St. Anne's Chapel restored (in Sant' Agostino, Roma)

Hello Friends, Family and Readers,

We are at home in Chicago, and thinking of our return to Rome this coming February. As usual, I have far too many factoids, tales and photos to fit on the Christmas greeting card I am in the midst of preparing, and so am putting the “extra bits” into this blog entry. 

A few of my friends heave a large sigh when they see another posting about something "religious"; to them I offer an apology, and ask for their indulgence. Rome is chock-a-block with churches, chapels, and shrines. Many Italians do not attend services any more, but nonetheless will often come for baptisms, weddings and funerals--the rituals that mark important turning points in human lives. Some individuals still come when they are troubled or need to find peace, so these places are not empty or without meaning. The churches of Rome also provide a small window into historical eras, mainly via the art remaining there from chapels and ex voto gifts. 

The people and the tales behind this church and its chapels and tombs could generate a nifty detective novel and also a dramatic thriller; but that requires a much better writer than myself.  

The Chapel of Sant’Anna in the

 Basilica of Sant’Agostino, Roma. 

First, a couple of maps. Sant'Agostino is in the red circle on the general area google map below. there is a brown line under the Colosseum, lower right, and the Pantheon, center, to help orient you. St. Peter’s Basilica, San Pietro is at the left edge, center height, the Piazza Navona is a long, rounded ended piazza to the lower left of the oval around Sant'Agostino.

It looks HUGE on a map, and feels huge when walking it, especially on a warm day, but the distances are not all that far. From the Piazza Venezia, (the red star), this church is about 2/3 of a mile, or 1 kilometer by foot.

You will notice how the blue line of the Tiber (Tevere) river bends around Rome. The floods in this area were frequent and often devastating; so much so that the ancient Romans did not live in this area. Since the 1880's there are nearly 70 foot high embankments along both sides of the Tiber, which prevent most of the flooding. But buildings erected before then sometimes are high up on a platform, in an attempt to stay dry.

Below is a closer-in satellite view map. Marked with a green underline are the Pantheon, which looks like an ant hill, mid right; and the Piazza Navona, mid left. Sant’Agostino has a green circle around it to show the size of its surrounding monastery. There’s a bit of the Tiber showing in the upper left hand corner, less than 400 feet from the monastery complex and church of Sant'Agostino.

Google maps kindly provided a scale measure 

in the lower right hand corner.

An Overview of the Church itself.

   

This view of the small piazza in front of the church was found on the Augustinian's website www.augnet.org.  It is indeed a small, quiet piazza, at least until you forget to look carefully BOTH ways before stepping where cars can zoom through. 
Notice I did not say "off the sidewalk" -- 
there isn't any in most of older Rome.

Begun in 1479, the present day church was constructed to replace a previous one that proved to be too small for the growing Augustinian monastery, and also too prone to flooding from the nearby Tiber River. 

Cardinal Guillaume d’Estouteville paid for this new church, and had his name carved on the front. (There is a GREAT tale behind this, much further along in this blog.  A hint - his wealth had something to do with his living long enough to participate in five papal conclaves or elections.)

The church’s full name is “Basilica of Saints Trifone and Agostino”, in memory of the much smaller, initial church of St. Trifone, that was later incorporated into the new monastic complex. (I've come across hints that prayers for fertility and children have been offered in this location from earlier pagan times to modern supplicants; again, I'll have to put that "further along" in this blog.)

The new church was finished in four years, an unusually quick pace at the time. This also probably helped it to have its harmonious layout. The monks were also following St. Augustine’s writings about the symbolism of numbers, e.g., twelve pillars (12 tribes of Israel, 12 Apostles), and the list continues. 

Nearly all the third-hand sources I’ve read claim that blocks of travertine that had fallen from the Colosseum were used in the facade and/or the fifteen steps in the front of the church. One scholar did propose that the ruins of the very nearby Stadium of Domitian, now the Piazza Navona, (green rectangle at left of the oval around the church) was a more likely, if less "glamorous" source of these stones.

The Stadium was about 275 meters long and 106 meters wide (about 900 feet long by 350 feet wide), which represents a goodly quantity of stone. Remember it is nearly 2/3 of a mile from the red oval to the red star, and the Colosseum is about that much further to the right.

There's loads more to tell you about the history of this church, but that will be much further down on this blog.

I should mention a bit about the Saint himself. Augustine of Hippo was an early "Father of the Church", one who helped develop doctrine and theology. A Roman citizen born in North Africa in 354 AD, he died in 430 and led a most interesting and unusual life, eventually becoming Bishop of the North African town of Hippo. He wrote many letters, and famous books, and was a leading intellectual light of the early Church. VERY long books have been written about his life and his influence on others through the ages, which I will omit now. If you'd like a fairly compact biography, try visiting

http://justus.anglican.org/resources/bio/50.html

For St. Valentine’s Day, 2004, a city-wide campaign was launched to remove all litter and to clean the stairs of Rome’s 200 most beloved staircases. These stairs were particularly mentioned in the local paper's story as one of Rome's many stair-step rendezvous for lovers, especially because of the Madonna del Parto statue (the Madonna of Childbirth) nearby, just inside the church's main entry.
(2004/Feb/14 La Repubblica)

I can't say if this noble endeavor of a real "spring cleaning" has been repeated in subsequent years. I'll tell you more about the Madonna del Parto statue and its legends further down.

A general view from about 

two thirds up the nave. 

The church has a goodly amount of natural light in it, which is not usual with the earlier, medieval churches. Scholars have pointed out that mid-1800's visitors remarked on comparative darkness of the church after the marble cladding/coloring was added throughout the nave then. 

The large angels above the main altar and also scattered around the church were designed by Bernini in the mid 1600’s. This church holds a surprising number of very fine artworks. It has taken me a while to appreciate this church, mainly because we'd be a bit tired when we would wander into it. Sant'Agostino is about 100 feet from a favorite museum hosted in the Palazzo Altemps, where we gleefully spend many jolly hours, which can leave us too tired to explore the other delights of this neighborhood. 

On our visit this spring, I discovered a local bakery less than two blocks away which has wonderful cannoli at a very reasonable price, which always restores Emil's spirits. 

There are also a couple of very good cafes nearby, too, but I'm taking far too long to even approach the subject at hand! 

This church has chapels, tombs and altars to a variety of saints, philosophers, and well known persons, especially from the 1500’s and 1600’s. I will concede I had not heard of most of them before.

The church houses many tombs including: 

Saint Monica, mother of St. Augustine;

 the humanist poet Maffeo Vegio from Lodi; 

a daughter of Lorenzo the Magnificent, the 

Contessina de 'Medici; 

the Cardinal Girolamo Verallo; and the 

cardinal and humanist Augustinian 
Giles of Viterbo.

The best artists, sculptors, architects and craftsmen of the time worked on this church's original construction and additions. I will show you more later about one of the bigger attractions, a fabulous painting by Caravaggio, shown in situ. He donated it to this church in thanksgiving for being able to claim sanctuary there when he needed protection after killing a man nearby. It's almost a pure soap opera story! More details further down!

A view along one of the side aisles of the nave. There are full chapels along the right wall, some deeper than others. There are also small memorial plaques. I have been regretting my not applying myself as a teen to my Latin classes, which would come in handy now when reading inscriptions, although I can take a mumbly-guess.


Memorial for Adelais Aloisii Binii, who
died in 1868 at age 56. 
The inscription partially says she was devoted to God and to Mary, charitable to the poor, and it seems she was a very good speaker. This memorial is done in the neo-classical style, popular in the 1800's, with a personification of the virtue of self-knowledge, rather than a portrait of the deceased. No, she ain't fixin' her hair. 

The hand mirror is a classical motif for the virtue of being able to see oneself. Self-knowledge is held to be a vital step along the path to wisdom.

The snake, here carefully held by the figure, has since pagan times represented wisdom. For the pagans, this view of a snake is quite the opposite from the Biblical tale of the Garden of Eden and the ensuing, cataclysmic results when Adam and Eve encountered a snake. 

I'm enough of a heathen that I didn't pay a great deal of attention to most of the other tombs and chapels in this church, being a little overwhelmed by the Caravaggio, the chapel below to St. Thomas of Villanova in the transept, and the St. Anne Chapel.

Chapel of St. Thomas of Villanova

True to form, I'm continuing to digress. The below is the underside of the church's dome, above the crossing of the transept and nave. Those odd barriers of grey pipes and beige planks are for the restorers at work in 2010. Somehow $1.5 million Euros (about $1.25 million US dollars) were allocated in 2007 to pay for restorations to fix the ceiling plaster that was literally falling down. It was a long project, and in spring 2015 it seemed to be nearly complete, but not quite. The ceilings were sufficiently unsafe that the church had to be closed to the public for a while when the repairs began.

  

The reason for showing you the dome is to relate it to the Chapel of San Tommaso. The photo on the right is not the clearest photo, but I think it conveys something of the intense decoration of this church. In the left arch of this photo, you will notice something that looks like strong light beams coming through a small high window. It is the netting that was still in place in April 2015 to protect people from falling plaster bits. 

Main altar of St. Thomas of Villanova's chapel. 

Above, two views of a chapel done by associates of Bernini, started two years after the canonization of Saint Thomas of Villanova, a Spanish Augustinian Archbishop. This chapel is in a very important spot in the church, functioning as one of the transepts, or an arm next to the center of the cross-shaped church.

The chapel was worked on in the 1660’s, and there have been later changes and additions. I will concede that the ceiling decorations of this chapel don't help it much, but those were added later. 

I found this chapel breathtaking when I first saw it, especially because of the tenderness of the saint. A brief look now into his life gives me the feeling that even this tender, generous statue understates the character of the man. The saint is shown distributing alms to Dame Charity, a reflection of one of his virtues. 

I'm adding in the above close-up detail photo, in the hope you can see the detail on the marble of the Saint's hand bones, and how he is handing her some coins with a very sweet and humble expression. Dame Charity is usually shown with at least two children, one being nursed. It is due to Bernini's influence that all these textures and little details are here, along with the statues' seeming as if they are breathing, sentient, emotive beings, not mere slabs of marble with interesting shapes. This chapel also is one of the spurs to my learning something about of several of Bernini's principle associates and pupils. 

Very LARGE, very splendid  books have been written about Bernini and also about his highly organized workshop. The works of those artists is almost always recognizable, even when it does devolve into cutesy cherubs, (thankfully, largely absent here). 

(a few basics:  

Gian Lorenzo Bernini, lived from 1598 to 1680. 

Sculptor, architect, painter, he was also the master of a highly organized and efficient workshop. Bernini trained many of the best Roman sculptors of the next two generations, and is cited as the creator of the Baroque style. 

The historian Howard Hibbert, in an Encyclopedia Brittanica entry, called Bernini "the last of Italy's remarkable series of universal geniuses". )

Two more chapels before St. Anne's.

There are two more chapels I want to show you before starting on the Chapel of St. Anne. First is the Chapel of St. Monica, the mother of St. Augustine/Agostino.

This web photo of St. Monica's chapel is from augnet.org.
It is a nicely done chapel, probably better than many, but compared 
to the rest of the church, I didn't bother taking many photos here.  

I did nab this photo of Santa Monica's tomb
during an evening visit. There were usually a few people praying in this chapel, so I would try to avoid interrupting them.

Santa Monica is revered, although she appears to have had a reputation in her lifetime for being overly strict. I was rather certain the below photos were taken in her chapel, but I now doubt this, and can't dredge up an image of whatever chapel this is on the internet to better identify it. So this may not be Santa Monica herself, but still, it was put up in this church for a reason. I hope it was not to "encourage" the young novices into good behavior? 

Some of you may remember the comedian Flip Wilson, 

whose tag line in the 1970’s became part of the American vernacular: 

“the Devil made me do it”.

That "excuse" would bring no mercy from this nun, who is driving devils out of an unfortunate lad. Paintings showing the devil being driven or beaten out of someone were more usual in earlier centuries. I am guessing from its position and style this is from the mid 1800's.

In all fairness, I must add that the little I have seen of the Augustinian monks of this church has impressed me with their kindliness and forbearance with their many visitors. The church, the monastery itself and the library all host a variety of programs for the public, and a goodly number of charitable works.  

Second Chapel:

The shrine to the Madonna del Parto.

For this important shrine, I have only two photos. I didn't know about its background and I didn't grasp its obvious importance of it on earlier visits to this church. Also, there were usually at least a few of the faithful before it, saying their prayers. 

This little chapel is easily missed when you enter, because it is very near the main door. It LOOKS like a Madonna and Child, it is dedicated to the aspect of Mary as a protectress of childbirth (Madonna del Parto) and it was done by a famous sculptor, Andrea Sansovino,  probably as put together using an ancient statue as the core of the work. (If you look up who did the statue, you will also find reference to Andrea's pupil Jacobo Sansovino as the sculptor.)

This photo of the inside of the main entry does undercut my remarks about the general brightness of the church. The chapel for the Madonna del Parto is on the left, behind a brightly lit chandelier. It could not be any closer to the main door, and the view of the nave used to distract me from even noticing this chapel.

Many ancient statues were being literally unearthed in the 1500’s, and often were adapted for contemporary use. This group is believed to be an adaptation of a statue of Agrippina and her son, Nero. Yes, THAT Nero, the infamous Emperor who reigned from 54 to 68 A.D.

Nonetheless, it is a lovely statuary group. I’ve read that in the early 1800’s, a very poor worker prayed here for a child to be safely borne by his wife. Time passed, and she not only delivered a healthy child, but, to an Italian papa’s dream, a son. In gratitude this poor worker bore the expense and care to keep a small oil lamp burning on the altar for decades. 

Word of the "miracle" spread, and soon many others wishing for children came to pray. A ritual developed at the end to their prayers to humbly kiss or touch the left foot of the Madonna. So many devout prayers were offered here over the last two centuries that the Madonna’s left foot has been badly eroded. (The remaining left foot area is now protected by a small metal shield, allowing the faithful to continue their devotions without inadvertently further harming the statue.)

Their answered prayers generated donations of items of great value from the people. The narrow case of silver ex voto donations (on the left edge of the photo) seemingly runs up to Heaven itself. Over the decades, grateful parents would donate valuable necklaces, rings, gems, gold, et cetera. A popular Roman poet in the 1800’s G. G. Belli wrote a sonata in a local dialect about the statue's nearly disappearing beneath this accretion of very valuable gifts. 

This tradition of thank-offerings continues to today, although without the piles of gold and gems, as evidenced by the photos of infants, flowers, heart-shaped blue or pink cushions, et cetera, all in gratitude for the birth (or good health) of a longed-for child. 

There was a major restoration project for this chapel, finished in 2003, paid for partly by direct contributions from the public. 

http://ricerca.repubblica.it/repubblica/archivio/repubblica/2003/09/27/roma-da-scoprire-poi-da-salvare.html?ref=search

The Chapel of St. Anne

This is the chapel that launched my inquiries about Sant'Agostino. A few years ago I stumbled across a reference to an article in a 1980's arts journal, "The Burlington Magazine". The piece was quite an eye-opener for me, and I paid more attention to the chapel when we visited in 2014. 

I THOUGHT I knew more when we were on our 2015 visit to Rome, but I now know I barely knew a fraction of the story as I have been digging around in anticipation of our return trip to Rome in early 2016. There are many, many features and aspects of the church itself, as well as its large library and monastery I need to read about and to visit. 

This is yet another reason why we return to Rome every year, for I can NEVER, ever manage to deeply understand and to know even somewhat familiar places. 

If a person were standing in front of this pier,
the top of their head would not be visible.

Below are two views of the chapel of Sant'Anna, 

the first is from augnet.org, 

looking towards the church's entrance and the 

lower one is a slightly fuzzy 2009 photo 

that I shot from 1/3 of the way up the nave

looking towards the main altar. 

I'm including these photos to give some idea of the scale of the entire piece, comprising Raphael's fresco, the statuary group;  
the altar below is should be visible but isn't. 
It is there; restorations take a while!
NONE of my other photos include the altar,
as it is a fairly neutral modern reconstruction,
and I had not yet grasped its importance to the chapel.

Below is a crossways view of the nave. (The little squibble in the lower right is an adult leaning back to look at the underside of the dome. The diagonal line across the right lower corner is the main altar's communion rail.) 

The piers still have some altars or chapels attached to them. In the mid 1700’s there were so many of these memorials that most of them were cleared out during a general renovation of the church.

The above photo of the pier with a fresco of the Old Testament prophet Ezechiel (added in the mid 1800's along with others on all the piers, ostensibly in a vain attempt to "match" the Raphael fresco) is basically what the St. Anne chapel below devolved into until the 1980's. The 1980's renovations removed the bronze curlicues and frame from the fresco, and removed the cladding that had been added to smooth out the surfaces of the piers. The statuary group of St. Anne, her daughter Mary and the infant Jesus had been moved to a nearby chapel in the mid 1700's renovation and decluttering of the nave, leaving the Prophet Isaiah holding his scroll at an unusual, unfathomable angle over a blank wall which was not at all was Raphael's intention.  

 I've read that the donor, who was fairly wealthy, was taken aback by what Raphael had charged him for the fresco. He groused about the fee to his friend Michelangelo, who rebuked him by replying that the knee of Isaiah alone was worth the price.

The below three photos contain inscriptions at the base of this group. The one I have on the upper left is the dedication in 1512 by the donor Johannes Goritz of Luxembourg. The one on the upper right explains that the statuary group by Andreas Sansovino was moved to a nearby chapel in 1760. The bottom one explains briefly that the recomposition and restoration of this chapel was paid for by Lydia Bonito and her children in memory of Dr. Fedele Bonito, with the dedication date of November 1998.

What the bottom inscription does not say it was a certain Virginia Anne Bonito who did mountains of scholarly detective work, and who moved mountains to convince the authorities to make preliminary investigations about this entire chapel. They soon found that the bronze frame around the fresco covered part of the painting, the niche had been covered over, and that the holes in the niche for support beams matched exactly the holes in the back of the statuary group in a nearby chapel. Ms. Bonito wrote her doctoral dissertation on her researches and on the restoration project.

I am going to pause now, and will resume again soon. 

I'm not kidding, there are loads of 

(interesting at least to me) tales about 

the foundation of this church;

about the special meaning of the parts of this chapel (thanks to the art historian who did ALL the hard work of discovery and restoration);

about the donor of this chapel and the highly intellectual circle that often met in the church and the monastery; 

about who had special permission to attend services in the Church (the high-class courtesans, 

normally banned from any church);

what happened to several courtesan's tombs during the Counter-Reformation crack down on earlier, looser standards;

the lurid tale of Caravaggio's needing sanctuary in the church after a thoughtless street murder; the later "renovations" of the church in the mid 1700s and 1800s, Napoleon's troops causing problems, 

and a few other things! 

End of posting!

Walkies on 4-22-15 - second blog post

Hello again from Roma,

This will be a briefer blog entry, about a walk I took five days ago in the mid-morning. As I was about to board the tram to take me across the Tiber, I remembered I forgot to bring along a small sandwich for my late morning snack. I realized it was a good excuse to buy myself for a couple of dollars two little pieces of delicious pizza at the Pizza Florida on the south end of the Largo Torre Argentina. I'm using that place as the starting point, with a green underline. (Warning, their Piccante pizza is indeed peppery! It may well be a cure for the common cold.)

My objective was the Galleria Spada, closer to the Tiber (red underline). I made a few stops along the way. 

At the bottom of this Google map, you will see the distance scale of 100 meters, which is a little more than 100 yards, the length of an American football field. 

For reference, the Pantheon is a couple of Chicago-sized city blocks north above the wide street near the photo's right, the Tiber is the green streak on the lower left corner.

I tend to be cautious about where and when I drag out my new camera, so I waited until I was out of the heavier street traffic and away from the crush of tourists heading for the Pantheon.

This is a little side street, via Santa Anna. I don't think that church (or chapel) has survived into modern times. At the left is the back end of a larger church, S. Carlo ai Catinari. It's undergoing some repairs and so I have not revisited it this trip. There are many lovely frescoes inside so I'm looking forward to next year to see what's been fixed.

  Here is another side street. The delivery trucks seem to be driven by choreographers, as they try to fit into the narrower back streets 

and to navigate around double or triple parked cars.

(Pink arrow on map.)
If Pizza Florida had been closed, or somehow not had on hand the non-cheese vegetarian pizzas I eat, I could have grabbed a snack at this Forno, or bakery.  It is large inside, bursting with breads, pizzas, and many types of sweets. You always know when you are near this one by the enticing aromas.     

If it is a Thursday, and you want delicious, uncooked potato gnocchi (tiny dumplings), THIS is a great source. Be prepared to come very early before they run out.

This forno is on the via del Monte della Farina, just north of the via Giubbonari. This street's name comes from the early medieval period, when there was a large church-run distribution center for flour for the hungry. 

Via Giubbonari is named after the vest makers who used to be all along it.

The streets zig and zag in this neighborhood, their narrow lanes often opening up to nice views of small piazzas and churches.

  I had enough time, and wanted to revisit this tiny church, dedicated to Saint Barbara.  The below page has information on the church, in Italian.

http://www.romasegreta.it/parione/s-barbara-ai-librari.html

The church dates back to the 10th century, and was built over an earlier chapel from the 6th century. It was built in the ruins of the Theatre of Pompey, a very large theatre built (around 60 BC) by that General who was competing with Julius Caesar for the domination of Rome. 

The short version is Caesar won.

(Blue arrow on map.)

The church of Santa Barbara was redone in 1306, in 1601 and in 1680. According to the website romasegreta, the church had the relics of many saints in a special rotating chamber under the main altar, so the various ones could be more honored at different times, a sign that this was an important place of worship in the medieval period. 

             

The church had been entrusted to various groups over the centuries, but was abandoned in 1878 (after the unification of Italy and the closing of many churches). In 1982 it reopened with an active (albeit small) congregation composed of many of the local people who helped bring this building back to life after nearly 100 years of use as a warehouse.

The painting above the main altar is St. Barbara 

being received into Heaven, after her martyrdom.

The church is built on the "Greek Cross" plan, meaning instead of the more usual T-shaped or cross-shaped floor plan, with one side shorter than the others, this one's arms are all of the same length. I've read that Michaelangelo had originally proposed a Greek Cross floor plan for Saint Peter's basilica, which was later much elongated. (A good thing, given the size of the crowds of pilgrims and visitors.)

The organ in a tiny loft over the entry door is from the 1600's. I was standing near the main altar, so you can see this is indeed a tiny church.

This floor tomb slab is probably from the 

1300's to 1400's.

This three-paneled altarpiece is from the 1400's, showing Mary and Jesus, with Michael the Archangel (stepping in triumph on a dragon/devil) and John the Baptist. A recent cleaning revealed on the steps of Mary's throne the date 1458 and the painter, identified only as Leonardo of Rome.

This fresco shows St. Francis in a state of heavenly blissful revelation, painted by Luigi Garzi, (1638-1721) who did many of the other frescoes here. A quick web check shows he was not a run-of-the-mill painter, 

as there are many other works of his in churches, and 

the collections of the Met Museum in New York

 have some preparatory drawings of his for other works. 

Here's part of the ceiling and another fresco over the main altar, showing poor St. Barbara being done in because she was a Christian.

The SHORT version of her tale is this:  In western Turkey, before the 300's, Barbara was the daughter of a wealthy man. For some reason, she was locked in a tower by her father, (the tower later became her symbol). He left on a long trip, and when he returned, found despite her being locked up, she had become a Christian, which was illegal. Infuriated, he dragged her before the local authorities. She would not renounce her faith. Variations of the tale abound; 

one is while her father was taking her home, he beheaded her. 

A bolt of lightening from above incinerated him immediately. 

Much later, the legend of the lightening bolt endeared her to artillerymen, who chose her for their patron saint. 

Next to one of the side altars is a photo of the new Saint, Padre Pio. I almost missed seeing the short column to the left of the altar. With a small devotional candle and a pot of flowers, I knew this was not for the living. She may have been wearing her bridal dress in the photo. 

Many people end up without even as much as this 1300's tombstone, eroded past recognition, in the threshold of this church. I realized I needed some fresh air and sunshine and proceeded to the museum.

Here is the little piazza in front of the church. Evidently, a small house burned down in the mid 1600's, creating this open space in an otherwise crowded neighborhood. It has been left unbuilt upon ever since. 

The large, former ecclesiastical building on the right is now a high school. An ambulance came careening around corners, and the medics rushed in. 

















A little further along, I had a glimpse of the corner of the church of the Holy Trinity, here barely visible past the arch. This street is the via dei Pettinari (presumably of comb and brush makers, or possibly hair dressers. It leads to the Ponte Sisto, a foot bridge over to Trastevere.

Below, the building on the right comes to a narrow point at this intersection. Yes, there is graffiti in Rome.

Next is another view down the center of the street on the left.

 
I always like walking by this building, which had some of the stucco removed to show the reused ancient columns.

There are several buildings throughout the area that show their ancient columns and fragments. One has to keep an eye peeled to spot some of these. 

 At last! 

The former palace that is now partly a government office 

and partly a museum.

 

The Palazzo Spada houses a very tiny museum, only four large rooms, with some nice paintings, good frescoes, several statues, an incredible decorated courtyard (construction going on now, I'll have to dig out some previous photos) and this great treasure, a false perspective scene created by Borromini, a great architect in the mid 1600's. 

I am going to stop here, because this was supposed to be a SHORTER posting, and, as usual, I've blithered on too long. 

Thanks for wading through to the end of this posting!