Imagine this square thronged with tens of thousands of people watching a horse race around the perimeter. This event, called the Palio occurs twice a year.
In case you don't believe a horse race can be held in such a small arena, here is the proof ...
Siena is an attractive city in a picturesque setting ...
As we drove into Rome from the airport along a somewhat decrepit motorway, I could not help musing that the roads that were built by the ancient Romans were a by word for effective, well engineered, long lived construction. I suspected that the Romans of Augustus's era would not have been impressed with this road we were traveling on.
Rome has many direct and indirect reminders of its long history.
We could see the Circus Maximus from our hotel room. See here and here for more information.
In ancient and Imperial times it was used for games, particularly chariot races. Of cause the chariot race in Ben Hur was set in the Circus Maximus.
When we visited there was a large celebration of ancient Rome with many people dressed for the occasion. Naturally Margaret joined in firstly with some "Roman Soldiers" ...
... and then a "barbarian" ...
(As always with my photos click to open then in a new window.)
... was for centuries the center of Roman public life: the site of triumphal processions and elections, venue for public speeches, criminal trials, and gladiatorial matches, and nucleus of commercial affairs. Here statues and monuments commemorated the city's great men. The teeming heart of ancient Rome, it has been called the most celebrated meeting place in the world, and in all history.[1] Located in the small valley between the Palatine and Capitoline Hills, the Forum today is a sprawling ruin of architectural fragments and intermittent archeological excavations attracting numerous sightseers.
The photo below shows Margaret and Philip (her son) and Beverley (Phil's partner) resting in the Forum. (Phil lives in England and we have now met him in three of the great cities of Europe - Madrid, Paris and of cause Rome.
The photograph of the Forurm, below, includes the Arch of Titus (top left corner) which was built to commemorate the capture of Jerusalem by an army led by Titus in AD 70. Titus became emperor in AD 79.
Other nearby landmarks can be seen from the Forum ...
In the background, is the Colosseum, which was completed, incidentally, by Emperor Titus. (Click on the "play" button in the centre of the video - below - to view it.)
More shots of the Colosseum ...
(Remember: click to embiggen.)
All of the attractions that I have so far described are confined to a small area in Rome, but there are many others. Often we would walk down a fairly narrow pedestrian road like the one below ...
... and then come to a square with a view like the one below, the Piazza della Rotonda and the Pantheon ...
The Pantheon was originally a temple for all the pagan gods, but it was converted into a Christian church in 609, which saved it from the damage and destruction that many other ancient Roman buildings suffered.
The Pantheon is famous for its huge dome, with a large hole in the middle, called the oculus. It inspired many other buildings including Brunelleschi's 42-meter dome of Santa Maria del Fiore in Florence, which we saw later in the tour.
Another wonderful surprise is turning a corner and finding Trevi Fountain. Some famous places are surprisingly unimpressive when viewed live, but Trevi is not one of them...
A short walk from Trevi is the Piazza Navona, which in Roman Imperial times was a sports stadium. (It was another of Titus's projects.) The Piazza contains the Fountain of the Four Rivers, by Bernini.
This is a great location for an evening meal ...
... or to browse the paintings on sale ...
Lastly, a night shot of the most famous building in Rome ...
... and here a day shot ...
... St Peters ...
the sale indulgences used to fund St Peters was one of the causes of the Reformation, but in its splendor it was part of the Roman Catholic response to the Reformation - power and beauty ...
The leftmost photo is of Bernini's Baldacchino, a canopy of bronze beneath the Dome. The bronze for the canopy was obtained from the Pantheon.
The other photo is of a mosaic about the deaths of Ananias and Sapphira the details fo which can be found in Acts 5:1-11.
The most beautiful artwork in the whole of the Basilica is undoubtedly Michaelangelo's Pieta. This is a beautiful and moving sculpture. Unfortunately it can only now be seen behind bullet proof glass as in 1972 a mentally disturbed man took to it with a geologist's hammer. I was looking forward to seeing everything I have described so far, but the Peita was my number one priority in coming to Rome.
Naturally we saw Michaelangelo's other masterpiece in the Vatican - the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. That was as wonderful as expected. Photographs were not allowed ...
... but there are many reproductions on the net so here is one of them ...
Of all the many scenes my favourite is the Lybian Sibyl. It is a masterful piece of art:
... but I like the ambiguity: is she twisting to take the book down and pronounce a prophecy or is she putting the book away, and looking towards better ways to spend her time?
This is a three part series by Richard Dawkins, on one of the greatest scientists of all time - Charles Darwin.
It covers Darwin's life, theory and the amazing and absurd opposition to evolution.
In the series Dawkins has two main objectives: arguing the undeniable evidence for evolution and attacking religious belief. In the first episode he works with a science class in a school. He runs across religiously based opposition from some of the students. I would have taken a more accommodationist approach and said something like: "This is a science class and I am not going to oppose your religious beliefs. It is possible to believe in God and also evolution." Dawkins is naturally aware of this argument as he discusses it with the Archbishop of Canterbury in the third episode. Dawkins has very reasonable objections to the argument, but it is not relevant in science class. Once the religiously minded kids accepted basic science they might come around to Lawrence Krauss's position, which I agree with) :
So while scientific rationality does not require atheism, it is by no means irrational to use it as the basis for arguing against the existence of God.
I am sure that Dawkins would see my position as a cop out.
The desperate pig ignorance of the creationists in the third episode is amazing. These people have not the slightest interest in truth or honesty. They smilingly talk nonsense and tell outright lies. Talking to such people is like talking to climate deniers - a total waste of time - because evidence, reason and logic are irrelevant to them.
The last transit of Venus across the face of the sun that will be seen in the lifetime of anyone living at this time occurred today. The next one will be in 2117. Some of my yet to be born great-grandchildren might be around for the next one, but if so they will be very old.
The videos below give some background into the transit and the history of past transits.
Here is an article explaining the science and maths behind the calculation of the distance of the planets, using the transit of Venus.
As the videos explained transits occur in pairs 8 years apart, followed by breaks of either 105 years or 122 years. The current transit is the second in the latest pair, the previous one being in 2004.
The transit before the one in 2004 was in 1882 - yes, there wasn't one transit of Venus in the 20th century. Astronomer William Harkness, of the US Naval Observatory, wrote the following just before the 1882 transit:
We are now on the eve of the second transit of a pair, after which there will be no other until the 21st century of our era has dawned upon the Earth. When the last transit season occurred the intellectual world was awakening from the slumber of ages and that wonderous scientific activity, which has led to our present advanced knowledge was just beginning. What will be the state of science when the next transit season arrives God only knows.
Today I watched the transit on my computer as it was streamed, over the Internet, from telescopes in Hawaii. Although today's transit will provide useful information, it will not help in the major scientific objective of transits before this century, as the scale of the Solar System has been determined by other means. We now know the distances to the other objects in the Solar System by the use of powerful radar pulses sent from our radio telescopes. As well there are satellites circling Mercury and Saturn and others on the way to Mars and Pluto. Further the Opportunity rover is sitting on the edge of Endeavour crater waiting for its next season of exploring on Mars. No one in Harkness's time could have imagined anything like that.
Here are some photographs taken today of the transit (click on them for a larger view):
Venus crossing the limb of the sun at the beginning
About half way through
The following two photos are oriented differently to those above - ie top to bottom.
Venus close to exititing (at the bottom) as a cloud crosses the sun
The transit almost over - Venus can be seen as a little bump at the bottom right
The videos below were constructed from still frames produced by the Solar Dynamics Observatory . Venus in the videos looks transparent, but in fact the light from the sun is being bent around the planet by its atmosphere.
