Yes! There is Justice in This World!

We're back in Rome for two more days. We're been giving the town one more go before leaving on the 25th.

There are just a few places we haven't been to. Saint Ignatius is a relatively small church that's over-looked by many. The Jesuits built the church as part of the Roman College. What's of great interest is the art on the ceiling.

As you enter there is a large fresco that depicts both the Earth and heaven. Earth is represented by four women each labeled as a continent (the four the Jesuits had missionary activities in), and heaven is the sky above with a golden light shining down. Sinners and heretics are falling from heaven and past the Earth (going to hell?) This is a great painting employing the renaissance invention of perspective. The depth of the painting is incredible. Your neck gets tired craning up. I wondered if lying on the floor would have been permitted.

As you walk towards the rector, you notice there's something weird about the dome. As you get closer, it appears distorted. That's because it's a painting as well. There are two stories about this illusion. One is that the church was going to have a dome, but some nuns prevented it because it was going to spoil their view of The Vatican. I don't buy this because nuns are low on the Catholic pecking order. The second, and more believable, story is that the church simply didn't have the funds, and so just painted the dome with a forced perspective. The closer you are to the entrance, the better this baroque illusion is.

As I said, this is a church most people don't enter. "Oh, another church in Rome..." That's great for anyone who does bother, it's free, there's no crowd, and it's one of the better churches in Rome.

We found ourselves, once again, at the Pantheon. This will probably be the last time I see the Pantheon. There are too many items on my list of places to see to plan a repeat visit to Rome. We sat on the steps of the fountain in the piazza in front of the building. There are hucksters trying to sell tourists what can only be described as junk. People are eating, and taking pictures. And then I witnessed an atrocity! If there are kids reading this, they should overt their eyes! This atrocity was so... atrocious I felt the need to do violence. But I am a laid back Californian and so resisted the urge. What I saw was a young girl throwing a not even half-eaten cone of gelato in the rubbish bin! Gelato! A national treasure of Italy! In the RUBBISH BIN! I feel faint just typing this.

Then they just walked into the Pantheon. For crying out loud! I mean, I really appreciate the Pantheon. It was one of the reasons we came to Rome, and it certainly wasn't a coincidence that we came to see it again, but it is a couple thousand years old! It will be there in 10 minutes after you've finished your gelato! Where's the fire?

Feeling the urge to do violence, but choosing not to, I sought the help of a priest. Luckily, in Rome, you can't swing a dead pagan without hitting one. I explained the cause of my anguish to the father who asked that I show him the rubbish bin. He anointed the container, and then blessed it. Then he asked me where this little girl went.

We went into the Pantheon, and I pointed out the offenders. The mother had been the instigator of throwing the cone away. The priest explained the errors of her way and then BITCH-SLAPPED her to make sure the lesson was learned. He later told me that when she dies and goes to hell, her punishment is going to be spending eternity buying gelato for little girls who would simply throw them away.

I bought myself a cone and felt much better.

The Bazooka is acting up. It appears to have more pictures on the memory card than it can catalog. When I bought this camera, memory cards were small by today's standards. I'm using a 4 gigabyte card, and shooting like there's no tomorrow. I may need to change my strategy and carry more cards at lower capacities in the future.

[Part of this entry is satire. I'll let you decide which part.]