{"id":905,"date":"2008-11-29T05:31:57","date_gmt":"2008-11-29T05:31:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/viamedia\/2008\/11\/my-rome-troubles.html"},"modified":"2008-11-29T05:31:57","modified_gmt":"2008-11-29T05:31:57","slug":"my-rome-troubles","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2008\/11\/my-rome-troubles.html","title":{"rendered":"My Rome Troubles"},"content":{"rendered":"

<![endif]–><\/p>\n

My trouble in Rome is that I am always finding things by accident but never, ever finding what I want to, when I\u2019m actually looking for it.<\/p>\n

Things I have found by accident:<\/p>\n

(And when I say this, I mean, these are things I thought I\u2019d look for later or had sort of intended to search out, but wasn\u2019t looking for at that moment):<\/p>\n

Ara Pacis <\/a>\u2013 this museum housing an enormous \u2013 and I mean enormous \u2013 sacrificial altar was something about which I was curious and open to. It\u2019s quite controversial in some circles, and in fact the current mayor of Rome, I think, has threatened to tear it down \u2013 it\u2019s quite modern.<\/p>\n

Well, I saw it, and it\u2019s interesting. And it\u2019s a big glass building, through which you can see the altar from the road without paying a dime. Well, I\u2019m sure that seeing it up close and getting a good sense of its size and understanding the context would be worth the cost. But when you\u2019ve only got a few days and it\u2019s sort of out of the way, and you turn on a road you\u2019re wandering, and there it is, you say, \u201cOh. There it is. Awesome. I saw it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Via Cisterna \u2013 the great historical significance of this street in Trastevere is that my dad and Hilary stayed there on their visit to Rome 3 years ago. He\u2019d told me if I had time to check it out. On my way to Vespers at S. Maria di Testavere, once again, I turned a corner, and there it was.<\/p>\n

Same with the churches on the Quirinale. They were on the list, but not at that moment, and there they were. Closed, but there nonetheless.<\/p>\n

Things I cannot or had a very hard time finding:<\/p>\n

The Galleria Spada.<\/a><\/p>\n

My map told me it was in one place. Right across from the FSSP church<\/a>. I walked. I couldn\u2019t find it. I mean, there was a Palazzo Spada, but it was a government office, there were government type people standing in front of it, but I could see no gallery. <\/span>I walked around the block, within sight of Campo de Fiori, back to the FSSP church. <\/span>Okay, it must be here. Back in front of the Palazzo Spada. I turned a corner and saw a sign explaining what the Galleria was and with an arrow pointing to the entrance, which looked like it was on the other side of the building. I went there. No entrance. Back up to the FSSP church. Ask some guy leaning on a car. \u201cGalleria Spada?\u201d He had no idea what I was talking about. <\/span>One. More. Time. Back to the front of the Palazzo Spada. Government people still standing around smoking, probably wondering what it God\u2019s name I was doing. <\/span>Finally \u2013 finally <\/em>I slowed down when I walked by the government people, turned back a little, and Saw A Sign, posted sideways, away from the direction I\u2019d been walking. \u201cGalleria Spada.\u201d Arrow.<\/p>\n

But it was still not clear to me where it was. One of the government fellows saw me studying the sign and looking stup \u2013 er, puzzled, and pointed me in the right direction. It is through the courtyard, hanging a left, then in the back of the building (but not on the street), behind a rather nondescript door. A cat (of course) was guarding the door (a cat was actually in the bookstore of the Baths of Diocletian bookstore when I was there), a woman was at the ticket register chatting with three young girls, pretty much oblivious to me, but gratefully, not openly annoyed that I wanted to buy a ticket.<\/p>\n

Oh, as long as I\u2019m on it, might as well finish. The Galleria Spada, in the Palazzo Spada (I think we all know that by now), which was the home of the Spada family, most notably for our purposes, a cardinal (of course), a great collector of art. <\/span>As well as his great-grandson, also a Cardinal. Well, this is <\/em>Rome.<\/p>\n

The Galleria is composed of four rooms, each with art arranged in that old-fashioned gallery way, with paintings lined up three or four levels high on each wall, making it rather difficult to see the top row at times. <\/span>It\u2019s pretty delightful to wander the salons of the Cardinal, looking at what is, to a great extent, his collection. <\/span>Two borderline bored hipster art guys were sitting in the first room to take my ticket and point me to the photocopied guides for each room. <\/span>There were some intriguing pieces, none of which were reproduced in postcard form, unfortunately. There was a David with Goliath\u2019s head, and Goliath\u2019s head is simply enormous. <\/em>One big giant. <\/span>17th<\/sup> century globes. <\/span>An antique Roman statue of a boy in a cloak, laughing. A couple of Roman sleeping babies. <\/span>A fascinating Massacre of the Innocents.<\/p>\n

Other things I couldn\u2019t find? Sad to say, almost every little shop or restaurant people recommend to me. I\u2019ve batted .000 so far. Can\u2019t find a one. Thanks, but sorry, folks.<\/p>\n

But I do discover some other interesting things in the process.<\/p>\n

(Oh, and please don\u2019t say, Oh, but that\u2019s half the fun! Wandering the charming winding Roman cobblestoned streets! Seeing the unexpected! <\/em>Okay. Whatever. <\/span>But that\u2019s really only true the first couple of times it happens. The next few times, you really just want to find what the heck you\u2019re looking for because it might be closing soon or you just didn\u2019t want to spend an hour of the 90 minutes of the time you allotted to this place LOOKING FOR IT.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

<![endif]–> My trouble in Rome is that I am always finding things by accident but never, ever finding what I want to, when I\u2019m actually looking for it. 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The Catholicism comes from her side. Amy grew up in a number of places - Indiana - Washington, DC - Lubbock Texas - Arlington, Virginia - DeKalb, Illinois - Lawrence, Kansas - and Knoxville, Tennessee, where the family settled in 1973. She attended Knoxville Catholic High School, then the University of Tennessee where she majored in history. She received an MA in Church History from Vanderbilt University, where she wrote a thesis on the changing role of women in 19th century American Protestantism, and the ways Scripture was used to justify those changes. She worked as as a teacher in Catholic high schools and a Parish Director of Religious Education and started writing for the diocesan press - the Florida Catholic - in 1988. Amy has written columns for Our Sunday Visitor and Catholic News Service at times over the past twenty years. Her articles have been published in venues ranging from Our Sunday Visitor to the New York Times to Commonweal. She has written 17 books. 18, if you included the as yet tragically unpublished novel. Amy has five children, ranging in age from 26 to 4 and was married to Michael Dubruiel, who died unexpectedly in February 2009. She lives in Birmingham, Alabama.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/author\/awelborn"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/905","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/180"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=905"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/905\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=905"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=905"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=905"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}