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Rome is Italy's treasure trove, packed with masterpieces from more than two millennia
of artistic achievements.
This is where a metropolis once bustled around the carved marble monuments of
the Roman Forum, where centuries later Michelangelo Buonarotti painted Christian
history in the Sistine Chapel, where Gian Lorenzo Bernini's nymphs and naiads
dance in their fountains, and where an empire of gold was worked into the crowns
of centuries of rulers.
Today Rome's formidable legacy is upheld by its people, their history knit into
the fabric of their everyday lives.
Students walk dogs in the park that was once the mausoleum of the family of the
emperor Augustus; Raphaelesque madonnas line up for buses on busy corners; priests
in flowing robes walk through medieval piazzas talking on cell phones.
Modern Rome has one foot in the past, and one in the present -- a delightful
stance that allows you to have an espresso in a square designed by Bernini, then
take the metro back to your hotel room in a renovated Renaissance palace. |
