November 17th-21st

After Thanksgiving, we got right back to the grind with a History class Monday morning. We walked up to the Campidoglio, designed by Michelangelo, and visited the church Santa Maria in Aracoeli. It was a beautiful church on top of the Capitoline hill, and it included a number of great frescoes and candeliers.

Also in the church is the central fresco by Pinturicchio in the S. Bernardino Chapel. The 15th century frescoe depicts the life of Saint Bernardino of Siena.

Another famous feature of the church is the wooden statue of the infant Jesus, carved in the 15th century of olive wood.

After leaving Santa Maria in Aracoeli, we moved on to the church of San Pietro in Vincoli on the Esquiline in Rome. The church is most famous for its marble sculpture of Moses sculpted by Michelangelo.

On Tuesday the 18th, I had drawing class where we went behind San Andrea della Valle, the church nearest my studio and hotel which happens to have the second biggest dome in Rome behind St. Peters.

Then Tuesday night we went out to the always fun Karoake night at Scholars, the local irish pub. In the picture, I am definitely belting out my own rendition of "I Want it That Way" by the Backstreet Boys. I was really good; I swear.

On Thursday the 20th, I had my Urbanism class with Ettore and we went to the Pantheon to study the marble interior. The assignment for the day was to paint an elevation of the Pantheon, including the marble columns, marble panels, and the coffered ceiling.

That Friday we had a daytrip to Hadrian's Villa. The great Roman emperor, who also happened to dabble in architecture and landscaping, designed this magnificent Villa in the countryside near Rome. The Villa included palaces, several thermae, theatre, temples, libraries, state rooms and quarters for courtiers, praeotrians and slaves. Here is a model that depicts the entire site, and you can see the great size of the site, as well as the combination of Roman building styles and landscaping.

One of the most amazing structures in the Villa is the Maritime Theatre It consists of a round portico with a barrel vault supported by pillars. Inside the portico was a ring-shaped pool with a central island. During the ancient times the island was connected to the portico by two drawbridges. Hadrian used the secluded island getaway as a way to have some time for himself away from the responsbilities of the Roman Empire.