May 14, Study Abroad journal

May 14, 2014.  Statue depicting the Tyrrhenian sea with Lupa between his legs attached to the Vittorio Emmanuel monument in Rome.  Artist unknown, started in 1885 and completed in 1911.  The iconography here is comparable to other depictions of bodies of water that are male and usually muscular, but looking off from the viewer.  This statue is one of many depicting the unification of Italy on this monument and the gates were closed in front of it as the following protest came by, which used the same iconography to depict their city.  

May 14, 2014, unknown artist.  Iconography used by protesters to make it clear that Rome is a player in the current crisis.  They emphasize this point by using the iconography associated with their city, a wolf.  

Vittorio Emmanuel monument (wedding cake).  The concept of a unified Italy is something that I always grew up with and took for granted as a country.  It is hard to believe that a country with this much history has a shorter united history than the US.  I think of Rome, ruling the whole known world at one time and then the papal states controlling most of the world, and then Italy is just the next step in the evolution, but I know that there were city states that warred against each other, just never gave any thought to when that changed.  The readings about the unification of Italy were interesting in that I had heard of these people before and knew that they were important to history, but was not aware of why.  Garibaldi’s name is everywhere in Italy and now it is clear how he was important.

I also found it interesting how Rome as a papal state held out against a unified Italy for so long.  It would be like Kansas deciding  that they were separate, surrounded by the rest of the country and the geographical and historical center of the US.  I find it interesting that Italy still has many demonstrations, strikes, and marches throughout the year.  I believe that a demonstration in the US is rare and saved for things of monumental importance like civil 

May 14, 2014.  Relief panel of Trajan's column that depicts the Danube River as a benign body of water that must be forded to get to the fight.  Designed by Apollodorus and erected in 113 CE in memory of Trajan's victories in Dacia.  I believe that this is best remaining survivor depicting the first attempts by politicians to depict themselves in a certain light.  The majority of the column is showing troops fording, building, staging their camp and the defeated leader falls on his own sword, so Trajan doesn't look very vicious in this victory depiction.

  rights, but in Italy a new contract or housing issues create protests and visible dissent.  The US has been having a housing crisis with people being thrown out of their homes that they paid a lot on and no one marched or slept in tents to demand that the banks make this thing right.  I think that is a deficit on our part as a country and speaks to the apathy that we have about our own system.

May 14,2014, unknown artist.  Plaque commissioned by Pope Urban VIII and installed in the Renaissance that makes clear the reason for stripping the bronze from the Pantheon to be used for arms and the baldacchino.  In this plaque, the Pope states that he used materials that were not in use at the time for something that was necessary for the papacy, but Romans were not happy with this change, leading to the most well known pasquinade, "What the barbarians didn't do, the Barberini did".  I like the Barberini bees used as iconography with the papal crest and keys of St. Peter, lest you forget exactly who is making these claims.