Discover Italy’s timeless beauty, from Venice’s romantic canals to Rome’s powerful echoes of history, with Dr Molly, in the fifth and last part of her travelogue, for Different Truths.
Venice and Florence exude a nostalgic, romantic, medieval aura.
It reminds us of the Montagues and the Capulets, the two feuding families of Romeo and Juliet, the days of wealthy feudal lords patronising artists. We saw the residences of great artists, Michael Angelo,
Leonardo Da Vinci, Rembrandt and those who worked on those edifices all lent so much glory to Venice. The efflorescence of great art, architecture, sculpture!
Venice was once the epicentre of trade through inland backwaters. How here the ruthless Jew “Merchant of Venice” of Shakespeare existed.
All these thoughts flooded me while I devoured the magnificence of those ancient constructs, the mansions in Venice.
Now the ” gondolas”
The small boats ply, vie with each other through the watery inlets, exposing this glory to tourists.
This was my second visit to these places.
Though this island is thronged with crowds, I noticed it is more regulated these days due to new visa regulations, restraining.
The influx of immigrants. In those days, you needed to take extra care of your valets when you moved around.
How the ancient magnificence is kept aglow! As the strong, undulating waves of the ocean swept over those shores of Venice, flowing through the inlets of its forty small bridges, as we had our walking tour, it was the smell of the past we inhaled, raw and fresh.
Florence still retains the ancient Balcony of Romeo and Juliet, a Shakespearean play, where the lovers bid goodnight.
"Goodnight, goodnight!
Parting is such sorrow.
We can say Goodnight.
Till it be morrow"
On the way to Rome, the slanting Pisa greeted us. There was no visible change in the locale it was situated in.
How the old as gold is kept in all these places, not enamoured by the changing parameters of modernity and growth!
We were in Italy.
My most touching part of the tour was the visit to Assisi, the Santo Franscisco Basilica.
The fact that I was treading the grounds of Assisi, the soil on which St Francis, one of the greatest humanists ever (after Jesus Christ) walked barefoot, hugging poverty, disease, tending, nursing…
He who relinquished wealth to serve the poor!
There on the mountaintop was his Basilica holding his remains. Braving my bad leg, I climbed, reached the high altar decked with Fresco paintings.
Deep down, I stepped through the narrow staircase towards the sacred tomb and to the museum. Everywhere, the excellent paintings and artwork it was rendering a rare spiritual halo. The music was playing. The best in human spirits is akin, be it in art, sculpture, architecture, music… stirring the fine in us.
Prayers soared up from my heart, my flooded eyes were overflowing…
The same feeling I had when I visited St. Antonio Basilica and the Sistine Chapel in the Vatican.
In Rome, we were in Vatican Papal Square. People were queuing up to visit the Sistine Chapel.
Papal mobile police vans moved in sharp vigilance.
We could see lanes, buildings, people jostling against each other…
The charm, the cool, the serenity of previous places had disappeared, and we were experiencing bitter heat. The naive spirituality that we derive from nature evaporated into the heat of institutionalised spirituality there.
The bitter past of Rome, Roman cruelty resonated over the Colosseum, which they retain as part of Roman heritage. Therein lie the narrow chambers as well as the open squares wherein Romans gathered, roaring with glee, seeing the sufferings of humans and animals, fighting, struggling to death.
Gladiator shows!
They say more than eighty thousand slaves, including animals, were put to death by making them fight against each other. Living humans (they called them slaves) bundled up in clothes, standing as candles, when oil drenched, they were alighted as candles. The abominable level of the barbaric cruelty of the Romans of yore!
No wonder we see the repeats of this barbaric inhumanity in the ruthless killings in Ukraine, Gaza and other contemporary war fronts, the same streak.
When will we realise the meaninglessness of war, the futile, greedy zest for domination?
There are places in the world, a great many, that still value the joy of naive togetherness in the lap of nature. Not hurting even the fly, searching for a meaningful coexistence for all.
No, the world is not totally going haywire…if only we can imbibe the best!
As the memories sediment on the floor of my consciousness, I keep on mumbling to myself, the words of John Milton, reframed.
“What if some are lost, everything is not lost.”
Photos by the author
