It was such an awesome experience to see "Tosca" in a real Opera house!
This is the back of Santi Giovanni e Paolo. Thursday was such a beautiful day.
The central ring of Santo Stefano Rotondo. Its truly an incredible and unique space, especially considering how old it is.
Inside of Santo Stefano Rotondo. Originally the space in between these columns would have been open to the atrium ring. On the left side you can vaguely make out some of the martyrdom murals.
One of the images from "Triumphs and Laments" on the banks of the Tiber.
A beautiful night view of Ponto Sisto and the dome of St. Peter's in the back.
The campidoglio is one of my favorite spots in the city! I love that these are places I am fortunate to stroll by on a daily basis.
As cool as being in the forum is, getting a view from above is equally as impressive.

I have a short entry this week to compensate for my longer entries. Sunday was restful and allowed me to get caught up on my blog from deadline and fall break. On Monday morning we went to the police station to be fingerprinted for our permit to stay and had class in the afternoon. That evening we had a guest lecturer come and give a talk about the streets of Rome.

Although Tuesday was actually a free day, it was consumed with working on my Architecture History paper where we choose a specific Roman building and examine why and how it was damaged by an earthquake. In the afternoon we went to a local park to draw cypress trees for class and in the evening we went to the opera to see “Tosca”! I had a great time and enjoyed the dramatic plot full of love, lust, murder, and deceit! For my drawing class on Wednesday we did figure drawings from a live model which was a pretty cool experience. After Studio we had another evening lecture for a book release about Robert Venturi’s time in Rome.

On Thursday we went to some of the churches in our neighborhood: Santo Stefano Rotondo, Santa Maria in Domnica, and Santi Giovanni e Paolo. The latter two I had already visited, but I was really looking forward to visiting Santo Stefano since we began learning about it last year. It is an early Christian church with a series of concentric rings in plan. The building would have originally been very open and bright with the circles of columns supporting the roof and lots of windows. Interior and exterior spaces would have meshed with the introduction of an atrium in one of the rings. The church endured lots of additions through history, most of which were structural. The openings in the second ring of columns were walled in and later painted with murals of Christian martyrs, beginning with the first Christian martyr, St. Stephen, the church’s namesake, and progressing through history. The gruesome murals create a stark contrast with the amazing beauty of the church.  For my Italian Experience class we went to the Tiber’s banks to see a large mural called “Triumphs and Laments,” depicting crucial moments in Rome’s history.

Friday was a typical day of both Urbanism and Studio, but in the evening we went to a “meet and greet” aperitivo with third year Cornell architecture students who are also abroad this semester. It was great being able to meet with them and talk about our similarities and differences! Later, a small group of us grabbed a bottle of wine and hung out on the steps of fountain in a piazza in Trastevere, the lively and trendy neighborhood.

I was busy for most of Saturday working on my design projects and my out-of-class drawing assignment. I stopped into Santa Maria Sopra Minerva for a quick peek after finishing my sketch. I also had to pack for our field trip next week to the Veneto, as well as the weekend trip to Budapest immediately after!