Seehausen´s Travels The World 2008

Vi fortsætter rundt i Rom, ikke efter noget specielt, men lad os se hvad vi finder

Museum of the Ara Pacis

The Museum of the Ara Pacis belongs to the Sistema dei Musei in Comune of Rome (Italy); it houses the Ara Pacis of Augustus, an ancient monument that was initially inaugurated on January 30, 9 B.C.

Designed by the American architect Richard Meier and built in steel, travertine, glass and plaster, the museum is the first great architectural and urban intervention in the historic centre of Rome since the Fascist era. It is a structure with a triumphal nature, clearly alluding to the style of imperial Rome. Wide glazed surfaces allow the viewer to admire the Ara Pacis with uniform lighting conditions.

The white colour is the trademark of Richard Meier, while the travertine plates decorating part of the building are a consequence of in-progress changes (aluminum surfaces were initially planned), after a design review following controversies with some nostalgia for the previous pavilion that was built in 1938 by the architect Vittorio Ballio Morpurgo.

The challenging design of Meier wants to assert itself in the very hearth of the town, becoming a nerve and transit centre. The complex was intended to include a crosswalk with an underpass linking the museum to the Tiber river; presently the underpass design seems to have been abandoned completely

The building, designed by architect Richard Meier, was inaugurated and opened to the public after seven years of works, on April 21, 2006 (the anniversary of the traditional date of the foundation of Rome).

On the night between May 31 and June 1, 2009, unknown men stained the white outer wall with green and red paint and placed a toilet bowl at the feet of the wall.

On December 12, 2009, a group of activists of Earth First!, during the Copenhagen Summit, colored the water of the fountain green and affixed on the side facing Via Tomacelli a banner saying "Earth First! Act Now". The officers and the employees of the museum intervened immediately removing the banner and emptying the fountain.

The Chiesa del Sacro Cuore di Gesù in Prati (Italian for "Church of the Sacred Heart of Jesus in Prati"), also known as Chiesa del Sacro Cuore del Suffragio (Italian for "Church of the Sacred Heart of the Suffrage"), is a catholic place of worship in the centre of Rome (Italy), rising in the rione Prati, hosting the parish with the same name, entrusted to the Missionaries of the Sacred Heart.

The church, designed by engineer Giuseppe Gualandi, is sometimes referred as the little Milan Cathedral, due to its rich neogothic style

In 1893, the Missionary of the Sacred Heart Victor Jouët, born in Marseille, founded in Rome the Associazione del Sacro Cuore del Suffragio delle Anime del Purgatorio (Italianfor "Association of the Sacred Heart of the Suffrage of the Purgatory Souls"), having the aim to spread the worship to the Sacred Heart and to the Virgin Mary. The former oratory of the Association rose in Via dei Cosmati; a second one, used between 1896 and 1914, was located in Lungotevere Prati, into a ground that the founder had bought in order to build a bigger church, whose foundation stone was blessed in 1894 by Joseph-Jean-Louis Robert, Bishop of Marseille.

The construction of the new church began in 1908 and the design was committed to engineer Giuseppe Gualandi, who chose a style inspired by French Gothic architecture.In 1914, the Association moved to the church of St. Joseph Calasanz in Via Cavallini, since the old chapel was partially demolished in order to allow the completion of the new church; the building, completed in 1917, was blessed and opened to worship on November 1 of the same year. The parish was founded on December 10. On May 17, 1921 the church was consecrated by Pietro Benedetti, Archbishop of Tyre, its first vicar.

Pope John Paul II visited the church on February 1, 1998

Palazzo di Giustizia

The Palace of Justice, Rome (Italian: Palazzo di Giustizia), the seat of the Supreme Court of Cassation and the Judicial Public Library, is located in the Prati district of Rome. It fronts onto the Piazza dei Tribunali, the Via Triboniano, the Piazza Cavour, and the Via Ulpiano. The huge building is popularly called in Italian the Palazzaccio (the bad Palace).

Designed by the Perugia architect Guglielmo Calderini and built between 1888 and 1910, the Palace of Justice is considered one of the grandest of the new buildings which followed the proclamation of Rome as the capital city of the Kingdom of Italy. The foundation stone was laid on 14 March 1888 in the presence of Giuseppe Zanardelli, Minister of Justice and Keeper of the Great Seal, who had insisted on a prestigious location in the Prati district, where various other new court buildings were already going up.

The alluvial soil on which the building sits required a massive concrete platform to support the foundations. Despite this, instability problems developed after the Palace was completed, and settlement led to a need for a painstaking restoration project which was begun in 1970.

The excavations for the foundations unearthed several archaeological finds, including some sarcophagi. In one of these was found the skeleton of a young woman together with a superbly crafted articulated ivory doll, now conserved in the Antiquarium comunale.

On 11 January 1911, twenty-two years after construction began, the building was officially opened in the presence of the King of Italy, Victor Emmanuel III.

The building's unusually large size, astonishing decorations, and long period of construction created the suspicion of corruption. In April 1912 a parliamentary commission was appointed to inquire into the matter and it presented its findings the following year. The affair gave rise to the building's popular and pejorative nickname of Palazzaccio (Bad Palace)

Castel Sant'Angelo

The Mausoleum of Hadrian, usually known as Castel Sant'Angelo (Castle of the Holy Angel), is a towering cylindrical building inParco Adriano, Rome, Italy. It was initially commissioned by the Roman Emperor Hadrian as a mausoleum for himself and his family. The building was later used by the popes as a fortress and castle, and is now a museum. The Castel was once the tallest building in Rome.

The tomb of the Roman emperor Hadrian, also called Hadrian's mole, was erected on the right bank of the Tiber, between 134 and 139 AD. Originally the mausoleum was a decorated cylinder, with a garden top and golden quadriga. Hadrian's ashes were placed here a year after his death in Baiae in 138, together with those of his wife Sabina, and his first adopted son, Lucius Aelius, who also died in 138. Following this, the remains of succeeding emperors were also placed here, the last recorded deposition being Caracalla in 217. The urns containing these ashes were probably placed in what is now known as the Treasury room deep within the building. Hadrian also built the Pons Aelius facing straight onto the mausoleum – it still provides a scenic approach from the center of Rome and the right bank of the Tiber, and is renowned for the Baroque additions of statues of angels holding aloft elements of the Passion of Christ.

Much of the tomb contents and decorations have been lost since the building's conversion to a military fortress in 401 and its subsequent inclusion in the Aurelian Walls by Flavius Augustus Honorius. The urns and ashes were scattered by Visigoth looters during Alaric's sacking of Rome in 410, and the original decorative bronze and stone statuary were thrown down upon the attacking Goths when they besieged Rome in 537, as recounted by Procopius. An unusual survivor, however, is the capstone of a funerary urn (probably that of Hadrian), which made its way to Saint Peter's Basilica, covered the tomb of Otto II and later was incorporated into a massive Renaissance baptistery. The use of spolia from the tomb in the post-Roman period was noted in the 16th century — Giorgio Vasari writes:

...in order to build churches for the use of the Christians, not only were the most honoured temples of the idols [pagan Roman gods] destroyed, but in order to ennoble and decorate Saint Peter's with more ornaments than it then possessed, they took away the stone columns from the tomb of Hadrian, now the castle of Sant'Angelo, as well as many other things which we now see in ruins.

Legend holds that the Archangel Michael appeared atop the mausoleum, sheathing his sword as a sign of the end of the plague of 590, thus lending the castle its present name. A less charitable yet more apt elaboration of the legend, given the militant disposition of this archangel, was heard by the 15th-century traveler who saw an angel statue on the castle roof. He recounts that during a prolonged season of the plague, Pope Gregory I heard that the populace, even Christians, had begun revering a pagan idol at the church of Santa Agata in Suburra. A vision urged the pope to lead a procession to the church. Upon arriving, the idol miraculously fell apart with a clap of thunder. Returning to St Peter's by the Aelian Bridge, the pope had another vision of an angel atop the castle, wiping the blood from his sword on his mantle, and then sheathing it. While the pope interpreted this as a sign that God was appeased, this did not prevent Gregory from destroying more sites of pagan worship in Rome.