I ate there, including the previously-mentioned rigatoni cacio e pepe, asparagus leek risotto, bucatini all’Amatriciana, artichoke fettucine, but I haven’t been able to find fresh squash blossoms in the corner store like I could in Rome.
 |
 |