Ideas 4 Travelers

21/04/2024

𝐇𝐚𝐩𝐩𝐲 𝐁𝐢𝐫𝐭𝐡𝐝𝐚𝐲 𝐑𝐨𝐦𝐞! 𝟐𝟕𝟕𝟕 𝐘𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐬 𝐨𝐥𝐝... 𝐚 𝐥𝐨𝐭 𝐨𝐟 𝐜𝐚𝐧𝐝𝐥𝐞𝐬 𝐭𝐨 𝐛𝐥𝐨𝐰!
Legend of the foundation of Rome tells that on this day, April 21st 753 b.C., Romolus (first king of Rome to be) draw the boundaries of what was going to become Rome on the Palatine hill (first one of the seven hills on which the Kingdom of Rome was established).

It took him a terrible toll: he killed his twin brother, Remus, after a quarrel on which hill the city was to be founded.

Remus liked the Aventine better as he thought it was safer due to its isolation and the steep side that faced the Tevere river: on the right side of it the Etruscan powerful kingdom was a major threat for the Latin tribes.
Romolus thought the Palatine was better: the control it assured on both the river and the paths that connected with the east and the south of the area would give them a major advantage on both the Etruscan and the Sabinis (a powerful Latin tribe that dominated the east of the region).

The twin brothers were the children of the God “Marte” and Rea Silvia, a vestal virgin, the daughter of Numitore, the former king of Alba Longa a strong and powerful city on the south of the region.

Amulio, Numitore’s brother, and usurper of the crown of Alba Longa, was afraid that one day Romolo or Remus could take his crown and so ordered a servant to get rid of the twins.

However, the servant didn’t have the courage to kill them, so put the children in a basket and left them floating on the Tevere river. The basket was pushed by the current, until it stopped in an area which is near the actual Palatine hill.
Here the twins were found by a female wolf that fed them (it’s the main symbol of the City: a wolf milking two babies and this is why for us romans, the city is feminine) until a shepherd, whose name was Faustolo, found the twins and raised them.
It is probable that the wolf wasn’t an animal, but a pr******te: those women were called lupae – wolves -, after them were named “the lupanari”: the brothels.
When Romolo and Remo grew up, they came back to Alba Longa, killed their uncle Amulio and put Numitore back on the throne.
Then the brothers decided to found a new town: the history of Rome was about to begin.

19/04/2024

A different Rome

17/04/2024

Monks and Knights on the Aventine
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08/04/2024

Foro Boario
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06/04/2024

How much do you think of the Roman Empire?

06/04/2024

Forum thermal baths.
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04/04/2024

27/03/2024

Diocleziano’s Baths: the largest thermal complex in Rome, 306 AD.
Diocleziano’s Baths were built between 298 and 306 AD: the thermal complex occupied an area of 380 x 370 meters (1250 x 1215 ft).
The Baths were the largest ever built in the Roman world, as well as the largest construction in the city, could host about three thousand people.
For the Romans, the baths represented a social event of absolute importance and the baths reflected the value of the Emperor.

13/03/2024

Amore and Psiche.

12/03/2024

12/03/2024

Walking Tour with ITALIAN GELATO INCLUDED! Monks and Knights: a 2 hours walking tour in Rome, from the Foro Boario, up to the Aventino hill, among medieval monasteries, renaissance churches, knights sanctuaries, secluded gardens and magnificent views of Rome that ends by the Circus Maximus.

Walking Tour with ITALIAN GELATO INCLUDED! Monks and Knights: a 2 hours walking tour in Rome, from the Foro Boario, up to the Aventino hill, among medieval monasteries, renaissance churches, knights sanctuaries, secluded gardens and magnificent views of Rome that ends by the Circus Maximus.

11/03/2024

Ostia Antica frescoes

05/01/2024

𝐆𝐚𝐫𝐢𝐛𝐚𝐥𝐝𝐢 is considered a true hero of the Italian Risorgimento (ie: the fight and struggle for liberation and unification of Italy), recognized internationally. No one better than him embodies, between lights and shadows, the values of pre-unification Italian patriotism.
At the end of 1848, when Pope Pius IX flees from Rome, threatened by the liberal forces of the papal states who are giving life to the Roman Republic, Garibaldi is in Rome with his Legion: on April 30th he defends Rome near the Gianicolo in a particularly memorable clash with the French troops, there to support the Pope.
Garibaldi, thanks to the reinforcements received, reconquered positions lost in the previous days: Villa Corsini and Villa Pamphili.
Oudinot, commander of the French expedition, threatened with encirclement, retreats towards Civitavecchia, chased for a short distance by Roman patriots.
In the evening, the people of Rome is rejoicing and cheering under countless lights.
Giuseppe Garibaldi remains one of the most effective masters of military guerrilla tactics in history, responsible for many of the military victories of the Risorgimento: a patriot and a nationalist, who nevertheless sees patriotism as a means to liberate the masses, not to dominate other peoples.

18/12/2023

HAPPY HOLIDAYS from Ideas for Travelers.

14/12/2023

𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐓𝐡𝐢𝐫𝐝 𝐑𝐨𝐦𝐞: 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐝𝐞𝐬𝐢𝐠𝐧 𝐫𝐞𝐯𝐨𝐥𝐮𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐨𝐟 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝟒𝟎'𝐬

“The third Rome will expand towards other hills, along the banks of the sacred river to the beaches of the Tyrrhenian sea“.

In 1935 the governor of Rome, Bottai, proposed to Mussolini to nominate the capital for the future universal exhibition of 1942.
The area of the “Tre Fontane” (southwest of the city) was chosen to ideally connect imperial Rome, represented by the Baths of Caracalla, with the Tyrrhenian Sea along the Via Imperiale (today Via Cristoforo Colombo): the new district was designed to be the third pole of expansion in the south-west of the city, “the third Rome“.

The celebrity architects of the time: Giuseppe Pagano, Luigi Piccinato, Luigi Vietti, Adalberto Libera, Gaetano Minnucci, Ernesto Lapadula, Mario Romano, Luigi Moretti, under the technical coordination of Marcello Piacentini took part in the great urbanization project of Rome towards the sea.

The works began on April 26, 1937, the district was inspired, according to the ideology of the time, by classical Roman urbanism, bringing the elements of Italian rationalism: the structure provides a varied system with orthogonal axes and majestic and imposing architectural buildings , massive and square, mostly built with white marble and travertine to remind the temples and buildings of imperial Rome.
The symbolic element of this architectural model is the “Palazzo della Civiltà Italiana” (Italian Civilization palace), nicknamed the “Square Colosseum“.

The universal exhibition never took place due to the delay in construction work and preparations for Italian participation in the Second World War.
After the war ended in the early 1950s, the EUR represented the exemplary case of the post-war reconstruction, which was the basis of the Italian economic-social recovery.
Green areas, a great lack of Rome, would have been the characteristic, the specialty of Eur.
Therefore, a park-district, whose urban qualities needed to be enhanced.

Today the area amazes with the grandeur of the buildings, the surreal atmosphere that you breathe, and that sense of estrangement that is experienced in its streets, as in a painting by De Chirico.
The area around the lake is the liveliest in the area, between recreational and sporting activities, in contrast to that metaphysical soul that appears during the weekends and is accentuated when the sun goes down.
In spring there is a riot of flowers, especially those of the cherry trees that run along the path called “Japan Walk“, a gift from the city of Tokyo.

The EUR, for the characteristics just described, has proved to be an extraordinary set for Italian cinema, many films have been shot in the neighbourhood:
“Roma città aperta“, 1945, directed by Roberto Rossellini.
“L’eclisse“, 1962, by Michelangelo Antonioni.
“Boccaccio ’70“, 1962, four episodes directed by Vittorio De Sica, Federico Fellini, Mario Monicelli and Luchino Visconti.
“L’ultimo bacio“, 2001, by Gabriele Muccino.
“Velocità massima“, 2002, diretto da Daniele Vicari.
https://www.ideasfortravelers.it/traveler-journal/the-third-rome-eur-neighbourhood-1935/
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18/11/2023

Livia Drusilla lived to be 86 years old, 52 years of which she spent with her husband Octavian Augustus, the first emperor of Rome.
Livia Drusilla Claudia was born in Rome on 30 January 58 BC. by Marco Livio Druso Claudiano and his wife Alfidia. The diminutive "Drusilla" suggests that she was the couple's second daughter.

Health fanatic in the most modern sense of the term, Livia is a current character also for her vision of the world, which she sees as a scenario in which to move and achieve one's ambitions, without fear and without reverence towards the excessive power of the male s*x.

Livia and Ottaviano fell in love like only in the best romantic films. Both were married, but these are details of little importance when you are the emperor: Octavian, in fact, forced Livia's husband to divorce her, and he did the same with his own wife, Scribonia.
This marriage also meant the alliance between Octavian and a part of the senatorial aristocracy.

Octavian Augustus proposed her to the people, as a representative of Roman virtue, as a matron, almost vestal: Livia appears on the coins dedicated to her, as the personification of Pietas, which can be translated today as "solidarity", of Iustitia, of Salus Augusta, that is, the collective well-being.

Temples were erected throughout the empire dedicated to her, seen as Cybele, divinity of the earth, and as Juno, mother of the Gods.

The Domina did not like to show off luxurious tunics and jewels, she took care of the house directly and sewed her husband's clothes herself, as Tacitus recounts in his Annals, in which he paints her as an "impeccable wife", at home Livia set a life of maximum severity, old-fashioned, military, republican, allowing no relaxation, no exemption from daily commitments, no luxury, no worldliness. She imposed total loyalty on herself in an era of corrupt customs, imposed respect and careful parsimony.

Octavian allowed her to manage his private assets and even to use his seal to sign documents.
The people loved Livia for her generosity in rewarding deserving servants, giving them freedom and, later, having them buried in a private mausoleum.
In addition to this, there are many testimonies of the Empress' presence during the frequent fires in the city, in which she put herself on the front line to put them out or to direct rescue and rescue operations.

Her true aim was to redeem her feminine condition, to the point of demanding recognition of her imperial presence alongside her husband.
An equal presence which, if not legal, was at least moral, political and religious.
When her husband died in 14 AD, in his will he left the last wish to "adopt" her.
In this way, the woman became part of her patrician gens, she had a third of the family fortune and the "permanent" title of Augusta. Livia Drusilla died 15 years after her husband, was buried in the mausoleum of Augustus, and then her nephew Claudio, now emperor, deified her and she became the Diva (divine) Augusta.
Roman women swore in the name "of the diva Augusta".

16/11/2023

𝐎𝐜𝐭𝐚𝐯𝐢𝐮𝐬 𝐀𝐮𝐠𝐮𝐬𝐭𝐮𝐬 𝐟𝐢𝐫𝐬𝐭 𝐞𝐦𝐩𝐞𝐫𝐨𝐫, 𝟐𝟕 𝐁𝐂
Born September 23, 63 Gaius Octavius, adopted name Gaius Julius Caesar Octavianus, was of a prosperous family that had long been settled at Velitrae (Velletri), southeast of Rome.
He was the first of the family to become a Roman senator and, being Julius Caesar nephew, quickly climbed to the top of Roman politics.

He fought to avenge his great-uncle Julius Caesar, assassinated in 43 BC, who named him as his heir and in 31 BC defeated Antony and Cleopatra at the Battle of Actium becoming the undisputed ruler of Rome.

In 27 BC he suppressed the Republic and established a system of monarchy headed by an Emperor holding power for life: retaining ultimate control of all aspects of the state, with the army under his direct command.

Augustus created a standing army for the first time, and embarked upon a vigorous campaign of expansion designed to make Rome safe from the ‘barbarians‘ beyond the frontiers, and to secure the Augustan peace.

In Rome he started a large programme of reconstruction and social reform along with an impressive transformation of the city with new buildings and public spaces; he also established that his image was promoted throughout his empire by means of statues and coins.

Having no sons, only a daughter, Julia, he reluctantly chose his stepson Tiberius as his heir: his last years of reign were troubled by military defeats and shrinking economy, he died in August 14 AD.

The reign of Octavian Augustus laid the foundations of a regime that lasted for nearly fifteen hundred years, his title “Augustus” became the permanent titles of the rulers of the Roman Empire for fourteen centuries after his death.

Augustus was intelligent, decisive, and a sharp politician: many consider Augustus to be Rome’s greatest emperor; his policies certainly extended the Empire’s life span and initiated the celebrated Pax Romana.
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15/11/2023

The Aventine hill wild side: climbing from the river bank up to the top through an ancient passage used by monks to get to their monastery.

14/11/2023

A beautiful Renaissance masterpiece, the 𝐓𝐞𝐦𝐩𝐢𝐞𝐭𝐭𝐨 𝐝𝐞𝐥 𝐁𝐫𝐚𝐦𝐚𝐧𝐭𝐞, built by the prestigious Bramante architect in 1502 as a commemorative tomb is considered a treasure of Renaissance art for its design.

The construction was commissioned to Bramante by the King of Spain, as the monastic complex (S. Peter in Montorio church and its monastery) belonged to a Spanish congregation: it was meant to celebrate the martyrdom of St. Peter which, according to a tradition, took place right on the Gianicolo hill.

The small temple, monoptero, has a cylindrical body, which constitutes the cell of the temple, whose masonry is dug by unusually deep niches and marked by pilasters as a projection of the columns of the peristyle.
The building is surrounded by a Doric colonnade raised on steps; on the columns runs an entablature conforming to Vitruvian indications, with a frieze decorated with triglyphs and metopes.
The columns are in gray granite, the rest in travertine.

The inside of the temple houses on the altar a statue of St. Peter by an anonymous Lombard.
The floor is made of polychrome marble tiles, in the Cosmatesque style, the subject of a certain revival at the end of the 15th century.

The temple is above a circular crypt whose center indicates the place where the cross of martyrdom was planted, the ideal axis of the whole building.

The crypt is accessed by external stairs built in the 17th century; originally there was only a trap door.

Bramante‘s work is a clear reference to ancient architecture, it is consciously shaped on the circular peripteral temple, used in ancient Roman architecture and of which examples were clearly visible: the Temple of Vesta in the Forum and the Temple of Hercules Triumphant.

Another reference by Bramante was the much larger bulk of the Pantheon, with a circular plan. In fact, the construction of the temple is at the center of the research that involved all the architects of the Renaissance relating to the central plan as a model for representing divine reality and the cosmos; this in particular for the circular shape, conceptual and visual expression of the “figure of the world”.

Bramante‘s architectural work also finds a parallel in some pictorial works, including Raphael‘s contemporary painting, “The Marriage of the Virgin“, confirming the importance of the circular temple theme in the culture of the early 16th century.

The construction is conceived through simple geometric relationships:
the height (including architrave, frieze and cornice) is equal to the distance from this to the top of the dome;
the dome of the building has a radius equal to its height, and to the height of the drum on which it rests; in this it has a clear relationship with the Pantheon (in which the dome, also a hemisphere, is exactly half the height of the complete building);
the diameter of the external circumference of the columns is equal to 3/2 of the diameter of the dome.

13/11/2023

Thermal Baths of Neptune
The thermal baths of Neptune, built along the Decumanus maximus in the harbour city of Ostia Antica, between the theatre and “Porta Romana” (Romana gate: main entrance on the city walls facing the city of Rome), date back to the time of emperor Hadrian (2nd century AD).

A vast complex with a gymnasium, the proper baths (warm, hot and cold water), dressing rooms and common areas: entrance halls present two very well preserved mosaics, one representing Neptune drawn by seahorses, the other portraying his spouse Anfitrite surrounded by tritons.

Thermal baths were heated with hot air circulating under the floor and along the walls through terracotta tubes, under the street level there were the furnaces that heated the warming system, operated mostly by slaves.
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26/10/2023

Mosaics and pines
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23/10/2023

2nd century AD mosaic

08/07/2023

Maximus Decimus Meridio (gladiator Russell Crowe) looks for his men in Ostia Antica... They left he says, probably boarding a ship sailing to Hispania from the harbor or maybe they're just having the time of their lives drinking and partying at the Thermopolium... "Hey Max? The Thermopolium is on your right , 2 mns walking, they're probably there!"

11/06/2023

St. Paul outside the wall.
One of the four major basilicas in Rome.

29/05/2023

This is not Pompeii: it is bigger, it is richer and much much closer to Rome, only 25 minutes tube ride.
This is Ostia Antica Archeological park: the ancient harbor of Rome on the Mediterranean sea with a thousand years of history.
You cannot miss it.
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19/05/2023

A different perspective on the Cestia Pyramid: a view from the "lost poet garden", a step during our tour: Testaccio food market.
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