Michelangelo’s last design
ROME, SUMMER 2023
I started this trip with a week alone in the north of Italy. I visited places like Milano, Lake Como and Lago Maggiore and I even had a chance to spend 3 days in Paris. So, when I got to Rome, it was easier for me to handle public transportation than for some of my classmates. Moreover, I lived in Caracas most of my youth, so I know how to take the metro and switch lines and all of that. This last part is completely new for someone that comes from Miami since we don’t have metros there and the public transportation is almost non-existent.
Thanks to my limited experience, it was very easy for me to find the metro station that I was assigned. I woke up on our free day and walked to the bus station, the bus dropped me off at the metro and after 10 minutes I was in the designated station. Repubblica. Walking the halls that take you out to the street, you can appreciate roman ruins to the sides. They are remains of the underground corridors that used to be a part of the Baths of Diocletian. You can clearly see the travertine blocks that belonged to the massive structure of the imperial age. The Thermal Baths of Diocletian used to cover all the area of the Piazza della Repubblica and more. They paint a good picture of what the halls lead to.
When I went out into the street I was amazed. Apparently, every little part of Rome has something to wonder at and this is not the exception. The Piazza Republica is a roundabout with a marvelous fountain the middle and surrounded by building of different eras. There is a big white building that encompasses a big part of the piazza and it is occupied by several stores, a hotel and a cinema. Then there is a Roman-looking planetarium that was turned into a museum and several other museums around the plaza. But the thing that stuck out the most for me was the Basilica of Santa Maria degli Angeli. I was able to go into the church and sit down to listen to Sunday mass. It was amazing. After the service ended and the priest performed some baptisms, I was able to walk around the church and I learned a lot from it!
This basilica has a long and important history. The Romans first built these baths in the early 300s and the structure is facing south, to try and limit the amount of sun that heats up the walls. However, after the fall of the Roman Empire, the building was abandoned like many others during this time. Nonetheless, since the baths were not located in the forum, they were not repurposed until the Renaissance. This allowed the structure to maintain a lot of its integrity. In 1562 the pope commissioned Michelangelo with the restauration of the ruins and the design of a basilica to honor Mary Mother of Jesus and all the Christian martyrs that worked and died to build the Roman baths. This basilica was the last work that the great Michelangelo worked on and certainly one of his great masterpieces even if not as famous as others.
Michelangelo’s design was later modified in the 1700s when F. Bianchini was commissioned to build a meridian in the church. Meridians are the imaginary lines that are drawn in the Earth globe to calculate degrees of longitude. They also help indicate the position of the Sun and thus calculate the day of the year or even work as a Sun clock. This church was chosen for this for several reasons, first, it the ruins first build by romans were already facing south which made the process easier. Second, Michelangelo’s design raised the level of the church, and the high columns and towers made it easy for the structure to catch the Sun light every day of the year. And lastly because the structural columns were so old that it was sure that they were already settled into the ground, and they were not going to move much with the years. This last part meant that the accuracy of the measurements could be trusted and that the devices placed by scientists on the columns to measure the position of the Sun would not move.
While I was in the church, I was able to appreciate the meridian line and the oculus where the Sun enters the church. However, since it was a cloudy day, I was not able to read the time with the Sun clock since no rays of Sun were visible. Lastly, since I was there during mass, I got to hear the massive and 1700s original organ be played and it was marvelous! This entire church is filled with the history of every rocky place and every worker that had worked there since Roman times. It was truly and enrichning experience.
