On to Rome!
The last stop on our brief tour of Italy was Rome.
Kicking Rome off is a photograph of the Spanish Steps. To be perfectly honest, I had never heard of the Spanish Steps before going to Rome. Now I hear reference made to them and see pictures of the Spanish Steps all the time. In fact, an old picture of them greeted us on the wall of our apartment in Copenhagen this past summer.
This picture is a rather unusual one however. Look closely at the Holy Trinity on Pincio Hill behind the steps. You’ll find that isn’t really the Holy Trinity on Pincio Hill, but a covering over the church to make it look like work wasn’t being done. Restoration work seemed to be going on everywhere while we were in Rome, making photography more than a bit tricky.
After seeing St. Peter’s and the Vatican (photos coming in the next few blog entries) we took a walk that unintentionally led us to the Campo de’ Fiori square. Standing in the center was a statue of Giordano Bruno, someone I had previously read about and was happy to stand before. I found it rather ironic that he stands just down the street from St. Peter’s and the Vatican. Of course, that is where he was burned to death by the Catholic Church so it makes sense that his statue is there.
Anyone found guilty of blasphemy, heresy in matters of dogmatic theology, holding opinions contrary to the Catholic Faith, claiming the existence of a plurality of worlds, and denying the virginity of Mary is alright by me. Although the church was opposed to the Bruno monument in the square down the street when it went up in the late 19th Century they finally admitted in the late 20th Century that they screwed up in killing Bruno hundreds of years before. Ya’ think?