Museo Capitolini

We had intended--AGAIN--to go to the catacombs today, but once again the transportation gods were not with us.  We took the train to Piazza Venetzia, with intentions of catching the 118 to S. Calisto--the bus that never came.  After an hour of standing in the sun, we had had enough, so we decided on plan B--a trip through the Museo Capitolini.  We strolled through some of the world's greatest art, including monumental sculpture, fabulous tapestry, mosaics and oils from across the centuries.  The piece that made the greatest impression on the girls was a sculpture of Marsysas, done in white and purple veined marble.  Marsyas had the temerity to challenge Apollo, representing that he was a greater musician.  For that hubris, he was flayed alive, and was subsequently depicted in a graphic statue, depicting his intact skin in white marble and his removed skin in purple.  The sculpture is more marvellous than the story, but it was sufficient to impress young ladies! Olivia went in search of giant statues of the emperor Nero--a photograph of whom was particularly requested by her friend, H. (He was, it turns out, as black as his blame, which translates to "black" in Italian.)  Dad was thrilled with the John the Baptist Caravaggio.  What was amazing was that all of these treasures were simply stuck in the middle of a room or hung on a wall with no apparent protection whatsoever.  At one point when Meredith squeezed between a tourist and a bust of a Roman emperor on a pedestal, I had a vision of the bust crashing to the ground, and was relieved when it did not!  Overall today, I would say we have been doing better with Italian.  We were able to carry simple conversations with several Italians to satisfactory conclusions and even got a compliment on our accents (from our new acquaintance, Gabriel.) The other most notable event of the day was the arrival of Scott's suitcase--after having gone missing for 8 days, with nothing missing from inside.  Deo Gratia!