Basilica Santi Dodici Apostoli

I rode through the park to the Piazza Santi Aposoli. I was joining Nancy's group and we were to see the funerary chapel of Caridnal Bessarione inside the church of Santi Apostoli. However, due to the popularity of visiting this part of the church, the Franciscan Frari have decided to open the chapel only Fridays and Saturdays with a reservation.

Following the visit to the funerary chapel, we were to visit the 4th century church of the Venetians in Rome -- San Marco in Piazza Venezia. However, Nancy discovered at the last minute that this church is now closed on Mondays. So it goes.

Instead, she improvised (which is extremely easy for her to do) and we discussed the life of the Cardinal and his legacy namely the Marciana library in Venice. For a synopsis, the following is a little blurb I found about the Cardinal on a biblio web-site:

Cardinal Bessarion--scholar, diplomat, book collector, and Platonic philosopher--was among the most remarkable men of his century. He was born an Orthodox Christian in Trebizond in Asia Minor, entered the Greek church as a priest, and converted to Latin Catholicism at the Council of Florence in 1438. Made a cardinal in 1439, he was twice nearly elected pope. The two great missions of his life were to preserve in the West the cultural heritage of Greek and Byzantine civilization, and to organize a great crusade against the Turks to reconquer Constantinople and the Christian lands lost to the Ottoman invaders. In the first of his goals he succeeded magnificently; he trained an entire generation of Hellenists in Rome and formed a great collection of Greek manuscripts which he left to the city of Venice, where it became the nucleus of the famous Biblioteca Marciana. In his second goal he failed, despite heroic efforts as a diplomat and publicist.

We visited the inside of the basilica which has been pulled this way and that over the centuries, and is therefore not a pure example of anything. The site had originally housed a byzantine church from the 6th century, but it was destroyed in an earthquake in 1348. A new basilica was built on top. Walls from the original structure can be seen when visiting the crypt which contains the relics of the apostles Philip and James, and is located below the central apse. Beginning in the 15th century, the Colonna family had the church rebuilt and subsequently several Popes and wealthy Roman families have, over the years, rebuilt, added and reshaped the church. The most treasured works of art, however, are now in the Vatican Museums or in the Palazzo Quirinale. Overall, the basilica is still an impressive structure -- massive in size.

Afterwards, we walked over to the Trajan's market area and discussed Trajan's column which was erected in 113 AD -- no small feat considering the column is 30 meters high and sits atop an 8 meter pedestal. A relief portraying Trajan's two military victories over the Dacians (101 to 106 AD) winds its way all the way up from the base to the capital. This is the very first column to have a continuous relief and the idea was taken from scrolls - which is the way stories were read, and written, at the time (no books yet). A personification of Victory with her wings and shields can be seen half-way up the column between the story of the two wars. The very same depiction of Victory can be seen on the Vittorio Emanuel II monument that overshadows the entire Piazza Venezia. Nineteen centuries later; same iconography -- it's quite an odd juxtaposition!

Of note is that Trajan's Forum was not really a forum in the traditional sense -- it was not full of temples and monuments -- it served more as a war camp from which Trajan dispatched his soldiers. Today, Piazza Venezia is a war zone of its own as the Comune di Roma is digging to create a metro stop. Nancy predicted it would not be completed until at least 2015.

I rode home to have lunch with Josh. We finally got smart and signed Avery up for soccer after school -- a way to channel all his excess energy; so Avery did not come home with the girls after school. It was a calm afternoon. Later the girls both went to swim practice. Olivia and I took a sauna and a steam after her lesson and "talked about our day." A true pleasure.