Fête galante

Bonjour!

Here's a little story for you. Three friends get tickets to a piano concerto. And not just any piano concerto, a concerto performed by 19 year old musical prodigy, Augustin Voegele....okay, none of us had any idea who this kid was and honestly we didn't really care. The concerto was being performed inside Palazzo Farnese - also known as the French Embassy - read: impossible to get inside unless you are one of les Français. Palazzo Farnese is one of the many vast palaces that litter Rome, built for a prominent family who happened to have a pope within their ranks in the 16th century. It is home to one of the most amazing ceilings in all of the history of art (secondo me). Now don't get me wrong, it wouldn't exist aesthetically or iconographically without the Sistine ceiling, but I would not be hard pressed to say that Annibale Carracci's Loves of the Gods outdid Michelangelo on this one.

I love this ceiling. It taunts me. The palazzo is located just one piazza over from the UW Rome Center. I sit on the bench outside the building almost everyday to eat my lunch. I lounge at the cafe across the way and stare up at the facade. I pass by the carabinieri constantly stationed outside, giving them flirtatious looks, hoping it will get me somewhere with an entrance. I was elated when I learned that our group was supposed to get a special permission to go inside the embassy to view Annibale's 17th century masterpiece. But alas, the French were feeling a bit ornery that month and denied our visit request. We were all crushed.

On Thursday my friend Lisa calls and says she has three tickets to go to a concert inside Palazzo Farnese. I tell her I'm in. I don't care what the concert is, I'm in. We show up, go through security and are promptly whisked into a room with vast ceilings and copies of famous antiquities. We are then treated to 2 hours of beautiful classical music from the jeune Augustin. The whole time I'm fidgeting in my seat, trying to enjoy the beautiful music, but antsy to know what parts of the palazzo this post-concerto reception are going to open up to me.

Finally it ends. Bravo, bravo. We follow the crowd down the hall. My heart is pounding, I know where we are going. We are in the Galerie des Murano - beautiful Venetian chandeliers are above us; lovely little hors d'oeuvres are set out all around; glasses of champagne abound. I book it out of there and I'm taking off down the hall. I'm looking for Annibale's ceiling. I head around the corner and I'm in a sumptuous sitting room wth tapestries and brocade wallpaper. I keep going and find myself on the terrace of the palazzo. The terrace juts out over the Via Giulia - a street I walk by everyday; it's a terrace I look at everyday. I'm dumbfounded to be standing on it. But no ceiling out here. I head back inside, take a right, then another right....and I've found it. And I'm all alone! Other guests are milling about in the Galerie, oblivious to this specimen of fine art. For a few minutes, I have this fantastic masterpiece all to myself.

After craning my neck for a good long while, I finally catch up with my friends, who had been wondering what the heck had happened to me. It suddenly occurs to all of us that we are starving and we begin wolfing down the lovely culinary offerings as daintily as we possibly can. Why yes, I will have another glass of champagne...and back to Annibale's ceiling I head. One. Track. Mind. Bubbly + art = all set. I will not go into the art historical significance of this work - it could (and does) fill books. All you need know is that it is important and fascinating and marvelous and I love it.

We spent the next two hours looking at the ceiling, wandering the sitting rooms and strolling the terrace - all the while trying to pretend like, yes, we totally belong here. Of course. I take pictures at every embassy party I attend. Don't you? Finally after consuming an unsavory amount of raspberry tarts, we tore ourselves away from the lovely occasion, determined not to be the crazy foreigners - which we pretty much were anyway.

Walking home across the Tiber river with St. Peter's dome glowing in the distance and wafts of jasmine in the air, I couldn't help but feel like the luckiest girl in the world. I know how I sound - I'm gushing and it's a bit nauseating. However, this lofty high is tempered with the knowledge that tomorrow someone on a scooter will try to run me over, and I'll step in some hot garbage, and a tiny old lady will elbow me out of the way at the bakery. And the cycle will be complete. This city can chew you up and spit you out and then scoop you back up in a loving embrace and give you the greatest gifts. Wow, that sounds dysfunctional when I say it like that. Aw Roma, what other adventures are in store?

Bonsoir.