Return to Rome (misc.) photos

Three trips to Rome have yielded many great experiences but not enough pictures to share it properly. The "miscellaneous" pictures in this section are from various sections of the city and represent various times in its history.

The Tiber River winds in a great S through the city. It is spanned just in the central section by over 15 bridges, some dating to the pre-Christian era. The "old and new" bridges shown here are the Ponte Palatino and the piers belonging to the Pons Aemilius (181 BC to 1598), now called the Ponte Rotto ("Broken Bridge"). The nearby Isola Tiberna marks the legendary spot of the founding of Rome in 734 BC; the island made this the narrowest place to cross the river, and once was used to collect tolls from those navigating the river. The island now houses a hospital and the church containing the tomb of St. Bartholomew, the Apostle (shown).

The Pantheon is the best-preserved building of ancient Rome. It is intact, and its condition might lead one to think that it was built only a hundred years ago instead of in 27 BC by Marcus Agrippa, friend and general of Caesar Augustus. As indicated by its name, it was originally built to glorify the range of pagan gods. In 609 it was presented to the Pope and consecrated as a Christian church (Santa Maria Rotonda). The huge dome ranks as the supreme achievement of Roman interior architecture; its height (143 ft) matches its diameter; it is lit only by a circular opening at the top, 30 feet in diameter. (The floor slopes carefully to drain rain water.) Buried in the Pantheon are King Victor Emmanuel II, the assassinated Umberto I (see picture), and the artist Raphael.

The Theatre of Marcellus was built by Augustus in 17-13 BC and named after his deceased nephew. The curved outer wall of the auditorium, which could seat 14,000, originally had three stories, but the top one was destroyed in the Middle Ages when the theatre was converted into a fortress by the Orisini family. Today, certain portions of the building contain apartments, giving it the claim of being the oldest continuously occupied building in Europe.