Tuesday, May 24, 2011

Una giornata nel Foro Romano

This may sound silly, but I felt a bit challenged walking through the Roman Forum. The large cobblestoned pathways required most of my attention in order to assure that I did not let my feet fall into the crevices and wind up falling flat on my face. I wonder if Romans are simply used to cobblestones and can wander through the Forum fearlessly with their head held high, focusing fully on all the ruins that surround them. Maybe all Romans are born with catlike balance, or some kind of Super Cobblestone Sense. Anyway, when I wasn't looking at the ground, I was trying to discern all the different ruins from one another. In Ancient Rome it must have been much easier to find one's way around the Forum, since I imagine that the image of a whole building is much easier to remember as a landmark than fragments of one. For me the Forum seemed larger and emptier than I remembered it. I imagine it would be much more crowded with all of the buildings packed in, but the Forum today gives the impression of a wide open space, with pathways running throughout it like veins in a leaf. The space must have felt very different with all of the buildings still standing; now you can see one end of the Forum from the other. I wonder about the visibility back then. The Forum today seems like it would be a terrible hiding place, but perhaps in Ancient Rome one could avoid unwanted company by ducking into a temple...

1 comment:

  1. Liz,

    I like this very much. You're not writing a guidebook or a diary of exactly where you went in the Forum. Rather you offer the reader a sense of your experience -- physical and mental -- in a very controlled and anachronistic space (an ancient site but also a modern archaeological park). I think you're one of the few who really captured the spirit of the exercise. Congratulations.

    This is not to say that there's no work to be done. The piece does peter off at the end, when it really asks to be tied up: maybe pick up on your theme of visibility by pointing to your own simultaneous visibility (because the area is open) and invisibility (because you are a tourist like so many others).

    Also, next time you write a Space and Place entry (in the Vatican Museums), try putting it in the present tense. This move will help you get to the next level, to which you are already very close. Pick a point A and move to point B and describe the journey. I think it might be provocative to hear from you in the moment (or, at least, what passes for a reconstruction of the moment).

    9.5/10

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