A taste of paradise and beyond

If coming to Rome, do not, oh please, run around in a crowd, skipping from the Colosseum to the Vatican Museums in pure unconsciousness, taking pictures and selfies of yourself before the Vittoriano. Do not be prey of fret, that kills thruth and shuts your eyes to beauty and to the uncountable symbols that tell the real story, hidden and sacred, which can be told and understood in simplicity and wonder, with few words in the life of the eternal river. When in Rome, plan to see, of course, the Colosseum and the Vatican museum but find the secret thread that will lead you to understand what lies beyond, what can be seen as a revelation of the past as true and as alive as your everyday life back home. In the living symbols of our forefathers, that are here and there in churches and monuments, you will find, if guided, the answers to your quest...
So, for instance, why not linger in the Aventine hill, the hill of Remo, the twin that was killed by his Brother Romulus, the first king of the Eternal city.? Do you know, why, the Aventine is called Aventine? Birds is the answer (avis meaning bird in latin) From the Aventine hill, the roman augures used to watch the flight of birds, which gave answers to their prayers. On this hill, the twins decided where to build Rome. And Rome itself, bearing such a sacred name, is a mistery unfolded which I will keep to myself and give as a gift to those who might want to come with me on the Aventine Hill to discover the secluded garden of Sant'Alessio. A taste of paradise and beyond...

On sundays in Rome

bennibag flowers and owls

Churches are about everywhere in Rome;  and even more, as many as the stars up above, in the center where I happen to live, being the privilege of my life. So, on sundays, as you might understand, I have more than one choice to pick a mass in time and place. I can either go to Santa Maria ai Monti, that is my parish church and listen to Don Francesco or, why not, choose the franciscan church of the Saints Quirico and Giulitta, child and mother, killed as martyrs, during the persecutions of Diocletian. In which case Padre Antonio will be behind the altar, celebrating the eternal sacrifice of our Lord. But, but, but, I have many other chances, believe me, I have at least once been in all and every church  in the surroundings. I know all they have inside, mosaiques and pictures and the way the Fathers tell the story. At eleven o'clock, on sundays, for instance, I might decide to listen to a mass in latin in Santa Maria Maggiore. Oh the glory of the gregorian chanting! My soul is lifted to heaven as the priests sing as angels migh sing...

In any case, one way or the other, I am sure to meet, at the bottom of the stairs, a "signor Marini", one who is more than Roman, meaning an ancient Roman citizen. He seems to sprang out of history, somwhere from the troops of Caesar, one of the tenth legion maybe. And when he speals the Roman of real Romans it is a pure caress to my soul. His low voice comes straight from mystery itself. And every and each time he performs for me one of the sonnets of Gioacchino Belli, one out of the hundreds, one that is perfect for the day and for us two. And then I laugh and then he laughsback and we jolly well laugh together and then, in peace and quiet, we are both off to mass... 

On the Celio hill

This is me in my eternal search

There are places in Rome that are lost in time and space, as if in touch with a mysterious thruth beyond; one is simply walking in between cars and traffic, maybe eating a slice of pizza, all in one with our crazy modern horizons, when all of a sudden, the Middle Ages seem to be back, with all their majestic struggle to reach eternity and God in heaven. A silence that is unreal spreads from the skies and eveything seems still and perfect, in the sublime search for holiness. 
All of a sudden, meaning it, the world is back to its premieval cosmos, lost and faraway all the turmoil of the City. This happens, for instance, to people, like me, that strolling  around the beauties of the Celio (one of the Seven Hills), reach, all of a sudden, a wondrous church called "Santi Quattro Coronati". It is entitled to four martys - that is to say witnesses - who, being marble sculptors refused to carve pagan idols for Diocletian. Thus, they were sentenced to death. To be forever remembered in the slumber of this magnificent church, as holy and perfect as if built in paradise...
You might want to peep at the beautiful Oratory of San Silvestro, asking for the key to the nun kept in claustration that sits, silent and still as a statue carved by the martyrs, behind a grate, or maybe just walk into the church itself to see, up high, the crown of saints and consecrated, that seem, dancing in a golden sky, to look at us, poor people downstairs, waiting, one day, to be up there in glory. One can just sit and stare at all that beauty or, why not, play the game of recognizing saints: each one  is painted together with his symbols. Let me end here and let me keep my score for myself, in glory up above.

In the Ara Coeli

Like Saint Francis in this wonderful El Greco (Dublin)

When walking to my library (the Rispoli on Via della Gatta),  coming down from the Monti area (where I belong) I must cross Piazza Venezia, right beside the green lawn, on a slice of pavement, where tourists of all kinds stand, shoulders to the Vittoriano, taking pictures (and selfies) of the big white “wedding cake” (as the Romans called the gigantic building that the piedmontese Savoy built when they conquered the City of the Pope)  which dominates the large Via Lata (now Corso), as a big memento of the shift of power that happened in those lost faraway days… King Victor Emanuel the II, on his majestic horse, martial as Marcus Aurelius on the Campidoglio, seems ready to stride along the Eternal City, prey, conquered and humiliated. This is the deep reason why, I think, Romans do not like that huge marble monument, beloved by the tourists who might think the Vittoriano an old temple coming straight from Augustus times…

No, the Romans do not like the Vittoriano, calling it the wedding cake or the typewriter. And, please, if you have time, walk around it (note how it gives its strong shoulders to the Campidoglio) towards the magnificent paleochristian church of the Ara Coeli, the altar of the skyes. Up there, on top of the ripid staircase that leads us to the entrance of the church that is (and has always been) kept by the holy Franciscans (being Francis a second Christ on earth). And there, in holiness, enter the Church as if in the womb of Mary. Sharpen your eyes and look for the chapel where the holy Bambino is kept. It is not the original one (the one, I mean, carved by a Franciscan monk from an olive tree of the Holy land, which was stolen years ago), but, in its ieratic beauty this new little bambino, in gold and pearls, is as beautiful as the original; please, in focus and concentration, listen to his silent words: one must be a child again to enter the world of the skyes, in the Ara Coeli.

On the slopes of the Campidoglio

Roman spiritual walks with Benedetta. Get in touch: bennidv@alice.it

On the slopes of the Campidoglio, where the glorious temple of Jove used to stand in all its might and beauty, one can still find, walking on the winding drives of the Via del Monte Caprino, the ancient flare of the holy Lupercal where the twins were nourished  by the she wolf (Acca Larentia). Down below,  on the busy Via Petroselli, the furious turmoil of the never ending flow of cars coming and going in the nonsense of everyday life. Up there, the cosmos of beauty and perfection, in the sweet chanting of birds, while the wind, graciously, rustles branches and leaves, and one might catch a glimpse of the ancient nimphs and satyrs that used to live here in days forgotten by the crowds. In the glow of autumn, the sacred mother earth seems ready for her annual sleep to come to life again in spring, full of colors in never ending glory...

I was there, yesterday, and all alone, in the sweet company of birds and groves, cleaning up the gardens from modern litter, and bottles and packets of cigarettes and all the trash of these unholy days. I was cleaning up, I say, and all of a sudden I was not alone any more. I felt, and saw, with my third eye wide open, the ancient luperci priests running, dressed as wolves, and beating up, with goat skins, young women in order to make them conceive. No doctors could have been more effective than those luperci waking up, in nature, sleeping wombs… The vision finished, back to work, hands in green gloves. All of a sudden, a man springs out from nowhere: “Please, can I throw away my bottle?”. Ok, I answered and before I could say more, the bottle popped inside and he gone.  

The eye of the cat

When walking towards the Collegio Romano, at a stone throw from Piazza Venezia, you might find yourself in a little, secluded street called via della Gatta, that snakes in sweet darkness on the borders of the Palazzo Grazioli (where no other than Silvio Berlusconi lives, when in the Capital…), well anyway, after a glance at the magnificent palazzo (that is still owned by the Roman noble family that gave it its patrician name, being Berlusconi only the one who is renting it), do keep your eyes sharp to catch a glimpse of the marble cat walking on the moulding. Its magical stare brings us back to the Egyptian times, for it does come from the enormous temple of Isis that once stood in the neighborhood. Isis, the Goddes of Earth, with Horus on her lap, was worshipped in Rome at the times of Caesar when Cleopatra arrived in the City of the Caesars, in golden chains…

No more Egypt now, but look at the greatness of the Collegio Romano, that was the University of the Gesuits (Pope Francis being a Gesuit, actually the first Gesuit ever to be Pope…). The University is now a school where someone dear to me attends his “Liceo”. The Gesuits have a new University in piazza della Pilotta (Università Gregoriana), as big as imperial as ever.

And now, before I forget, let me tell you a little Roman, traditional tale on the Gesuits that has something to do with, yes, with… the wind. I Will tell it, as Tacitus, the great Roman historian, would have done, that is to say: sine ira et studio. And now, the story. You must know that in front of the Gesù, which is the Gesuit’s most important church in Rome, on piazza del Gesù, the wind, being summer or winter, swirls and sweeps all day long. Well the story goes – and it was ever so popular in the 19^th century - like this: the devil once upon a time said to the wind: “Wait for me, I must go into the Gesù for a certain little bargain”. Off he went and the wind is still waiting for him to come out… 

Roman streets

There are streets, in Rome, that bear, with light grace, names that sound, in Italian, as lovely girls names, but are, actually, dedicated to a Pope who chose that name, in the masculine form, for the Holy seat. In the Monti area, via Clementina, steep and narrow as an alpine path; in Trastevere, a tiny, lovely via Benedetta; in Campo de’ Fiori, via Giulia, long and slim, a pilgrim to the Vatican and to our sacred river. In the Esquilino, Via Paolina hides, in dark silence, behind the great bulk of Santa Maria Maggiore. I often go there and while I walk along its slope in prayer, I close my eyes to meet an aunt of mine who bore the name, hair covered under a veil, in silence and grace of old times gone…

I often walk along that little street to go to the Esquilino hill where, in the covered market,  one can still buy bread as bread should be and vegetables with roots still covered in soil and oranges and grapes that have the taste of sugar and honey. So, please, imagine me strolling along in a soft Saturday morning, bright in gold and blue. You must know that right at the bottom of the via Paolina there is a little fountain where a generous cherub, only one, and little, with wings outspread on top of curly hair, gives his eternal present of water to the passers by. On both sides of the angel, a column gives protection to the holy spot. Well, not really anymore because someone, a hater of beauty, has signed one of the columns with a purple mark, that hits me in the eye whenever I am around. Enough, I said to myself, that morning, and quick and sharp, with a little cloth and water (and lots of energy) I wiped away the ugly signs of human silliness, and while I was there cleaning, under a golden sun, I heard all around me the happy flutter of the wings of the little, generous cherub, bound together, we two, in the real life of water underneath…

One of my handmade Roman bennibags...

Angels in Rome

This morning, a bright blue sky shone over Rome, a sky blessed with a springlike sun that dried up the bones of the Eternal City,  swept by winds and soaken  by rain for, maybe, a fortnight (the sky: the colour of a spider's web, in the bleak damp smell of everyday chores...) But today, in glory above, what blessing from paradise! The angels had washed up the skies, overnight, pulling out the sun from behind the clouds, where it slept its coldish, forlon sleep, and doing so, all the angels  up above, shook earth and men to a new beginning. And everything looked new again, as if just made by the fingers of our holy creator... And lo, who could but go out and walk, walk, walk, as if carried away by the poetry of the newborn day. Me, too, of course. And not only because I wanted to. Here I am in the Liceo Visconti to talk to some teachers and then out again in the sparkling sunshine, in the twist of a Roman day. I love Rome, there are no other cities - I am sorry - like Rome: every church a museum and each and every street a book written in glory and story. So now, follow me in the church of Santa Maria della Minerva, where I  decided to go for a stroll in beauty. Switch off the light: the dome up there is sprinkled with stars in the velvet of a peaceful night. Out there, the sun and the people and the noise of the city; inside, the night, the prayer, the soul in happiness. I looked for Filippino Lippi and his magnificent Cappella Carafa and when I found him at last, I could just stand there in awe: those up there, dressed in colourful robes, in the crispy blue air, with flapping wings, are the same angels that  washed our Roman sky last night! They smiled at me, from their holy see, and while I was smiling back, I heard a voice by my side: "Excuse me. do you have an euro to turn on the light?". Down to earth again and goodbye...

Happy Valentine!