A Weekend in Arezzo and Roma

Well, I’ve just finished two packed days of good, hard, honest fun and adventure (I’m writing this on Sunday evening). Friday evening a small group of us explored a bar that hosts jazz and blues on the weekends. My friend Jake is really into jazz and takes it pretty seriously, so it was good to be there with a group that felt like that. The night’s entertainment was a pianist and female vocalist, who had one of those perfect voices for jazz – slightly, come si dice, strained and smoky at the same time, in only the best of ways, like the kind I would hear a lot at home when I’d stay up listening to the crackled reception of a jazz station in Philly. The wine that Jake picked (a Sangiovese) went along with it perfectly. Unfortunately, we were seated next to an out of control woman who threw pieces of bread at her date and spilled glasses, etc., and then we were beset by some Classic Annoying Americans, who were from, of all places, Kansas. Seriously. Who pregames jazz night? “HEY! You’re much better than those ARIZONA bitches! You can come stay in our apartments anytime! Slurred blah-blah-blah.” Well, thank you. But jazz night was still great, and we’ll definitely be going back in the future.

Yesterday (Saturday), a small group of us (10 in all) took the train to Arezzo for the day, at the suggestion of Professor Skillen. My friend Abby spent a good portion of Friday looking up different places and events that were within the city’s limits, so we went with a pretty good idea of what we wanted to do. We ended up, for various reasons, not doing half of those things, but no one cared at all – the weather was absolutely perfect, and we were content to just walk around and bask in the Italian way of life. I had only known Arezzo beforehand as the birthplace of musical notation (courtesy of one Guido of Arezzo), but it turns out that there is so much more (for one, it was the home of Giorgio Vasari, the founder of "modern" art history). I felt like it was a perfect blend between Orvieto and Roma; slow, and with the small-town feel that comes with elements like the riposa (the break in the middle of the day that Italians take from around 1-4), but larger and more developed. Abby had discovered that Arezzo had a church, the Basilica di San Francesco di Arezzo that contained an apse full of Pierro della Francesca frescoes, a History of the True Cross cycle. These were created in celebration of a beautiful, enormous painted rood crucifix, made by the unknown Maestro di Arezzo. I was reminded instantly of the great Cimabue crucifix that was damaged by the 1966 flood in Firenze, or Giotto’s cross of similar ilk. The church itself was an incredibly old Romanesque basilica model; we just sat inside and looked about us for a while. Oh yeah, there was also a somewhat preserved saint on the right side of the nave.

We hit the Arezzo Duomo next. The Orvieto Duomo is, I feel, a healthy majestic balance of decoration inside and outside, which makes it seem very clean to me. Arezzo’s cathedral is plain on the outside, but very elaborately Baroque on the inside; while I didn’t like this effect as much, it was still awing to see.

Next to the Duomo is a park situated on top of the hill upon which Arezzo is built. We marked it in our minds, and then headed back down into the city to see what we could find and to assemble our lunches. For an hour and half we wandered around, ending up at an open market at which we bought bread, cheese, tomatoes, and cheap wine. I myself bought a cianghiale (wild boar) panino with pecorino, which was incredible, and a small jar of tartuffata, a truffle-based spread which I will save for the appropriate time; it is one of the best tastes in the world. We walked back up the hill and ate in the middle of the park, sharing food and wine and laughing and telling stories. It was completely idyllic, one of the best meals I’ve had so far. The rest of the time we spent walking around and window shopping. By the time we came back that evening, I was pretty tired and knew that we would have to get up early for a full day in Roma the next morning, so I went to bed early.

(I am now writing this Monday afternoon) Sunday, our trip to Roma was filled with church. And churches. We hopped a bus out of Termini and headed down to the center of all things Jesuit, the Coleggio Romano. We visited the Church of St. Ignatius, which had a frescoed ceiling (and fake dome) that, due to perspective, only “made sense” from one single point on the floor. That was pretty amazing, I wasn’t really a fan of the place because it was so Baroque – pastels everywhere (it’s like they forgot about half of the spectrum), colored marble and gilding dripping off of the walls, etc. We had time, though, to visit the Basilica di Sta. Maria sopra Minerva (called that because it was built over, “sopra,” the site of a former temple to Minerva), which is right next to the Pantheon. Most of present day Rome dates back to the Baroque period, but this is one of the only churches in the city that is truly medieval. To me, it felt like a breath of fresh air; the vaulted ceiling was lower lying and a deep, rich blue that seemed to make the space calm and sober, complemented by the (sparing) gold on the maroon and red painted ribs and the dark wood and stone. The small rose windows in the clerestory looked like geometric Tiffany glass, the whole area was very beautiful and very contemplative. Oh, and it had a Michelangelo.

From that church we went to the Jesuit church at St. Francis Xavier del Caravita to celebrate the mass…in English! There was a small congregation of English speaking believers who welcomed us in and prepared us for worship. Unlike most churches, and certainly most churches in Italy, the altar had been brought out into the middle of the congregation, which was seated in rings around it. A visiting bishop from America presided over the service. It amazed me, now that I’ve heard the mass in English, how much my own church back home has lifted from the Catholic liturgy. After a prayer or at some point the people would respond with a certain line, and I wondered for a minute why I already knew what to say – and then I realized it was because we say it at the same times back home! My favorite part of the liturgy at The City’s Gate church is when, right before we take communion, the congregation says “Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again.” This we actually sang on Sunday, but it gave me a sudden depth of understanding of how unified all Christians actually are. We’ve been talking a lot in class about ecumenism, and so it was comforting to have now both head/intellectual and experiential knowledge of what ecumenism feels like.

After the mass was finished, we enjoyed a reception time of apperitivi (prosecco and mimosas in church!), and then listened to one of the priests give a brief explanation of the church and its purpose. He told us that more and more churches are beginning to centralize the altar in the midst of the congregations since Vatican II, but that the practice actually has been for a very long time a monastic way of conducting services. It is done because it is by its very nature far more participatory than when the altar is removed from the people, tucked away in the apse. He answered a few more questions and then we took our leave. I hope to go back at some point, possibly for their Good Friday service.

We then split into small groups to go have lunch. The married couple here, Penn and Grace (whom we affectionately call “Mom and Dad”), and my friends Allyson and Jenn and I headed off to Piazza Navona to sit in a sun-drenched caffe and enjoy a lunch of (for me) tortellini in cream sauce with prosciutto and Pinot Grigio, while serenaded by a street musician. One of the most perfect lunches, only the day after another perfect lunch! It was great being back in Navona again; for some reason, it felt the most at that point like I had truly returned.

At three we gathered back at the Pantheon, from whence we set off to view the Palazzo Farnese (part of which was designed by Michelangelo) and then cross the Tevere (Tiber) into Trastevere. I loved this area, it was a cute, shady place of winding narrow streets and hole in the wall bars and creative graffiti, a bohemian hipster enclave. And smack in the middle of it is the first Sta. Maria church in Rome, which started out as a sort of sanctioned house church in the 200s. It was faced with gorgeous, ancient mosaics outside and inside, and displayed old grave coverings with names and early Christian symbols etched into them. We walked back across the river and to another Jesuit church, which contained both the body of St. Ignatius of Loyola and the hand of St. Francis Xavier. We were all pretty bushed at that point, so a group returned to Termini by bus; the rest of us, however, decided to quickly hoof it back, and so were rewarded with a quick detour to the Trevi fountain. From there it was a quick view from the Palazzo Quirinale of the sun setting behind St. Peter’s Basilica, and on to the train home.

That evening I had a really great, open, soul-baring conversation with some friends, discussing what about our faith is truly important, how we are tried, how are faith changes and we grow…I went to bed last night having absorbed so much, and having drained myself of so much. There is a peace here that is captured when that happens.

Happy birthday, Dan. I miss you, buddy.