“I used to worship the mighty genius of Michael Angelo–that man who was great in poetry, painting, sculpture, architecture–great in every thing he undertook. But I do not want Michael Angelo for breakfast–for luncheon–for dinner–for tea–for supper–for between meals. I like a change, occasionally. In Genoa, he designed every thing; in Milan he or his pupils designed every thing; he designed the Lake of Como; in Padua, Verona, Venice, Bologna, who did we ever hear of, from guides, but Michael Angelo? In Florence, he painted every thing, designed every thing, nearly, and what he didn’t design he used to sit on a favorite stone and look at, and they showed us the stone. In Pisa he designed everything but the old shot-tower, and they would have attributed that to him if it had not been so awfully out of the perpendicular. He designed the piers of Leghorn and the custom house regulations of Civita Vecchia. But, here–here it is frightful.
He designed St. Peter’s; he designed the Pope; he designed the Pantheon, the uniform of the Pope’s soldiers, the Tiber, the Vatican, the Coliseum, the Capitol, the Tarpeian Rock, the Barberini Palace, St. John Lateran, the Campagna, the Appian Way, the Seven Hills, the Baths of Caracalla, the Claudian Aqueduct, the Cloaca Maxima–the eternal bore designed the Eternal City, and unless all men and books do lie, he painted every thing in it!… I never felt so fervently thankful, so soothed, so tranquil, so filled with a blessed peace, as I did yesterday when I learned that Michael Angelo was dead.”
— Mark Twain
— Mark Twain
While other people were intent on seeing the Michaelangelo chapel ceiling, I was, once again, looking down at my feet at what others were missing. These beautiful tiles in the various rooms were broken and bumpy, worn down by the centuries, but to me, they were so incredibly special. The history of Rome was imprinted in their DNA. It was an eerie feeling to walk on the same tiles that, perhaps, the Medici family had walked upon. It gave me shivers!
~ Patty
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