Mt. Bruce and Te Papa

When we arrived Mt. Bruce National Wildlife Centre in the morning, a light rain was falling. We pulled on some rain jackets and pressed on. Just out the back doors of the visitor's center is the enclosure for the Takahe. These colorful, turkey sized birds were long thought extinct until 1948. They look like corpulent relatives of New Zealands far more common Pukekos. Unfortunately, we could barely glimps him among the grass and bushes where he was hiding.
at the

We then turned into the dark kiwi house, for another look at the adept foragers, with a comical wobbling gait. Outside the Kiwi house, they also have tuatara. Throughout the park, the birds are kept in open air enclosures, set within the forest edge, so that wild birds, like the native pigeon mingle closely with the captive ones. Among the several bird species that they have here, one of my favorites was the kokako. This gray bird has blue wattles and a black eye mask, and a peculiar song.

We left Mount Bruce and headed south for Wellington, and the Te Papa Museum. Te Papa contains a wide variety of exhibits, but the main attractants for us where the natural history exhibits and Maori art and culture exhibits.

The Maori artwork and architecture is focused on elaborate carving. Their homes and meetinghouses are spectacular. They also make a wide variety of objects from the plentiful jade on the island. The natural history museum covers the animals that are part of New Zealand's ecology, both on land and in the sea. They even have a life size replicas of the extinct moa and a great blue whale's heart. Beyond this, the museum has a myriad of exhibits, from an earthquake house to an area on immigrants, and even a statue of bull made of corned beef tins.

Capitol Hill, Roman Style

It was late morning as we headed into the Roman Forum, this time, not merely to traverse it, but to explore its many ruins. In contrast to Trajan's market, which was still mostly empty when we left it, the forum was filling with clusters of tourists. Where we left off from the paved Roman roads, the earth was hard baked and dusty. We explored through the ruins, reading from our printed information about the ruins, listening to the snippets of information we caught from English speaking tour guides, whose colorful, antenna mounted scarves hung in the heat.

Despite being in the heart of such a phenomenal city, the forum fell into serious disuse and disrepair. Earth from Rome's surrounding seven hills filled in and debris covered much. It was not until the start of the 1800's that real excavation of the site began. Today, most of the buildings are merely bits and pieces still standing. Here several columns stand together, there a crumbling wall. But the forum is fascinating to me because of it's density. This was an urban landscape, a real city center. Full of temples, from that of Venus, to the Temple of Castor and Pollux the forum also housed arches commemorating various military victories, buildings used for various governmental purposes, the house of the Vestal Virgins, and the site where Caesar's ashes are believed to have been spread.

From the Forum, where Rome's Emperors ruled, we traveled to the Palatine Hill, where they lived. This place, whose name, if Wikipedia is to be believed is the origin of the very word palace, is a vast hilltop, covered with the scattered remains of gardens, multiple emperor's palaces, and perhaps a few temples. Also on the hill is the museum, housing finds from the surrounding palaces. Not only is the hill's history to be appreciated, but it's views. On one side, it overlooks the forum, on the other, Circus Maximus.

Foot weary and hot from our long day, we sought refuge in the cool darkness of San Francesco a Ripa. Our main reason for visiting was to see the Beata Ludovica Albertoni sculpture by Bernini. This heavily detailed sculpture was definitely worth our short visit.

The next morning, after two amazing weeks, we flew home.

Vatican Museum concluded

After shuffling out way out of the Sistine Chapel, we wandered another long hall back to the main body of the museum, this one filled with various religious architecture. Finally we found are way to the Pinacoteca, the Vatican art gallery. The rooms are ordered chronologically, and the works are almost strictly of a religious nature, whether they be grand paintings of biblical scenes or representations of  the various saints. The works range from the 12th to the 19th centuries and include several works by Raphael, the most impressive of which is The Transfiguration whose vivid colors shine in a dark room. Among the other authors to be found here are Giotto, Bellini, Caravaggio, Titian, Guido Reni, Bernini, and an unfinished St. Jerome by da Vinci.  Also of interest, though the name is less well known to me, is Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, by Peter Wenzel, which shows a rather whimsical scene with flora and fauna from the world over.

The Transfiguration

Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden

From the Pinacoteca, we wound our way through the Pio-Clemento museum. Roman statues peered down at us from crimson niches, as we shuffled past, circling the roman mosaics set in the floor, cordoned off by velvet ropes, and finally into the octagonal courtyard, filled with still more roman sculptures.

After the courtyard we moved into the Egyptian Museum. This museum contains a decent collection of hieroglyph marked stelae, Egyptian statues,  a few mummies, and some bronze votives. Of these, the statues and busts were the most impressive, several good quality pieces as well as a few very interesting pieces that show the Romanization of Egyptian gods, such as the toga adorned Anubis. Of particular interest to me where the final rooms of the exhibit which were not Egyptian, but which contain tablets written in cuneiform, the oldest of all writing forms , and also Assyrian artwork.

Finally, were were done with the museum, and ready to head to the Vatican itself. So we exited by the famous double helix staircase, whose two spirals once allowed guests to both enter and exit this way, but now it is used only as an exit.

Vatican: Il Museo

After returning to Rome for the final time on our trip, we knew we had to get up pretty early to beat the lines to the Vatican Museum. By the time we arrived, there was already a significant line, and it took us some time after the museum opened to reach the doors. In the mean time, we were glad to have a bottle of water, and no small degree of patience. The wait was formed of a thick line of people who wound their way along the sidewalk around the outside of the walled Vatican City. Passing along the lines were vendors selling scarves and water, and even a few beggars. One particularly shaky elderly woman was so bent with osteoporosis that she walked completely bent over, pitching forward on her cane with every unsteady step. Her condition was thrown into doubt however, when she happened to turn her ragged shawl covered head and reveal a surprisingly young and healthy face.

Once at the gate, we purchased our tickets. The Vatican only accepts cash, despite theme park priced admission costs. Through the gate, We began our journey to the primary site. Down a gilded and painted hallway, we worked our way, shoulder to shoulder with a throng of people. Here and there, telescoping antennas, without there cars or radios, extended into the air, bearing scarves of every possible pattern and color, marking the pirates of these human seas: tour guides. Shouting above the din of shuffling feet and rustling clothes, they tried, seemingly in vain, to point out details in the artwork hanging here and there on the wall along the way, their languages nearly as varied as their scarves.

This hallway, filled to the absolute brim with people from the world over, was the Gallery of Maps. Every square inch of its surface decorated. All along its length were hung, not surprisingly, maps. Finally were poured out into the Raphael rooms. Here, you will find that many do not pause. Raphael seems like nothing, when there is Michaelangelo's Sistine Chapel just ahead. But do not let your anxious interest hurry you here. There are four rooms painted by the artist and his school.

The first of these is the Room of Constantine, named for the first Christian Roman Emperor. While one wall is busy with scenes of war, the ceiling bears the simpler work of another author, Tommaso Laureti, and shows a statue of a Roman god, knocked from its pedestal and lying on the floor, replaced by a golden cross. The next room in the Room of Heliodorus, which depicts another scene of battle, as well as scenes with the namesake of the room, Saint Peter, Moses, Noah, and others. The Room of the Segnatura is a Hall of Fame of sorts. It is one of Raphael's most famous frescoes,

and certainly my favorite of the Raphael  rooms. The Disputation over the Most Holy Sacrament is a whose who of Christian figures, both from the Bible, and saints. On the wall opposite, School of Athens shows many great thinkers from Aristotle to Euclid, each with their own signs to help tell who they are, such as Ptolemy holding a globe. Among the other figures present on the other walls are popes and cardinals, with Dante and Virgil gazing down from the ceiling.






The fourth and final room is Room of the Fire in the Borgo, which depicts several historical events on its walls, including the namesake fire.

Finally, after somewhat more spacious time spent with Raphael, it is time to once again go shoulder to shoulder with the crowds to see the great Sistine Chapel. Here, no pictures are allowed. Here, talking is prohibited.

Here, it is hot, and crowded, the air pervaded by a general murmur from the people, occasionally overridden by a harsh sshhhh! from the security. People snap photos anyway. Protected by the masses. We did take one discreet, rather blurry picture, no flash. Above, is that classic scene, hand reaching for hand. But all around it, on every surface, as with all the other rooms so far, there too is work. But this room is impossibly large. This room is long and tall. The perspective is worthwhile, but without the ability to move about the room and examine it, it is not enough. If I were to visit again, I would wait for some weekday, some cold day, some rainy day. Some day where maybe I might have it more to myself.

To be continued Thursday.

Firenze Fine

The Duomo of Florence, also known as the Cathedral of Santa Maria dei Fiori, dominates the center of it's Piazza half a kilometer north of the Arno River. This structure stands out for its size and colorful detail, its exterior a dazzling pattern of white, green, and pink marble. Among its most prominent features are its grand dome by Brunelleschi, its bell tower by Giotto, and the Baptistery, which bore the bronze caste doors known as "the Gates of Paradise" by Lorenzo Ghiberti. The doors currently in place are replicas, the originals undergoing restoration in the nearby Museo dell'Opera del Duomo. The google maps street view provides an exceptional perspective on this church. In the early afternoon in mid September, we found the area surrounding the church to be pleasant and not too crowded. There was, however, an bit of a line to get inside, and since so much of the allure of this building is its exterior, we decided not to enter, but instead headed to one of the more peculiar museums in this city.

The Museo Di Storia Della Scienza houses a collection of scientific instruments and curiosities. The rooms contains ancient astrolabes and sundials, as well as levels and surveyor's instruments. The museum houses an early mechanical calculator, prisms, globes, microscopes, and an interesting collection of optical illusion toys. There are a variety of weather instruments, such as early thermometers and barometers. There is an entire room dedicated to clocks; early electrical machines and experimental contraptions make up another. Still other rooms stock devices used to demonstrate pneumatics, hydraulics, and other experiments or demonstrations of physics. Among the most disturbing collections are the surgery and obstetrics items, which display not only tools used to perform early medicine, which may include "skull and eye surgery; obstetrics and gynecology; lithotomy; amputation; removal and incision", but also the walls are lined with wax models on infants in the womb, many demonstrating all that can go wrong in childbirth with the clarity of a full color cutaway. The collection concludes with items related to pharmacy, chemistry, and measuring. But perhaps all of this, even as interesting as it was, would not have been enough to draw us to the museum. It was, in fact the rooms dedicated to astronomy that were of supreme interest.

There is a later room dedicated to more developed telescopes, but rooms IV and V hold the real treasures. These rooms house possessions and creations of Galileo. Among the collection of smaller items are the very lens through which he first saw the moons of Jupiter, and his very own middle finger. They also have the only two telescopes made by him still in existence today. It is accepted, though generally not well known, that Galileo did not in fact invent the telescope, but what he saw when he used them to look at the moon, the planets, and the sun, he used as evidence for the Copernican model of a sun centered universe.

Unsatisfied with merely the finger of the man, we headed over to the Basilica di Santa Croce, his final resting place, as well as that of several other world famous Italians. From the front, the Basilica's exterior matches that of the Duomo, but the sides are more plain. Within the walls of the church, despite the art and decorations, it is the many tombs, many laid into the very floor of the church, that attract attention. It is here that Florence built its empty tomb for Dante, who remains in Ravenna. Here also lies the body of Niccolò Machiavelli, author of the Prince and the Art of War. As I have said, here also lies Galileo, and finally Michelangelo Buonarroti, perhaps the most famous sculptor and painter in the world, has found his final rest here as well.

Statue at the Basilica

Niccolò Machiavelli

Dante's Memorial

Galileo

Michelangelo