After visiting the temple construction site on our first day in Rome, Jennifer and I took a short walk through the area near the train station on the way to find some food I could eat. We walked past the baths of Diocletian, the largest every built. Large they are!
First, if you are interested, is a photo of the sign giving information about the baths. (I was going to put a smaller-sized photo and then you could click if you wanted to read it, but that didn’t seem to work. I’m still learning to managing this blog hosting program.)
We were there too late to go inside, so I only have outside shots.
Update, May 2, 2016 (to create the cat series): The cat of the Baths of Diocletian (bit blurry, but they move fast).
Many years later, Michelangelo was commissioned to turn the ruins of the baths into a church, the Basilica of Santa Maria degli Angeli.
It is, according to a sign in the church, his last unfinished project. (Picture taken in the late afternoon doesn’t show it very well, but you can see the basilica on the left and the Roman bath buildings to the right.)
A few inside shots the basilica…
Michelangelo did want, however, to preserve the simplicity of the Roman arches in the ceiling and wouldn’t have them covered with decoration, marble, or paintings.
He also left the layout of the building intact, so the nave runs “crosswise” from the alter. That is, the alter is in the middle of the long nave as you walk in the front door and not at one end of the nave. (I don’t have a good picture of this effect, but it made the room appear quite different than other churches I have been in.)
For those who play the organ, would you like to try this one?
The floors are as beautifully decorated as the walls.
This was a pleasant place to visit and I would have stayed longer only they closed the doors on us and Jennifer and I went in quest of, you guessed it….
I had baked fish, which was delicious but not a colorful picture, and so you have been spared having to look at it.
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