On Day 8 we traded the metropolis of more for the somewhat smaller but historical city of Florence.

Florence is a more modern city compared to Rome but it was extremely important during the Renaissance and was very wealthy during that time period. Florence at the time was a republic but it was struggling to keep power after the wealthy Medici family began investing heavily into the area. Soon the Medici would become the true power in Florence until the Florentine government banned them. The Medici were at the height of their power when Lorenzo Medici was leading the family. Lorenzo loved art and had a huge collection of pieces of art privately owned by him. Later on, the Medici family built a museum containing a small amount of art that they had in their collection.

We got to visit this museum that the Medici family created on our day at Florence. There were hundreds of pieces of art there. Many of them depicting scenes of Christianity. There were many pictures of Mary and Jesus but also some with Moses and scenes of the Old Testament. As well as Christian scenes, there were busts and statues of prominent members of the Medici family and people who supported the Medici while they were at their prime.

Florence was a very global city when it came to trade. The city was one of the three superpowers of trade in the Renaissance: Venice Genoa, and Florence, until the discovery of the Americas and the colonization there. They were the hubs for traders in the Mediterranean and were centers of culture and art that hadn’t been seen in Europe since the fall of Rome. Florence is also home to one of the most famous pieces of art and culture in all of the world: the statue of David that was created by Michelangelo. we were lucky enough to take pictures of the statue of David since before last week no one was allowed to photograph the famous icon.

On Day Seven we were back in St. Peter’s Basilica for a tour but this time we were guided around the first floor by our tour guide Jill. We had radios with a headphone in our ear so we could listen to her explain the history on the significant pieces of art clearly. Without it we wouldn’t have been able to hear her because of how many people there were.

There is a lot of fantastic art and statues in  St. Peter’s Basilica. Popes that contributed in some way to the Basilica have statues lining the walls and entire sections of the Basilica.

We also visited the Castel Saint Angelo, which is a castle-like fortress that was built on top of a mausoleum for one of the Roman emperors. Later on, the Christians built a castle on top of it for the Pope, because of its prime location on the Tiber River. There is a secret but extremely obvious passageway that leads from Vatican to the Castel. The Popes use it to move secretly between the two but it was also used when a German tribe sacked the city of Rome so they could get the treasure of the church. The Germans were unable to kill the Pope but were able to kill every single Swiss Guard that was protecting the Pope.

The Castello has been changed into a place for Christians and at the very top is the archangel Gabriel placing his sword back into his scabbard. The Pope during a plague saw this as a sign that the plague is over and told the people that the plague will be gone by tomorrow. Sure enough, no one was sick the next day.

Not only was this a place of holiness but was also one of the key defensive positions for the city of Rome. Its strategic positioning made it impossible to penetrate for hundreds of years. The only way across from land is a single bridge that can easily be attacked from the castle. The castle also has a bird’s eye view of invading armies coming by boat on the Tiber. This made Rome an extremely difficult place to conquer after the castle’s creation and made the Pope and the people of Rome very powerful since they lived in an unconquerable city and was the ruler of the religion that 95% of the people of Europe belonged to.

On day six we had our final class in Rome. Our next and final class is not until we get back to America. In class we talked about how Christianity rose in the Roman Empire and then when it split in the protestant reformation with Martin Luther. From that point on Christianity has split many times based on people having select beliefs. In international relations we had a discussion on multinational corporations and their effects on third world nations and their culture. In some places they reject the invasion of other cultures and this can lead to violence on foreigners and foreign nations.

On our tours today, we only went to the Vatican Museum and the Sistine Chapel but you could spend days going through there and not see everything. Our tour guide told us that if you were to spend one minute looking at every piece of art in the Vatican museum and the Sistine chapel, it would take you 12 years. There are so many amazing pieces of art, all dealing with different aspects of Christianity. The entire museum is designed by Michelangelo and painted by him, his students, and Raphael. Various scenes involve Charlemagne, Jesus and Mary, and various Popes who commissioned different rooms in the Vatican museum. There are also many pagan statues of Apollo, Minerva, and Hercules. These are strange figures since Christianity removed all pagan religions in Europe, America, and parts of Asia.

One of the extremely unique room was the map room that showed various territories that the papacy owned in Italy. We saw the maps from Southern Italy to Northern Italy but we were in the opposite direction from its design. Originally you saw the maps from North to South but they recently changed the entrance to the museum. The map room was the war room for the Pope. The maps have very good detail and it was very interesting to learn that the Church actually engaged in wars and wanted to control all of Italy. It is also very interesting to learn how much the Popes put their names on stuff that they had nothing to do with. They were just the Pope that was alive at the time and the project finished or they needed a portrait of a Pope to be put in the mosaic or painting.

On day four, instead of going to our classroom in the papal university we were in St. Peter’s Basilica as the Pope was doing a bible study and giving a short speech on the church being close to the community. It was an amazing experience but it was very long.

The Vatican translated the speech into a few different languages including English, German, Portuguese, and others. We also visited the circus Maximus which was a gigantic stadium that hosted the top four sports of Rome including foot racing, chariot racing, gladiator fights, and battle reenactments.

Seeing the Pope was our world religions class and experience for the day. The Pope is very involved with the people and before the service began he visited a couple hundred people in the auditorium of the Vatican. He is a very nice person and he has a good relationship with the people. You can tell he is trying to reform the church and try to make it friendlier to its people and the international world.

For our international relations we visited the US embassy to the Holy See. This is not the same as the US embassy to Italy because they are completely different nations and the Vatican is an extremely busy place. They also have the second most amount of relations with 180 countries. Only behind the United States. We specifically talked to the economic advisor in the embassy. This is only her second tour and her first tour was in Haiti. The U.S. is starting a new relationship with the Holy See. President Obama had visited with the Pope only a few months ago. This is the one of the most important head of state in recent history. There is a lot of security at the small US embassy but it’s in a prime location and it was very cool to see one of our national embassy.

On day three we began our day again by going to classes at the Vatican university. This time we found our classroom with ease. In class we talked about the religions in India including Hinduism and Buddhism. We also talked about the impacts of the military, force, and terrorism have in international relations and what the purpose of terrorism is.

After our classes we began our tours in Rome. The main sites we saw were the Pantheon, the Trevy fountain, and various other fountains in Rome. We also saw a few obelisks taken from Egypt and the mausoleum of the first emperor, Augustus Caesar. The site with the most religious aspects was the Pantheon because it was originally a temple to commemorate Augustus but then was turned into a monument that worked like a clock depicting the major Roman gods during its creation.

After the fall or Rome and the beginning of Christianity, it was turned into a large monument to Christ and the Roman gods were removed from their positions. Today, it holds a memorial to Raphael and an altar to Christ is on the far side of the Pantheon. There are also various pictured of other significant Christian figures around the Pantheon.

Our international relations experience was how the Romans felt superior to the Greeks and tried to build better monuments than the Greeks without looking the same. Another international relations experience was watching a world cup game featuring Italy and Uruguay. Soccer, or futbol, is very important to Europeans and is often an example of peace where there often times isn’t any. This was also a way to experience cultures in a way generally not seen in America.

On Day Two we began our day by going to classes at the Vatican university. It took a while to find our room but a friendly priest who spoke really good English helped us find it. After our classes we went to lunch at the café at the university and then went to meet our tour guide Jill. Jill took us to see the Forums near the Coliseum where the Roman Senate was, the ground where Julius Caesar persuaded the citizens to like him, and various monuments to Roman victories.

We also saw some temples to the roman gods Jupiter and Venus, the most powerful gods in the Roman Pantheon. Throughout time the Romans did add more gods that they stole from the Greeks (but changed the names). The Romans would take the gods from areas they conquered and add them to their pantheon so the people just conquered didn’t have to change religions and this way the people accepted Roman rule better than empires that tried to change the local religion. The Romans also collected more money since the citizens of Rome left tributes to the gods – the more gods there are, the more tributes and taxes are given and used to build large projects like the Coliseum.
We also saw various arches in the forum showing Roman victories or important events that happened. An important arch is the one that depicts Constantinople’s vision of Christ and his eventual retaking of Rome. It also depicts Constantinople soon after moving the capital of the Roman Empire from Rome to Constantinople, where present day Istanbul is located. This greatly hurt the ego of Rome and the western half of the empire and damaged the economy, because all projects and buildings were focused around it being the capital and where the government is.

The eastern and western halves of the empire were completely different from each other and had a rivalry. They eventually became almost two separate countries. The people of Greece thought the West was barbaric and the East was wise and the West liked being barbaric and they thought the East sat around philosophizing too much and not doing more important things. This is similar to modern day relations with western and eastern countries except the conflict comes from the west being rich and democratic and the East being socialistic and under Soviet Rule.

We landed in Rome at around 11:00 A.M. Roman time and immediately went to customs to get our passport stamped. After we got our passports stamped we maneuvered through the airport to meet Joshua, one of our tour guides. Once we met Josh he called over a large tour bus that was much more comfortable than the plane ride to Rome. This bus took us to our hotel, Hotel Emmaus where we checked in and threw all of our stuff into our rooms. 15 minutes later we met in the lobby to get some lunch at a restaurant about a block down. After lunch we met our second tour guide Jill who took us to St. Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican.

One of the cool things about St. Peter’s square is that it is the only demilitarized zone that changes borders depending on the day. The square goes back and forth between Italy and the Holy See depending on where the Pope is on that day. In the Vatican we saw many amazing sites, especially at the pergola at the top of the Vatican. From there we could see all of Rome. From the top of the Vatican we could also see the Ethiopian and German college located in the middle of the Vatican. These buildings were there before the Vatican became its own country and therefore they have a right to be there over the people at the Vatican.

The interior of Vatican is amazing but there are an innumerable amounts of stairs to climb to get to the top. At some points the stairwell is only a few feet across and between your head and the ceiling. The large hall is where all the amazing architecture, sculptures, and paintings are in is absolutely gorgeous and lavish. There is gold covering almost everything on the ceiling and marble everywhere. It would be impossible to duplicate it.

Everything in the Vatican is so finely detailed and made out of the best materials that the entire compound is jaw-dropping.