Thursday, February 11th

This week independent Research check-in meetings were moved to Thursday, mine being at 10:30, so each group met separately with Lisa and Julie in Julie’s apartment. We had great Italian doughnut holes and cappuccinos from our wonderful and generous teachers, and then discussed our independent research topics, and the progress made on our research. The presentations are only a few weeks away!

After a long break during the afternoon, the whole group met up to go to Villa Borghese, and the museum there. We left at around 2:15, and took a bus ride to the beautiful gardens and property of the Villa Borghese. After a short introduction in the front yard, we went inside. The Villa was a “pleasure palace” built by Cardinal Scipione Borghese, who was the nephew of Pope Paul V.

Inside the museum there are currently hundreds of paintings and sculptures. We saw many paintings by the infamous artist, Caravaggio, whose paintings were great, but controversial with the church at the time. This did not stop Scipione Borghese from snatching up a lot of his famous works. My favorite was the Madonna with the child. The painting is very different from most depictions of the Madonna with the baby Jesus because it is very dark. The child is in the forefront, standing, but stepping on a snake with his feet. This is a very unusual pose and depiction of one of the most painted religious subjects.

The statues by Gian Lorenzo Bernini were my favorite part of the Villa Borghese. His ability to carve these statues out of marble was unreal to me. The details are amazing and in some cases the marble looks like it is actual skin because of the techniques he used. Also, the drapery on the statues almost looked like paper or cloth it was so realistic. Very amazing works of art to see so close and in person.Too bad we couldn’t take pictures of our own!

We left the museum around 5 in order to get back, because Natalia, Mick, and I (Conner) had to pack for our flight to Barcelona later that night!