Power and Architecture in Rome: Augustus to Mussolini A Scholar-Led Tour from the Maine Humanities Council March 20 to March 28, 2009
It is our pleasure to introduce a new project of the Maine Humanities Council: a ten-day study tour of Rome with Professor Peter Aicher of the University of Southern Maine, exploring how past leaders used Rome’s urban design to project their political ambitions and cultural values of the period.
This is a very special kind of tour, designed to be both intimate and active. Limited to only 20 participants, it will explore the ancient city, most often on foot, to experience the scale and sense of place in a way that is impossible with larger groups or through the windows of a bus. Peter is a remarkable guide: the author of two acclaimed books about Rome and its architecture, he has developed numerous MHC programs, as well as having led a number of prior trips to Rome with students. He has designed an itinerary that will take us around the city, often off the beaten path, with ample time for individual explorations.
We expect that this tour will sell out quickly, so please reserve [Word document] your place at Hewins Travel soon if you wish to join, as final payment is due by December 15, 2008. We’re fond of noting how the humanities offers a chance to tour the world and its ideas from our own living rooms. This is a chance to go a step further, to see the humanities applied in the context of a great trip, while supporting the humanities in Maine. I hope that you will join us.
For more information, please contact Diane Magras, Director of Development.
Details
This trip is limited to 20 participants. Individual places cost $4,030 for double occupancy and $4,770 for single occupancy (includes a $500 tax-deductible contribution to the Maine Humanities Council). Prices are contingent upon 20 tour members, fuel, government tax, and exchange fluctuations. Surcharges may apply.
This trip includes non-stop round-trip air transportation from Boston to Rome; seven nights at our hotel with a daily breakfast; four group lunches and three group dinners; and, most of all, a scholar-led tour.
All participants will receive books and a packet of readings and architectural illustrations for use on the trip, as well as a list of readings/documentaries/movies useful as preparation for the trip. An orientation evening before the trip will be scheduled in greater Portland. Participants should be prepared for extensive walking on uneven ground. If you have questions about the actvity level, please call Diane Magras at the Maine Humanities Council, (207) 773-5051, ext. 208.
This tour will explore how the Romans’ architectural and urban design developed a sophisticated language to give voice to political power and cultural values. Led by Rome specialist Peter Aicher, we will visit the city and it environs, focusing on three historical moments that profoundly affected the shape of the city today—imperial rule under Augustus, papal rule during the building of St. Peter’s Basilica, and Fascist rule under Mussolini. This will be a pedestrian-centered tour with considerable walking over uneven ground.
Dr. Peter Aicher, Professor of Classics at the University of Southern Maine, has published and lectured widely on the ancient and modern city of Rome, and was a visiting professor at Loyola University’s Rome Center. His books include Rome Alive: A Source-Guide to the Ancient City, comprising his translations with commentary of Greek and Latin eyewitnesses to the ancient city (a standard resource for study-abroad programs in Rome); and the critically acclaimed Guide to the Aqueducts of Ancient Rome. Professor Aicher contributed to and appeared in the NOVA documentary “Secrets of Lost Empires: Roman Bath.” During free afternoons on this tour, participants may explore Rome on their own or join Professor Aicher for an informal exploration of his favorite sites.
Schedule
Leave Boston on a nonstop flight to Rome.
On Saturday morning, we arrive at Fiumicino, Rome’s main airport, built on and around the ancient harbor near the mouth of the Tiber. From here, a private bus will take us to the city center for a group lunch and then check-in at the Hotel Portoghesi. This charming three-star hotel is located on a small street in the heart of Rome, only a short walk (past Giolitti’s gelato shop, be forewarned) from the Pantheon and Piazza Navona. The afternoon’s only scheduled activity is a visit to the nearby Ara Pacis (Altar of Augustan Peace), housed in a new museum designed by American architect Richard Meier. The sculpture decorating the altar, and the exhibits, provide an excellent introduction to Augustan ideals. The power and influence of these ideals are strikingly displayed in the Fascist-era piazza next to the Ara Pacis, surrounding the ruin of the Mausoleum of Augustus. Before we meet again that evening for dinner, participants can rest, or visit the Borghese Gardens above Piazza del Populo a short distance away, or join the Romans for the Saturday evening passegiato on the nearby Corso and the famous Via Condotti.
Our first destination on Sunday is the Capitoline hill, from whose belvederes, once the site of ancient augury, we can survey much of the city. These begin with the beautiful and innovative Piazza di Campidoglio, built to plans designed by Michelangelo to re-orient the hill to face the papal city. We then visit the Capitoline museums, one of the premier collections of ancient art, where participants can wander at will and eat lunch at the terrace cafe. The afternoon takes us down to the Roman Forum and the Forum of Augustus to explore how Caesar and Augustus reshaped the heart of ancient Rome in the image of their dynastic ambitions. Formal activities of the day conclude mid-afternoon in the more park-like setting of the Palatine hill with its gardens and umbrella pines. The Palatine’s imperial past began with Augustus’s calculating purchase of a simple home there, resulting in later emperors expanding imperial residences to cover the entire Palatine (hence our word “palace”). From here, participants are free to visit other nearby sites such as the Colosseum, St. Clemente, Michelangelo’s Statue of Moses, or Trajan’s Markets (to name just a few), or head elsewhere in the city.
Monday is devoted to the Campus Martius. Today a crowded warren of twisting streets emerging onto stunning piazzas with obelisks, churches, fountains, and palazzi, this low-lying area in the bend of the Tiber lay outside the ancient city, a park-like setting for the monuments of Augustus and later emperors. Subsequently abandoned, an impoverished medieval city grew up in the ruins of these monuments with little planning until the early Renaissance, when reviving fortunes, ambitious popes, and the example of ancient glory gradually transformed the city. We will focus on the projects and urban planning of several Renaissance and Baroque popes—Julius II, Paul III, Sixtus V, Alexander VII—who left their mark on the city and who figure again in the building of St. Peter’s. The afternoon and evening are free, perhaps for visits to the numerous museums, fountains, and churches passed during the morning, or simply to wander the streets.
On Tuesday, a private bus will take us to famous and not-so-famous sites on the periphery of Rome. Our first stop is the Ardeatine Caves, site of a memorial to the victims shot here by German soldiers in retaliation for a bombing that killed 35 SS soldiers in downtown Rome the day before. A visit to nearby catacombs conveys both everyday customs of early Christians and the power of martyrdom to create the holy sites that occasioned so much of Roman architecture. Returning from the underworld, we lunch at a restaurant on the Appian Way, after which there is time to explore this ancient road lined with umbrella pines and ruins of aristocrats’ tombs. The bus will then take us to ancient aqueducts in a nearby park, and then to the Foro Italico north of the city. Originally called Foro Mussolini, this complex preserves the city’s most striking display of Fascist propaganda, using mosaics, inscriptions, an obelisk, and architecture to memorialize Italy’s imperial ambitions under Mussolini as the new Augustus.
Wednesday begins with a tour to one of the most astonishing sites in Rome, the necropolis of St. Peter’s Basilica. By special appointment, we will descend to the massive foundation piers of the basilica to walk down an ancient street, past the mausoleums of wealthy families, to the poorer section of the cemetery. There, directly below the center of Michelangelo’s dome, are the bones on which the Roman Catholic Church and the primacy of the Bishop of Rome are founded. Following this, a specialist will guide us through the basilica, focusing on its architectural history. The afternoon and evening are free; participants can linger with Professor Aicher to explore the basilica further, climb the dome for views of the city, or visit the nearby Vatican Museums.
On Thursday, we leave the city on a private bus to visit the countryside outside of Rome. The first stop is Hadrian’s architecturally-renowned imperial villa on the slopes below Tivoli. From here we head upstream along the Anio River, past the sources of Rome’s great aqueducts, to lunch in the village of Subiaco. After lunch we will visit the nearby Santo Speco, a small monastery built on the cliffs around the cave that for three years was the home of St. Benedict, founder of the Benedictine order during the chaos of Rome’s collapse. After a mountain-top visit for views far and wide, we return to Tivoli for dinner, and back to the city.
Friday will offer us an opportunity to explore Rome in a new context. As a group, we will determine what places of interest we would like to see in the city, and, led by Professor Aicher, will spend the day in an informal tour. Participants may also wander on their own. In the evening, the group will be joined by a resident scholar for a lecture on Roman architecture, followed by a farewell dinner.
Return on a nonstop flight from Rome to Boston.
Photos © Peter Aicher (Exceptions: St. Peter’s Basilica ©Sanna Wicks, Augustus Prima Porta ©Hedda Gjerpen)
