All posts tagged: Trevi Fountain

Observations from the Road: (The “We Learn So Much Every Day” Edition)

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A couple of quick thoughts about recent days in Italy. Orvieto update – To no one’s surprise, Orvieto (which I wrote about yesterday) is the favorite town of several of our friends and colleagues.  We can see why.  A long-time and dear friend from our days in Staunton, Sally James, wrote to say that Orvieto is her “home away from home!”  In my original post, I didn’t mention the chapel by Fra Angeloco and Luca Signorelli, which is the topic of Sally’s first book, Signorelli and Fra Angelico at Orvieto: Liturgy, Poetry and a Vision of the End Time. The decoration of the Cappella Nuova, commenced by Fra Angelico in 1447 and magnificently completed by Luca Signorelli in 1499 and 1504, displays an awe-inspiring Last Judgement and Apocalypse and, below it, scenes from Dante and classical literature. This was yet another magnificent space in an incredible building full of wonderful art and architecture.  Sally encourages us to look for the next issue of Gesta, probably in April, to see her article on the frescoes of …

Observations from the Road: (“The Pedometer is Getting a Workout” Edition)

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Rome has steps. Everywhere.  A lot of steps.  (Yes, I can confirm for Mrs. Reeves, my sophomore English teacher, that I know a “lot” is a field and not “many” but I like the way “a lot of steps” sounds.) So begins this edition of “Observations from the Road” (or “The Pedometer is Getting a Workout” edition). For those who may be new to More to Come…, the “Observations from…” series are short – often meaningless – comments that don’t deserve a full blog post (or perhaps even the light of day) but that hasn’t stopped me from posting them in the past.  So here goes with the current edition. I’m going to break the pedometer – Everyone who has been to Rome told us that we’d walk a great deal…but I guess I didn’t really believe it until we arrived and started walking.  And believe me, I love to walk. Rome is a wonderful city to see from the sidewalk (or the middle of the street, where a great deal of walking appears to …