La Dolce Vita

Ciao Ragazzi!

Welcome to my first blog post entirely dedicated to Italian food!

First, I'd like to give a shout out to my mom's friend at Little Company, Kathryn, who has a great cooking blog with some great Italian recipes. Mom suggests the Superbowl Chili recipe, and I want to try out among others, the Italian Wedding Soup recipe, looks delicious! We had a big bag of cannellini beans hanging around, so we decided to try out the white bean soup. While we were cooking, the aroma was so tantalizing that the guys from next door sneaked in following the scent and asked if they could stay for dinner! The soup was a huge success! So I took a picture of our Italian reproduction of Kathryn's recipe!

We also had some extra ricotta and extra pesto hanging around, so we mixed it together with grated parmesan cheese to make Kathyrn's Basil Pesto Dip. It goes great with carrot sticks!

Click the link to check out Kathryn's blog, it's called Kathryn Cooks! http://www.kathryncooks.com/

Among regular classes, our school also hosts special extra-curricular classes for students about Italian Culture. I took a really informative wine tasting class (imagine the university pouring students glasses of wine, this would never happen in America!). I also signed up for an Italian cooking class. This was such a great experience! It was hosted by Chef Andrea, from Le Fate restaurant in the Trastevere neighborhood where our school is located. Chef Andrea spent his summer lending his expertise to an Italian restaurant in San Francisco, so he spoke English really well. The cooking class also became a language exchange, where we learned the Italian names for ingredients, and he learned the English! Since it was Fat Tuesday, Andrea put together a special menu, with the holiday's signature Italian pastry, called Frappe in the Rome area. It's like a beignet cracker, so a little taste of New Orleans! There was about 10 of us in the kitchen on the top terrace of school, and together we cooked a four course meal consisting of an appetizer, soup, main dish, and dessert! Andrea said he usually pairs all his courses with wine, but after last class the students stumbled out of campus a bit tipsy, so he wasn't allowed to bring wine anymore! We were all sad at this news, but we were glad enough to be eating such a wonderful meal! It was probably the largest meal we poor students had eaten in months! I'm going to post the recipes Andrea sent us along with their respective pictures so you can try them at home. All of these recipes were surprisingly easy to prepare. We didn't have a fryer, we just fried in a regular pot of oil over the stove! Genevieve, another guy, and I were in charge of the Chicken Cacciatore, and it was really easy to make, and a huge success! Chef Andrea was such a cool guy, we are definitely going to go back to his restaurant for another class and to enjoy some of his specialties!

1. Appetizer: Crocchette di Riso e Patate (Rice and Potato Fritters)
Bring the potatoes to a boil in the water in a large deep saucepan. Add the rice and simmer until the rice is cooked for 15-18 minutes. Drain well and saute the rice with a tablespoon of butter and flavor with saffron if you like it (it’s a delicious tip that will make your fritter taste even better!). Place in a bowl the rice and let it cool down. When potatoes and rice are cold enough, you have to place them into the same bowl and add parsley, Parmesan cheese, egg yolks and season with salt and pepper until you’ll get a firm dough. Roll the fritters into bread crumbs first, then into beaten eggs, and roll them again into bread crumbs to be ready and fry them.
Heat the oil to very hot in a frying pan or deep fryer and fry the fritters in batches until golden brown all over, for about 5-7 minutes per batch. Remove them with a slotted spoon and drain on paper towel to avoid the excess of oil. Serve hot, it’s a great fairy appetizer!!
Ingredients for 5 people would be:
- 1lb (500gr.) of potatoes
- 1 cup (200gr) of Arborio rice (risotto rice)
- 1 teaspoon of saffron
- 1 tablespoon of butter
- 1 tablespoon of finely chopped parsley
- 4 tablespoons of grated Parmesan cheese
- 4 eggs (2 for the dough and 2 for the rolling)
- salt and freshly ground black pepper
- 4 cups (1 litre) of sunflower oil for frying

Making the rice filling "dough"

They are shaped sort of like mozzarella sticks!

They were sooo delicious!

2. First course: Bean Soup with Maltagliati (water and flour dough for the pasta)
In a large frying pan over low heat stir in the "soffritto" made from carrots, celery and onion with E.V. olive oil and cook until it starts to brown. (my note: this is an amazing tip that I think I'll use for all my soup from now on! make the soffritto in a food processor) Turn on the heat over medium-high and stir in some dry white wine and cook it until it'll evaporate (please never use any sweet wine, it's disgusting!). Then you can add your brown beans (in Italian they are called Fagioli Borlotti) that you have to leave into fresh water for at least 12hrs in advance. Use a high flame to make the soup boiling again. Never forget that your beans has to be covered under water. If you have some prosciutto skin (which you can get at the market mostly for free and it's called in Italian "cotenna") I'd suggest you to add into the soup because it's gonna release a delicious taste.
Let them cook for 1 hour and 30minutes minimum, adding fresh herbs like rosemary, bay leaves, sage and salt (if you prefer you can even use chicken stock). Then when it's ready you better blend part of the soup to make it creamer and smooth, then it's time to splash your fresh pasta called Maltagliati.
As I told you in class Maltagliati means literally "not well cut", and this is the reason why this pasta hasn't the same shape and form.
Your soup will be ready in 30/45 minutes. To make the dough you have to mix 450gr/14Oz of flour 00 with about 220gr/6-7Oz of water. Then roll the dough into thin sheets of pasta (if you have you can use a pasta machine, otherwise just using a rolling pin would be fine!). To cook the pasta, when the soup is boiling, toss in few tablespoons of salt with the Maltagliati. Stir to keep the pasta from sticking. Cook for 5 or 6 minutes, until a piece of pasta tastes cooked or "al dente".
As I told you in class this kind of dough, the one without egg, will never be overcooked and it'll always be al dente.....even when you warm it up the day after.

(my note: I realize there's no measurements for ingredients listed for this recipe, all I can suggest is look at another recipe for rough suggestions, or cook the Italian way, throwing in ingredients until it looks good!)

Chopping the veggies...Andrea taught us all the "professional" ways to slice and dice!

Pasta can be rolled out by hand, you don't have to have the special pasta press thingy, although it does make things nice and evenly flat. You can always just throw some bow-tie pasta from the box in the soup instead of making homemade pasta to save time!

Stirring the soup on the stove.

3. Second course: Pollo alla Cacciatora (Chicken Cacciatore)
Rinse the chicken under cold running water and dry with paper towels. Cut into 8-12 pieces to make it like small pieces (like the one I brought with me in class). Actually this is something you can ask the butcher to do for you!
In a large sauce pan you have to saute the onion thinly sliced in the E.V. olive oil until soft, adding few tablespoons of water to make it softer and steamed. Remove the onion from the pan and set aside. If you want many recipes suggests to add the lard (it's the fat from the pig) to the flavored oil, followed by the chicken pieces. In my opinion you can even skip this passage, to make it lighter and healthier like we did in class.
Simmer over slightly higher heat for about 10 minutes, turning frequently. Pour in the dry white wine (never use sweet wine wine, it’s disgusting......so you might use Chardonnay, Sauvignon or some other dry kind of grapes) and cook until evaporates. Add the ripe tomatoes peeled and chopped, 1 cup of large black olives, and reserved onions. Season with salt and pepper. Simmer, stirring at intervals, until the chicken is tender for about 30 minutes. Serve very hot.
P.S: we finished our chicken and let it cook into the oven only because we didn't have much room on the stove.....otherwise you can easily finish it over a sauce pan on the stove as all recipes suggests! Serve hot and use a lot of slices of bread to make "scarpetta"!!!

4. Dessert: Chiacchiere o Frappe (Fried Carnival Cookies)
The reason why I choose to make this dessert yesterday is because:
1. I wanted you all to learn something very traditional like the following cookies that we as Italians cook during Carnival time!
2. Yesterday was Fat Tuesday or s we say in Italian "Martedì Grasso"!!
This dessert is renowned all over the Italian boot as Chiacchere, Bugie or even Frappe in roman tradition.

Ingredients for 5 people: you have to sift 3 cups (450 gr.) of all purpose flour the flour and salt into a large bowl with a pinch of salt. Then you have to mix in 2 eggs, 2 tablespoon of sugar,1 tablespoon of dry white wine (like the Chardonnay I brought in class), 1 tablespoon of E.V. olive oil to form a stiff dough.
Roll the dough out and cut into strips about 1 X 6 inches (2,5 X 1,5cm.). That will be the shape of your frappe.
Now it’s time to heat up the oil, and I’d suggest sunflower oil instead of E.V olive oil for the frying because it’s lighter and less expensive. Heat it up into a deep fryer until very hot. Fry the cookies in a small batches for 5-7 minutes,or until crisp and golden brown. Drain well on paper towel, and dust with lots of icing sugar and serve. As a roman tradition we serve them with honey on top if you like.......as I love it!

Beating eggs the old fashioned way...

Overall it was a great night of good food and good conversation!

Group photo with Chef Andrea

Hope you enjoy the recipes! I'm working on my other posts...am having technical difficulties uploading the pictures. Also, I've heard from some subscribers that you aren't receiving update notices. If this is happening to you too, send me an email. I am going to write to the site administrators to see if it can be worked out!

Ciao ragazzi!

A couple Tuesdays ago our art history class met back up at Roman Forum. During this class, we studied all the buildings that Caesar and Augustus added to the Forum. When Julius Caesar was in power, he added to the forum a Curia/Senate building, a new Rostra (speakers' platform), and his own Basilica. Breaking with tradition, Caesar separated the Rostra from the Senate House, and the Senate House itself doesn't face the Forum Romanum as much as it is aligned with his own Forum next door. By building the new Senate House, Caesar aligned himself with the political heart and administration of Rome.

The Caesarian Senate House

The Rostra must have been pretty cool back in the day, because it was shaped like the prow of a ship. In the ruins, you can see a bunch of holes. The holes were used to display the prows collected as booty from defeated military ships. So basically, the Rostra was like an ancient trophy display. When you stood upon the Rostra to speak, you were standing on the very military heritage of Rome.

Caesar also built his own basilica. But basilicas back then were used for anything and everything except for religious purposes, kind of funny when you think of all the church basilicas that were later designed to model these ones.

An example of a basilica. This basilica is actually the Basilica Aemiliana which is located parallel to Basilica Julia across the Forum. The remains here were built by Augustus, but you'll notice, it's not called the Basilica of Augustus. This is because the basilica was originally built by the Aemiliana family, but tragically burnt down. Augustus was such a nice guy that he rebuilt their basilica for them, and let them keep the namesake. However, he did add an extravagant portico to it that overshadowed the whole basilica itself. Therefore, you couldn't even see the basilica behind Augustus' grand portico. That's right, egotism cloaked in modesty...

When Caesar built, he built thoughtfully. His building works covered all the main bases of Roman administration. He focused on building mostly at the legal and political end of the Forum. But since he was also a Pontifex Maximus, he lived at the other end of the Forum at the Regia, so all in all, he had a very holistic presence in the Forum.

After Caesar was killed, Augustus, only 18 years old at the time, arrived on the scene. Since he was relatively unknown in Rome, he had to campaign against Marcus Aurelius for power. Since he was young, and didn't have any political experience, he based his campaign solely on his familial ties to Caesar. The 1st thing he did, was build a monument to his dear, departed adopted Father. This monument was called the Temple of Divus Julius aka The Temple of the Deified Julius.

This temple, located in front of the Temple of Vesta, faced into the Forum. Caesar was special; unlike all the other dead guys, whose bodies were not allowed to be cremated within city boundaries, Caesar's body was cremated right in the Roman Forum in front of the Regia in front of a huge crowed that turned out for his funeral. With the special cremation of Caesar and the building of the temple, Caesar was deified. This set the trend for the deification of all subsequent emperors. Later on, Augustus built two attachments to this temple. He built an arch over one side called the Parthian Arch. It was built to celebrate his victory over the Parthians, which were a people from what is now roughly, modern Iraq. It had impressive statues over its three portals. He also built an arch on the other side dedicated to his grandsons Gaius and Lucius. Part of the arch still remains today in the Forum.

You can see on the arch the inscription L-Caesaria, which signifies Lucius of the Caesar family. Pretty cool, huh?

This class was packed full with important monuments...but in the interest of time, and since I'm so behind in blog posts, I'm going to skim through them and show you just the pictures.

Prima Porta Augustus- This statue was from Livia's estate where the Garden Frescoes were from as well. This statue is super famous, because it depicts Augustus in his military role. His arm is extended adlocutio (in orator's position) as if he is giving an important speech. In his other hand he holds a spear. His cuirass depicts an important military victory of the Parthanians, and shows how the cosmos support him in his endeavors. Supporting his left leg is Cupid riding a dolphin, symbolizing his naval victory over Mark Anthony at Actium in 31 BC.

The Colosseum from the Palatine Hill

The Temple of Apollo, or at least the mound of rocks from where it used to be...like most monuments we study in class!

Our professor doesn't like it when we take pictures in front of her, but I had to snap this one, she's too funny! Prof. Hansen really has a passion for her field, and she got so excited when she saw this column laying in the middle of the forum. She just had to show us the fabulous yellow color that it was, so she waded into the puddle in her rain boots and splashed water onto the stone to reveal the bright yellow. The Temple of Apollo (see mound of rocks, above) was constructed of these Numidian Yellow Columns (from Africa) with black marble statues of women placed inside. What a color combo! Hopefully now you can understand why I'm so enthusiastic about this class. Her attitude is infectious!

The Forum, in sunlight for once!

I was so excited about the flowers, I had to take a picture, Spring has finally come to Rome!

Buon giorno a tutti!

Today in my art history post, we are going to learn a little bit about the public and private art from the late Republican through the Flavian eras. This day, we had the good fortune of spending the entire class indoors at the Palazzo Massimo Museo, which is known as the National Museum of Rome. This museum was huge (four floors!) and we could only cover a tiny part of it in our 2.5 hour class.

We started by looking at some portraiture of the Late Republic. These "portraits" were actually carved busts. It's called a portrait because each bust represented a specific person. The first portraits we looked at were from the 1st century BC, and known for their "veristic" style.

These portraits are made out of marble, and are called "veristic" because of their realistic quality. These people were carved to look like real people, but even so, they weren't exactly realistic per se... Only rich people (mostly senators) could afford to make portraits of themselves, and since these portraits are a type of self-representation in the public sphere, they have similar characteristics. Their demure expressions and short, modest, haircuts are an expression of their social status. They wanted to represent their wisdom, experience, and therefore, power, in their portrait. This style also shows the Romans' pride in themselves. They didn't want to look like those flippant Greeks, they wanted to show how sensible they were.

There was even a special portrait room in the museum where they had Greek portraits on one wall, and Roman portraits on the other, to emphasize the contrast between the two cultures. In this juxtaposition of Hellenistic against Roman you can see:

the younger, idealized figures, with their casual tilted poses, open mouths, and fabulous flowing hair...

compared with the aged, stern Roman figure, looking straight at you. This "Roman Gaze" lends a sense of connection between the people and the elected officials.

In the same room, was the statue of the Tivoli General.

(they were about to do some restoration work on him when I took this photograph)

This statue dates back from the late 2nd century BC to the early 1st century BC. It's famous because it's a combination of Roman and Hellenistic influences. It's made of Greek marble, and depicts a Roman military man. The statue would have been leaning on a cuirass (breastplate) for support. The removal of the cuirass from the chest was a Greek way of demonstrating heroism. But even though the statue has the Greek signals of military success, the mantel (toga-cloak thing), illustrates Roman modesty. This figure is clothed, unlike the totally nude Greek statues.

The first problem that people find when they see this statue, is that the general's head doesn't match his body. His Roman face portrays an older man, with lines in his forehead, bags under his eyes, etc..., but he has a youthful, idealistic torso that's very common in Greek statues.

So basically, from all this, we know that the statue was likely made by a Greek sculptor hired by a Roman aristocrat.

The next artwork we viewed was a statue of the Via Labicana Augustus. It's called the Via Labicana Augustus in particular because it was found in a private villa on the Via Labicana in 1910.

As I'm sure you've all figured out by now, Octavian Augustus was a really important guy, and basically, the way he is presented in this statue becomes the Augustan stamp. Now, if you ever run across any guy looking like this, you'll know it's Augustus. What makes this figure particularly Augustan is its face and hair. Augustus fashioned an all-new image of the ideal Roman figure, getting rid of that old, veristic style. He's depicted younger, with a softer, although still pensive expression in the face, and with more hair. This Augustus signature hair is combed forward, as in the veristic portraits, but more tousled. He doesn't have the Alexander the Great curly locks going on, but his hair does have movement and volume because it is layered. The most specific sign that this guy is Augustus, is that the hair laying above his nose has two parted locks in opposite directions. It sort of looks like a crab's claw. It opens up his forehead, giving him a more benevolent appearance.

This statue, with Greek marble head and hands, and Italian Luna marble body, shows Augustus dressed as the Pontifex Maximus. The Pontifex Maximum was the head of the religion in Rome. It was mostly a political position though, and after Augustus got it, he changed the rules so that the Emperor automatically got the title of Pontifex Maximus. The Pontifex Maximus lived in the Regia, next to the Temple of Vesta (going all the way back to that 1st Roman Forum class). This religious position remained in place until the first Pope came around as head of the christian Church.

As we walked out of the room, we checked out some portraits of Augustus' wife, Livia. She's also got hallmark hair, called Nodus hair. She has a facial expression that matches her husband, and this portrait becomes the image she will use to depict herself until her death.

As we walked through the museum, I spotted this little golden relief of Alexander the Great, or at least, I vaguely remember my teacher saying it was him, and the wild curly hair is certainly reminiscent of him!

My favorite artworks we discussed on this day, were the Garden Frescoes from the Prima Porta Villa. This villa was actually an entire country-estate just outside of Rome owned by Augustus' wife, Livia.

These frescoes were taken from the walls of the garden room, which was used for dining during the summer and used for special events and entertaining. I guess it was kind of like Rome's Camp David!

What I found so impressive about these frescoes, is how well they are preserved! The color and detail are amazing, and I can't believe they are still so brilliant considering the fact that these walls were painted all the way back in 20 BC!

Part of this is due to the fresco painting technique. There's LOTS of fresco painting in Italy, its created when you paint on plaster that is still wet. As the plaster dries, it soaks up the pigments from the paint, and so the artwork becomes part of the wall itself. As you can imagine, this process makes the artwork very durable, unless you try to clean it with water...and you can see in this room where somebody scrubbed the artwork right off the wall.

These walls give a sense of idealized perfection, an Eden, if you will. Everything in the garden is in full bloom simultaneously. So although this is a realistic looking garden, it's definitely not depicted in real time. The fruit and tress represent the richness, and fertility of the Augustan era, which is reminiscent of the natural abundance depicted on the Ara Pacis. The birds, plants, and fruit accurately portray specific species in extreme detail. There's also a lot of laurel in this artwork, which was the symbolic plant of the god Apollo, and therefore by association, Augustus. Laurel became the symbol of the flourishing of the Roman State under Augustus.

While in this section of the museum, we also passed by some frescoes from the rooms of an ancient Roman villa that was excavated from under John Cabot, our university! The villa is known as the Villa Farnesina, so know I know why the bus stop by school is the Farnesina stop!

Our last stop in the museum jumped ahead a couple decades to the next dynasty in Rome, known as the Flavian Era. We looked at the portrait of Vespasian, and you'll want to know this guy because he was the man in charge of building the Colosseum! Vespasian came to power after this other emperor after Augustus, called Nero, screwed things up and basically let Rome burn down. Vespasian didn't have an aristocratic background, he worked his way up the political ladder from the bottom, and so he emphasized how his political experience and wisdom was a virtue in itself. He was such a nice guy, he undertook a massive rebuilding project after the damages from the fires during Nero's reign. He showed deference to the citizens and the value of their personal property. To advertise how change had now come to Rome, he reintroduced the experienced-looking veristic style. You can tell from the picture he didn't portray himself as a young pretty boy, he depicted himself at his true age of 60 years old. He shows himself bald! Shocking, to a society so obsessed with hair!

All in all, when you think Vespasian, think damage control!

That's all for class on February 24th! Thanks for joining me!

Ciao belli!

I apologize for the long delay in writing! Midterms week is upon us, and I am bogged down with lots of schoolwork!

Two weekends ago, I traveled up to the northern coast of Italy to Venice. It was about a 5 hour trip on the Eurostar High-Speed train. I've got to say, these Europeans really have the train-travel thing down pat; the train was very comfortable, and luckily I slept most of the way.

Carnevale is totally centered around the Church calendar. Basically, the Italians decided that the best way to start Lent would be to throw a huge party for two whole weeks, which finally ends on Fat Tuesday (aka Mardi Gras). I remember my Italian prof at ND telling me that Carnevale literally means "farewell to meat"! This "carnival" has been going on in Venice since 1268!

The festival began as soon as we stepped off the train! We walked out of the train station and into the swarming crowds of people. The air was filled with the sounds of a Peruvian flute group, and there were tons of people dressed up in elaborate costumes and masks! Carnevale this year was called "SENSATION": and themed around the six senses. There are 6 different districts that comprise Venice, and each one was a different sense. Our hostel was located in the Cannaregio district, which is known for its great restaurants and food markets, so its theme was "Gusto" aka "Taste".

We first decided to make our way to our hostel. We decided to book a room at the Venice Fish Hostel, because it was recommended to us by Rick Steves' son, Andy Steves, who is a student at Notre Dame and did the Rome program last spring. Luckily, we had good directions because the Venice Fish is a very unassuming place. There's no sign or anything, it's just an old villa with a little bridge and number by the door! It was run by a younger couple, Mimo and Nina, who were very, very, easy going! When we got in they said we could drop our stuff in the kitchen till our rooms were ready, we could pay whenever, and we MUST get a mask before we came back for dinner that evening because that night they were going to take the whole group to all the hot spots in Venice. So we unloaded our backpacks, and set out to explore!

We were starving, and being the thrifty, frugal students we are, we had brought a loaf of bread and some mozzarella cheese from home. We stopped at the outdoor market for some fresh and sun-dried tomatoes (we're experts at farmers' markets now!) and found a spot in the sun to sit against a building and make ourselves some sandwiches. Unfortunately, we accidentally sat in front of someone's ristorante, so the maître d' shooed us away. We moved down the wall, which I suppose was by the kitchen door, because the chef opened it to have a smoke, and saw us with our peasant meal. He laughed and exclaimed, "Bravi! Bravi!". Apparently he liked our ingenuity!

After eating, we just wandered around the city hoping to end up in the famous Piazza San Marco. Our friends who had been to Venice before warned us that it's IMPOSSIBLE to NOT get lost in Venice. The only routes that run in a straight line are the canals, so as a pedestrian you are at the mercy of zig-zagging through the city to find the few bridges that cross them! The main roads were lined with kiosks of your typical street vendors selling cheap masks and souvenirs (mostly made in China!), but as we were looking around, we spotted a small and quaint mask store down an alleyway. This guy made the masks himself in the shop, and priced his reasonably around the same prices as the masks from the street vendors. I thought this guy's masks were really unique, and I was immediately drawn to a multi-colored one with a pretty little gem on it. It had a vintage flair that I really liked. But, since we had just arrived in the city, we decided to continue searching and come back later if we couldn't find anything better. I told the shopkeeper, "ritorniamo!", "we'll come back!" and we headed back out to the street. Well, as we neared the heart of the city and the famous Rialto bridge, I started noticing that all the shops seemed to sell the same glittery kinds of masks, and I began to worry my mask wouldn't be there when I went back that evening! So i talked to the guys I was traveling with, and luckily they were kind enough to agree to backtrack with me to Cannaregio on my mask shopping quest. We finally got the the shop, and when I walked in, the mask was gone! I was so disappointed! I started looking through all the masks to see if there was a mask similar to the one I wanted, but there weren't any! The shopkeeper, remembering me, said in Italian, "you're the girl who liked that mask..." and walked into his backroom. He came out with the mask I wanted in hand, and said, "I knew you would come back, so I put this one to the side for you." I was so touched! This man was probably the nicest shopkeeper I've ever met, and since my friend also bought a mask, he gave us a special discount!

The Official Carnevale Costume Contest

Now properly disguised, my friends and I walked back out onto the street. We figured we had all day to get to Piazza San Marco, so we put the map away and decided to wander away from the crowds down small alleyways and up and down lots and lots of bridges! I loved Venice! It has a very unique vibe, and it was so nice not to have to deal with traffic! I could walk down the street and not worry about getting killed by a motorino every five seconds! Even so, I don't think I could ever live in Venice, those cute bridges would turn into the "pain in the neck" bridges in no time! Somehow, we managed to wander all the way to the coast, so we paused a moment to appreciate the beautiful views! Eventually, we stopped in at a Caffè Bar for a shot of espresso, but really just so we could use their bathroom! You have to pay to use public bathrooms in Venice, and they're not even that sanitary! We had some great conversation with the bar owners; they told us that Carnevale is nothing like it was in the old days. Apparently, it used to be much better with tons of live music, etc..., but they said it's degenerated into mostly a tourist attraction now. I could see what they meant, overall, Carnevale had the same general feeling as the Taste of Chicago to me. There are TONS of people crammed into a tiny space, not really that much going for it by the way of actual festival events, and the actual people that live there generally try to hide at home and avoid the chaos.

Thanks to the directions given to us by the baristas (we were totally lost!), we finally found Piazza San Marco. It's a HUGE square, with a HUGE basilica in it. You could really tell how awesome Venice must have been in its heyday. It used to be a very, very prosperous sea port, and you can still sense how impressive it was back then. The Piazza was FILLED with people, and there were all kinds of things going on. We stopped at a small stage where they were performing Shakespeare's The Tempest, which was really fun to experience in Italian. The Piazza's also the center of the festival, so it had the main performance stage.

Videos above from Shakespeare's The Tempest

Some crazy ducks!

That evening, we decided to check out another Piazza called Campo Santa Magherita in the "hearing" district of Dorsoduro. There's not much of a nightlife in Venice, and all of the bars are located around this one piazza. Well, of course, on the way there, we got totally lost, so we thought if we just followed wherever the traffic of Italians seemed to be going, we would end up where we needed to go. Well, the Italians didn't lead us to Campo Santa Magherita. We ended up back on the coast at these very large old factory-like building with booming music coming from the inside. Later on, we discovered that it's called Terminal Passeggeri, and during the carnival it's turned into Venice's only discoteca (dance club), for the official Carnevale after party. Even Andy Steves didn't know about this one, he wrote in his Venice guide that there aren't any discotecas on the island! After dropping more cash than I wanted to part with...we got into the club, which was empty! We were early! Apparently, the rest of the Italians were hanging out over at Campo Santa Magherita until the bars closed, and then they moved over to the club. After waiting around for about an hour, there were enough people there that we decided it was time to step out onto the dance floor. But, as I soon figured out, Europeans don't like to dance to music with words and melodies; Discotecas mainly play "House" music, which is just techno beats. It was a little weird, but we went with it and danced the night away!

Saturday, after getting frustrated with wading through the crowds, a group of us decided to check out the island of Murano and escape from the chaos for a bit. Murano is famous for it's glass-making. There's all kinds of glass-making factories on the island. It was about a 30 minute boat ride from Venice, and when we arrived we got to see a glass-blowing demonstration. It was quite impressive! The art of glass-blowing is still exclusively a family business. There's no fine arts school where you can learn how to make blow glass like this, you must be an apprentice to another glass-master in your family.

This guy made a glass vase in the blink of an eye! It was amazing!

Saturday evening we met up with all the other ND kids that were also in Venice (basically, the whole program went down to Venice for the weekend, but stayed in different small groups). We finally actually found Campo Santa Magherita, which was transformed into an outdoor discoteca for the night. There was a famous DJ, and people dancing everywhere! It was fun, but a little scary. The girls and I had an interesting time trying to fend off the Italian men who seemed to find us fascinating, and wanted kisses from the enchanting, belle ragazze americane (beautiful american girls).

Flame Throwers in Santa Magherita

On Sunday, I split from the guys, and decided to join the girls to stop in and check out Bologna on the way back to Rome. Although I loved Venice, I was actually kind of grateful to get out of the city; it seemed even more crowded on Sunday that it had been all weekend! Bologna is famous for its university. Well actually, the whole city is kind of made up of the university. The University of Bologna is the oldest continually operating degree-granting university in the entire WORLD. It was founded all the way back in the 11th century! Unless you're a university student there, Bologna's doesn't really have much by way of sightseeing, but it's a nice day trip. It has a very cool medieval flair. When we arrived, we were surprised to see that they were also celebrating Carnevale, but that day was the Carnevale dei Bambini, the Children's Carnival! There was a cute parade with children's music, and lots and lots of kids dressed up, throwing confetti, spraying silly string, and having the time of their lives! A little later on we were met by a fellow ND student who was studying in Bologna. If I had wanted to study in Italy for an entire school year, I would have had to do the Bologna program and study at the University of Bologna. It was great to see another ND student and to hear her perspective on Italy and living in Bologna. She took us out for dinner at her favorite local osteria, where we got to try the official bolognese sauce on homemade pasta. It tasted incredible, no better place to try it than in Bologna itself!

The Chicken Dance!

Italian Marching Band & Colorguard

We arrived back in Rome around 11pm, exhausted, but with fond memories of a whirlwind of a weekend! There's TONS more pictures in my photo gallery, check them out!

Today in Art History, we met at the Ara Pacis. The Ara Pacis gets a lot of attention around here because it is housed in the first modern building in the Rome city center in over 50 years! Tomorrow we'll be sketching this building in my Rome Sketchbook class.

Ara Pacis Museum

But before we could go into the nice, warm museum, we had to stand outside in the bitter cold for 20 minutes while we studied the Mausoleum of Augustus.

If you remember Augustus from last time, you'll remember that he's the nephew, and adopted son of Julius Caesar, and he took over Rome along with Mark Anthony when his adopted-dad was murdered. Augustus was even more successful than Caesar, and basically, he changes the world as far as the Romans know it.

Augustus moves us from the period of the Republic to the period of the Principate. Augustus was a huge fan of Alexander the Great, the single ruler who managed to conquer most of the Hellenistic World in just 7 years.

So, in an attempt to form an alliance with Mark Anthony, Augustus offers his sister to be Mark Anthony's wife. They get married, and things are peachy until Mark Anthony meets Cleopatra, falls in love, and marries her without letting his old wife know she got the boot! Augustus is obviously livid, and everything comes to a head in 31 BC at the Battle of Actium. Augustus, with the help of his expert military strategist, Agrippa, defeats Mark Anthony.

Now, Augustus is the single ruler of all of Rome. He has a few options: he could take the title of King, but Romans enjoyed kicking the Kings out, so he passed over that idea; he could just be a Roman consul, but then he'd have to share the power, which he no longer considered a good option; he could claim dictatorship, like Caesar, but that ended up getting Caesar killed, so he thought he'd try and avoid that... So Augustus ended up inventing a new title for himself altogether. He called himself a Princeps- a 1st citizen!

Back to the Mausoleum Augustus...so Augustus, with all his glory and power, decides to build his family a nice mausoleum smack dab on the Campus Martius. This is a very competitive statement, because previously, the dead were not allowed to be buried within city limits. This was only used as a particular honor if you were REALLY SPECIAL. Augustus put his mausoleum on the Campus Martius (field of Mars) to associate his family's glory with their military success. Remember, Triumphs began at the Campus Martius, and involved displays of all the captured booty. Well, a pile of booty was also known as a Trophy. Augustus' mausoleum had a circular shape reminiscent of a trophy. Augustus also knew the importance of "location, location, location!" so he puts his mausoleum next to the tightest part of the Tiber river. His mausoleum is situated so that everyone coming into Rome would see it as a marker of the city.

The Mausoleum- unfortunately the whole site is under restoration!

After learning all of this stimulating information, we finally got to go inside! (getting the idea that I was cold? my hands are cracked just from today!!! boo.)

Inside this neat museum, we saw the Ara Pacis Augustae (Augustan Altar of Peace). It is wonderfully reconstructed, so you really get an idea of what it would have looked like back in the glory days.

This monument was also built on the Campus Martius. Basically, what happened was that Augustus was such a suave guy that when he came back to Rome with all his victories and everyone wanted to award him a Triumph, he declined in favor of "modesty", so instead they built him this monument to honor the peace that he brought to Rome through his victories. Every square inch of this monument is decorated with something! It's quite impressive. The four outer sides have panels with important figurative reliefs. The front shows Mars, & Romulus (founder of the city), on one end, and Aeneas (founder of the people) on the other. One side of the monument shows a Procession (so that Augustus still got his Triumph, figuratively speaking), and the other side shows Augustus, Agrippa, & their family members on their way to making a sacrifice. The back of the monument has reliefs depicting the goddess Roma, sitting on a pile of armor (signifying the peace of Rome), and also depicting Tellus, the goddess of fertility, happiness, and abundance (kind of like Mother Earth).

This monument and everything depicted on it is a testament to Augustus, revealing the idea that all of Roman history, leading up to and proceeding from this point, is centered around his glorious ruler-ship.

After studying the Ara Pacis, we walked a couple of blocks to the front of what is now the Italian Parliament building to see the Augustan sundial. The sundial consists of a very large, red granite obelisk, taken from Egypt, that was placed in the middle of a large, ruled square. This sundial, dedicated to Augustus' patron god, Apollo, could tell the time, and the date! Still, it was even better than regular sundials because on important Roman dates, it cast its shadow toward the important monuments around the Campus Martius. The obelisk eventually got off its mark telling the correct time, and eventually fell down and broke. In the Renaissance, they accidentally dug it up, and decided to put it back together where it stands today. It is one of the oldest objects in Rome because it pre-dates Rome.

The inscription reads: "The Emperor Caesar, son of a God, Augustus, Pontifex Maximus, Imperator for the twelfth time, in his eleventh consulship, with tribunician power for the fourteenth time, gave [this] as a gift to the sun when Egypt has been made subject to the Roman people"

The last place we saw is a temple I have been to about a thousand times already. The Pantheon. The Pantheon is right near the Notre Dame architecture school. Marcus Agrippa built the Temple in honor of Augustus, which would make it an "Honorific Temple", but again, Augustus refused the recognition. So instead, Agrippa dedicated the temple "to all the Gods", hence the name "Pantheon". Inside, he put 3 statues, one of Venus, mother of Aeneas and ancestor of Augustus' line, one of Mars, father of Romulus, and also an ancestor of Augustus' line, and one of Julius Caesar the divine, Augustus' father. So you see, although he didn't directly make the temple, "The Temple of Augustus", he basically achieved the same effect by association. The Pantheon is strategically located facing directly across from the doors of Augustus' Mausoleum. This placement lends a divine status to Augustus and his dynasty.

My favorite professor's quote of the day: "So you can see that Augustus was an absolute egomaniac clothed in the appearance of 'modesty'!"