jumpingfish

1. Leaving Rome

Our train didn’t leave until the middle of the day, so we had time for one last stop: Galleria Doria Pamphilj. Nominally, our objective was the Velazquez portrait of Pope Innocent X. But the gallery captivated us in much the same way that the Phillips Collection in Washington D.C. captivates: it doesn’t feel like a stodgy art museum but rather is a place where you just want to sit and absorb.

We didn’t have much time to sit and absorb but we did. We spent more time there than we had intended, and when we were done, we quickly returned to Hotel Paba, our headquarters for the last three days, gathered our backpacks and suitcases, took the metro to Termini train station where we had reservations for a high speed Frecciarossa train to Florence. 

2. Arriving In Florence

Now my previous experience with Italian trains was not a good one. Admittedly, that experience is several decades old, and … well, things have changed. We found our seats, we stashed our suitcases and backpacks, and we sat in comfort waiting for the train to leave, which it did … on time, something that my dated impressions had not expected.

Did I say that it was a high speed train? It was. At times, we were racing thru the Tuscan countryside at 240 kilometers per hour (about 150 miles per hour). I had hoped that the ride would offer a good view of Tuscany, but much of it was thru tunnels and between walls or berms as we made a bee-line north. Tuscany passed by in a blur.

We arrived in Florence in the afternoon only a few blocks from the Relais Grand Tour, where Giuseppe showed us how to work the three keys and gave us a few suggestions for the next three days.

With our bags stashed in our room and our cash and passports locked in the safe, we headed out to our only objective for the day: the Galleria dell’Accademia.

3. David

“Look,” said Trudy when we walked in the museum, pointing to the right. 

I turned to the left without looking. “I want to save it for last,” I whispered, which we did — saved Michelangelo’s David for last.

And all I can say is, I had no idea. Really, no idea. I felt like a child eating raspberries for the first time.

I mean, I knew about David of course. And I knew about Michelangelo. I had an intellectual understanding. And I knew what he looked like. But I had no idea how truly stunning he is when you stand directly before him. How the greatest sculpture in the history of Western civilization, carved from a block of marble that no one else wanted, towers over you, captivates you, looks away, draws your gaze, makes your jaw go slack.

I had no idea. Now I know.

It will be interesting to see what the fallout of the Volkswagen finagling will be. One certainty, I’ll need to drive my Jetta wagon into the dirt, because I’ll never get anything for it when I sell it. Not after all of this. But frankly, I prefer to drive my cars into the dirt.

And if precedent is a guide, I don’t expect any real consequences other than a fine which the shareholders end up paying while the culpable agents continue to rake in their riches or perhaps (at worst) take a golden parachute and then move on to the next opportunity.

Our culture has been infected by a strain of rabid libertarianism so complete that most of us are incapable of responding to claims that nothing of significance happened here, that no one was harmed, that everyone’s doing it, that in any event what do you want to do, bankrupt the company?

In that vein, I found The Moral Universe of the Corporate Killers to be a welcome relief from the usual rationalizations for corporate malfeasance. This was not a hack to their software. This was not a bug. It was not some fluke. This was a consciously designed component whose only purpose was to allow VW clean diesels to get away with emitting toxic levels of pollutants that kill.

And holy cow, check out the parallels in this clip of Orson Wells playing Harry Lime in The Third Man (hat tip: this comment in that essay):

Don’t be melodramatic. Look down there. Would you really feel any pity if one of those dots stopped moving forever? If I offered you twenty thousand pounds for every dot that stopped, would you really, old man, tell me to keep my money? Or would you calculate how many dots you could afford to spare…?

She’s unsure about pictures like these. Skeptical. I see the roll of her eyes. Yet, I find the geometry … compelling.

As per the schedule sketched out by the fair and industrious Trudy, we got to St. Paul’s in the morning. We stood beneath the gaze of Bernini’s statues on the balustrade of his colonnade.

A long line of people already wound a quarter way around the square, and more were streaming in behind us. There were men in the square arranging chairs in a dense array behind a thin ribbon of fencing. A sign said that due to a ceremony later in the day, the basilica would close at noon. Yet again, Trudy’s planning was top notch.

Inside… well what can I say?

It was massive. Very big. Voluminous. Ornate. Awesome. Guilded. Yes, there was a golden glow and glittering-shining everywhere.

We took our time to try to absorb it, the glittering and shining and the vast spaces overhead and the echoing of our whispers and the cool marble floor. And then we went back outside where Bernini’s statues awaited us.

And in the shade between the curving lines of columns, Trudy plotted our next course

But even there, concealed in the shade between the pillars, we could not escape their judgment and their silent stares.

(I really could not get enough of them.)

Breakfast included a fried egg, that European butter for which bread is only a medium and ice coffee. The fans blew a cooling mist over us. People walked by in the street. Cars and motorbikes beeped and drove by. We rested our weary wheels.

By the time we finished eating, it was late enough to check into our room. While Trudy took a shower, I opened the windows and pushed back the shutters and let the heat and sounds of Rome drift into the room. And at that moment, I kid you not, a man walked up to the sidewalk cafe just below our window and began to play the accordion. (It was as if we were in Italy or something!)

For the rest of the day, we wandered amid ruins, 

stood beneath the wave of Marcus Aurelius

and the gaze of Constantine

and eventually wandered back as the sun was setting on the Colosseum just down the street.

Just down the street!