In Italian Days, Barbara Grizzuti-Harrison says that one doesn’t have to appreciate ruins to appreciate Rome, but the Baroque? She insists that there’s no loving Rome without loving this fluid, over-the-top period in Church and art history: “otherwise you will think Rome is florid and vulgar and recoil from its extravagance.”
In Trastevere, I visited the Baroque for Ceci —
Around the corner from the Pantheon, I posed before Bernini’s elephant on Tommy’s birthday, and made some poor Englishman take my picture —
After that, I ran over to the Contarelli Chapel in S. Luigi dei Francesi to see this Caravaggio for Matthew:
Callinf of Matthew, SLuigiFrancese
However, it probably wasn’t until yesterday in Palermo that knew I was a convert — in the way I think Charles Ryder means, when he describes Brideshead as his “conversion to the Baroque.”
mebtravelling 