camminando | Roma: Following the Sun and Shadow

The obelisk is located at 41.902245, 12.457274 in the center of the Square. According to the Vatican website (http://www.vatican.va/various/basiliche/san_pietro/it/basilica/esterno.htm) the  red granite obelisk was is 25.31-meter tall on a base of 8.25 meter. It was originally placed on the axis of the Circus of Nero—or Circus of Caligula.

An early interpretation of the relative locations of the circus, and the medieval and current Basilicas of St. Peter. Retrieved from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circus_of_Nero#/media/File:Plan_of_Circus_Neronis_and_St._Peters.gif

The obelisk has a square plan aligned to true north and its shadow acts as a sundial. The surrounding pavement made of sampietrino (beveled basalt stones) and has inserted white marble markers defining a wind rose. The wind rose markers were not added until 1852 during the pontificate of Pius IX.

camminando | Re-visiting the Healing Beauty of Ethernal Roman Urban Spaces

Piazza Campo de' Fiori: the statue of Giordano Bruno by Ettore Ferrari (1889) erected where the Dominican friar (also philosopher, mathematician and poet) was burnt at stake. The inscription in the base reads:
A BRUNO - IL SECOLO DA LUI DIVINATO - QUI DOVE IL ROGO ARSE

While landing at the Leonardo da Vinci international airport,  the pilot welcomes the passengers to Rome, announcing the local time and saying, right after, that "time does not matter, since Rome is the ethernal city".
I truly welcome this remark: for me as well Rome is ethernal, the place of my soul and mind where time stands still in the timeless ruins, art and architecture.
   You don't have to visit the countless museums and churches to become aware of the intoxicating beauty of the ethernal city. Walking becomes not only an act of knowing but also an immersion in beauty and memories-for me both personal and collective.
   I am very much in search for beauty as a means for healing: it seems like everything is falling apart in my life brutally attacked by the power of bureaucracy and dysfunctionality experienced worldwide in three different continents and in three different areas of my life.

Views of the river Tevere

Corso Vittorio Emanuele

Practice | Finding the Axis Mundi in Rome

In this particularly unsettling time, I am trying to find a center; being in Rome, the city where I was born and raised, brings focus even when collective histories are woven within my personal memories.
The phenomenological axis mundi of my existing intersects with the celebrated places in Rome, where the "navel of the world", can be found in many different locations.One of the most remarkable axis mundi is the obelisk in Piazza San Pietro. Located at the center of the elliptical square the obelisk function as a sundial, with the faces aligned to the four cardinal points.