Get Ready for Rome

The Count of Cavour was one of the Four Fathers of Modern Italy, but this fact becomes interesting only if we know what he did and how he did it. The first part of an answer is that he got the help of France to drive Austria out of northern Italy, which increased Italian independence and took a step in the direction of unification. But did France do this out of love of justice? How did Cavour secure France's help?

We return today to St. Peter's Basilica and do an inventory of the contents of its nave, aisles, and transept. Do its many chapels, altars, statues, and funeral monuments have a unifying theme? I think so. It is the Triumph of the Catholic Church, which then draws our attention to the Protestant Reformation, then raging in Europe as St. Peter's was being built.

Constantine is the central figure in the transformation of the entire Roman Empire from pagan to Christian in the fourth century, but why he initiated this dramatic change is still disputed both by historians and in the art that remembers him. Today we examine the Arch of Constantine to see what it might be able to tell us about the mystery man it honors.

Of Garibaldi's many military adventures and many contributions to the unification of Italy, none was more dramatic or more consequential than his conquest of Sicily and all of southern Italy in 1860. We discuss it in this episode.

Today we visit the Portico of St. Peter's Basilica, and find there--again!--the work of Gian Lorenzo Bernini, Rome's greatest and most prolific Baroque sculptor and architect. We also encounter the emperors Constantine and Charlemagne, who did so much to create Christian Europe.

The famous Roman Historian Tacitus is critical of a Roman emperor and of the Roman people for their enthusiasm for the gladiatorial games held in Roman amphitheaters. We here explore his reasons, which turn out to be very different from those of modern critics of the Romans' cruelty.

We previously looked at the Colosseum as a major and impressive work of ancient architecture, and then reviewed the events the Romans staged in it. Today we raise the difficult but essential question of whether and how we can and should judge the Romans for their bloody games. Can one culture ever judge another, should the Romans be condemned on humanitarian grounds, are the games even more deserving of criticism for their degrading effect on the spectators? These are among the questions we take up.

Today we return to Garibaldi's statue on the Janiculum Hill and review the events that are summarized in the bronze sculpture group on the front of the statue. They represent Luciano Manara and the battle to save the Roman Republic of 1849. But what was this Republic, and what became of it?

We begin with the total destruction of the Old St. Peter's and then visit the center of the Renaissance and Baroque Basilica that replaced it. We find there the Confessio, the high altar, and Bernini's soaring Baldacchino. Surrounding these central elements Bernini placed four huge statues and four associated relics, and nearby he situated a massive "Chair of St. Peter," so important as a defense of papal authority, and matched statues of two powerful popes.

We've discussed the Colosseum as a building, but we have not yet explored the ways the Romans put it to use. Today look at the three main activities staged in Roman Amphitheaters around the Empire, animal hunts, prisoner executions, and gladiatorial combat. We'll also consider their history and the reasons they were important for the actual and aspiring leaders of Ancient Rome.