Week 2

Rome as an Open Air Museum, Exhilarating and Oppressive

In the corner of Rome, near but not quite in sight of the Tiber River, there stands the magnificent and awe inspiring Mausoleum of Augustus. Built in the year 28 B.C., it is expected for such a building to sustain many damages over the years, but recently, a plan was developed and carried out to build a glass building around the Mausoleum so that it may be viewed for thousands of years to come without the effects of smog and dirt from the nearby road. The Italian community did not take too kindly to the modern architecture, however, especially since the view of the Mausoleum was open and free before the glass building was erected, and now there is a fee to enter the museum.
It is possible to see many ancient and historic sites in Rome, from the protested building around Augustus' Tomb, a sidewalk artist who assembles ordinary objects in capturing ways, the Protestant Cemetery, and even the Cat Colony which has existed inside the cemetery since the late 1800's. I have been so lucky as to see these places first hand, to experience the exhilaration, and at times the oppression which radiates from many of these sites.
Augustus' Tomb is one example of an oppression, just as the sidewalk artist across the street is a prime example of Open Air Museums and the exhilaration found in freedom of speech.
The Protestant Cemetery could be argued to be both exhilarating and oppressive, for originally, Protestants, or Non-Catholics in general, could not be buried within the city walls of Rome, Italy. This changed, however, around 1730, and since, poets, writers, artists, or just lovers of Roma, have been buried in what has been described as "charming" and "romantic". Full sculptures of angels can be found resting against tombstones, and the foliage makes the scene a symbol of life lived, rather than death and the memory of the dead. Even quotes from the stones symbolize how the people lived, though it was interesting to read how some of them passed.
Resting in the beds between tombstones, or scurrying between bushes, the Protestant Cemetery is also the home to a colony of cats, so well known as to have their own website and donation box! The cat colony has existed since the late 1800's, and while there is talk of removing them from the cemetery, I would have to argue that they add to the draw of the cemetery. While the smell is enough to make one cringe, it's interesting to watch how unfriendly these felines are, and how skilled they have become at dodging the cemetery's guests.
Traveling through these sites, seeing the things I have so far - I can only remind myself what a gift it is to be surrounded by both the museums we pay to enter, and the freedom of walking past excavated stones on the way to the grocery store, or the aqueducts seen from the train ride to Rome. I also tend to remind whoever I'm walking with, that when we step on certain stones on our way out of campus, we are stepping on pieces of the Appian Way. Rome is certainly, without doubt, an open-air museum within itself. Oppressive, at times, but exhilarating, always.