141
© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021
M. C. Tobias, J. G. Morrison, On the Nature of Ecological Paradox,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-64526-7_16
Chapter 16
Tatters and Poignancies
16.1 Epiphanies in Rome
Supposedly, here at the lavish basilica of Santa Maria on Rome’s Via Lata, Saints
John, Paul, Peter, and Luke each hid themselves for years at a time under the crypt.
Of course, legends like this are founded under every piece of excavation and reaffirmation within the Eternal City. Inside Santa Maria, there is an exhibition on the
crucifixion. Some things remain the same (Fig. 16.1).
Back out into the glare of day, the street is noisy with cars and pedestrians. We
wander across, into the Galleria Doria Pamphilj, a palace that Nathaniel Hawthorne
called “the most splendid in Rome” in his Italian Notebooks of 1858. The Pamphilj
lacks the grand serenity, or views of Rome’s Villa Medici Palace. Instead, it is centered along the mob-scene that is Via del Corso, one of Rome’s busiest streets, leading directly to the Piazza Venezia abase the Capitoline Hill, with the most imposing
building in all of the city, that blinding white Monument (“wedding cake”) to the
first king of a unified Italy, Vittorio Emanuele II.
Inside the block-long series of the Galleria’s enormous real estate are the residencies of the living heirs. One walks to the modest little ticket booth (this is not
the Louvre) past their cars adjoining the elegant courtyard garden. Everything is
elegant, of course, including all of the original deteriorating silk on many of the
furnishings. The guardian angels of all this magnificent foment are not your normal
armed guards. A stunning informality watches over this lair; and “lovers” are now
and then invited in at a discount, as are all youths. But it is not free, as in the case of
the Prado at present. Such freedom can be crisscrossed with aesthetic twists, beyond
the scope of Diego Velázquez’ “Las Meninas.” Ferdinand VII’s personal toilet greets
museum-goers to the Prado; the real toilet, not some replica, like Marcel Duchamp’s
“Fountain,” of which 14 were made and signed, and still incite ironic commentary.
1
1 Signed and dated, “R. Mutt, 1917” by Duchamp in 1950. See “A 7-Hour, 6-Mile, Round-theMuseum Tour of the Prado,” by Andrew Ferren, The New York Times, March 18, 2019; See also,
“Marcel Duchamp and the Fountain Scandal,” Philadelphia Museum of Art, March 27, 2017,
https://press.philamuseum.org/marcel-duchamp-and-the-fountain-scandal. Accessed March 19,
2019.
© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021
M. C. Tobias, J. G. Morrison, On the Nature of Ecological Paradox,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-64526-7_16
Chapter 16
Tatters and Poignancies
16.1 Epiphanies in Rome
Supposedly, here at the lavish basilica of Santa Maria on Rome’s Via Lata, Saints
John, Paul, Peter, and Luke each hid themselves for years at a time under the crypt.
Of course, legends like this are founded under every piece of excavation and reaffirmation within the Eternal City. Inside Santa Maria, there is an exhibition on the
crucifixion. Some things remain the same (Fig. 16.1).
Back out into the glare of day, the street is noisy with cars and pedestrians. We
wander across, into the Galleria Doria Pamphilj, a palace that Nathaniel Hawthorne
called “the most splendid in Rome” in his Italian Notebooks of 1858. The Pamphilj
lacks the grand serenity, or views of Rome’s Villa Medici Palace. Instead, it is centered along the mob-scene that is Via del Corso, one of Rome’s busiest streets, leading directly to the Piazza Venezia abase the Capitoline Hill, with the most imposing
building in all of the city, that blinding white Monument (“wedding cake”) to the
first king of a unified Italy, Vittorio Emanuele II.
Inside the block-long series of the Galleria’s enormous real estate are the residencies of the living heirs. One walks to the modest little ticket booth (this is not
the Louvre) past their cars adjoining the elegant courtyard garden. Everything is
elegant, of course, including all of the original deteriorating silk on many of the
furnishings. The guardian angels of all this magnificent foment are not your normal
armed guards. A stunning informality watches over this lair; and “lovers” are now
and then invited in at a discount, as are all youths. But it is not free, as in the case of
the Prado at present. Such freedom can be crisscrossed with aesthetic twists, beyond
the scope of Diego Velázquez’ “Las Meninas.” Ferdinand VII’s personal toilet greets
museum-goers to the Prado; the real toilet, not some replica, like Marcel Duchamp’s
“Fountain,” of which 14 were made and signed, and still incite ironic commentary.
1
1 Signed and dated, “R. Mutt, 1917” by Duchamp in 1950. See “A 7-Hour, 6-Mile, Round-theMuseum Tour of the Prado,” by Andrew Ferren, The New York Times, March 18, 2019; See also,
“Marcel Duchamp and the Fountain Scandal,” Philadelphia Museum of Art, March 27, 2017,
https://press.philamuseum.org/marcel-duchamp-and-the-fountain-scandal. Accessed March 19,
2019.