It is truly amazing how Rome can fit so much of the past and present together into one city. It's hard to believe that some of the streets that I walk on can be over 200 years old and how the things that I have seen the ancient Romans have also seen. The places that I've stood could have once been a place where a ruler or emperor stood. Okay, so maybe thats being a little bit overly dramatic. But seriously, it is a beautiful place to have chosen for my first travel adventure; to walk and see all of the things deemed important in history, while also getting to experience modern Roman times along with it is a blessing. I hope that this blog will not only show my own experiences, but will also teach and bring something new to whomever comes across it.
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| Capitoline Museum |
The first stop.. for this blog anyways... is the Capitoline hill- what ancient romans believe to be the heart of their empire. Capitoline Hill is the lowest of Rome's seven hills but it holds a ton of important history. Capitoline Hill and the Roman Forum (I think it may be safe to say that together they formed the Capitol of Rome- but don't quote me on that) have been through a bunch of power disputes, whether it may be political, religious, or commerce. What we saw today on Capitoline hill was the Capitoline Museum pictured above. I didn't have a camera (my apologies) so I borrowed a picture of what the outside looked like. Within the museum were many statues and artifacts from years and years of history that I didn't get pictures of (Insert mad face here). I plan on going back sometime during my trip, so I will post more pictures then of some of the things inside.
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Some remains of the Temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus
you can see that the ceiling and floor are built around
the original structure. |
One of the major things I noticed that seemed particularly important was that the museum along with the church we saw later in the day had built buildings on or around temples. This was a great example of how the present day rome connects to the past. I also like that for example, the temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus had remains inside the museum that had been built around (Pictured left). This same thing also holds true for San Nicola in Carcere which we also saw today. It is built over three temples I believe and on the outside of the building you can see some of the original columns (Pictured Below).
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| San Nicola in Carcere |
One of the things that came up in discussion today was how does anyone know what to preserve, what to renovate, and what to tear down. This question was really tough, because really, how DO we know which buildings built now will be important in the future? How did anyone decide (besides with the obvious emperor and deity artifacts) on what should be saved and preserved? Hopefully I can look more into this and answer these questions later on in my trip.
