“A delightful and immersive guide to the city of Rome and the philosophical tradition it embodies concerning the good life, or as we would say today, the meaning of life. Travelers seeking ancient wisdom among the city’s famous buildings and works of art could ask for no better companion.”
—Donald Robertson, author of
How to Think Like a Roman Emperor
a rotating gallery of images and insights related to Rome as a Guide to the Good Life
Pietro Bernini, Fontana della Barcaccia (1627-29), Piazza di Spagna. Pietro Bernini, who died about the time the fountain was completed, probably had help from his famous son Gian Lorenzo in finishing his playful depiction of life as a sinking ship.
Temple of Vesta, Roman Forum. In her essay “Summer of the Statue Storm,” A.E. Stallings says, “For men, ruin is professional and financial. For women, ruin is physical and moral, the loss of virginity or chastity by rape or seduction outside of society-approved marriage. To speak of the ruin of women in the way that we speak of a ruined building might seem a stretch, but in fact virginity was strongly associated with the intact foundation, for instance, of the Roman empire. In ancient Rome, the college of vestal virgins, women pledged to thirty years of chastity from the time they were prepubescent girls, kept the sacred flame that was believed to be the safety of the city.” Vestal virgins caught violating their vow of chastity were buried alive.
Roman Forum. Because Roman philosophy flourished after the Republic collapsed, and Christian theology took shape after the Visigoths sacked Rome, and the Renaissance was discovered in broken statues, and the Baroque was forged after Protestantism attacked Catholicism, and Romanticism was animated by flowers springing from the cracks of fallen temples, and Neorealism invented modern cinema by training its cameras on the devastation left by World War II, my conjecture is that Rome is about the self-knowledge of living in the ruins.
Equestrian Statue of Marcus Aurelius (c. AD 175), Capitoline Museums. In Italian Hours, Henry James writes, “I doubt if any statue of king or captain in the public places of the world has more to commend it to the general heart. Irrecoverable simplicity—residing so in irrecoverable Style—has no sturdier representative.”
Raphael, School of Athens (1509-11), detail, Apostolic Palace in the Vatican Museums. A child holds up his book. Is it because Epicurus expressed a concern for the wellbeing of children? Or because even babies know Epicurus’s central principle that pleasure is the fundamental good? Also, is the philosopher of pleasure getting a massage while writing?
Swift philosophical musings and updates on what I’m fascinated with and working on.
