Rome in the time of the Borgias: has anything really changed?

Jeremy Irons as Pope Alexander VI

One of my favorite things about April, besides the glorious boughs of cascading wisteria to be seen (and smelt) all over Rome, is that it heralds the start of one of my favorite guilty pleasures, television drama, The Borgias. Following the life of the most notorious pope in history, The Borgias chronicles the intrigues, scandal, and corruption of the 15th-century Vatican court, featuring plenty of greed, violence and impermissible sex.

Jeremy Irons stars as Rodrigo Borgia, aka Pope Alexander VI, the epitome of corruption, hypocrisy and debauchery, a part he plays with obvious relish. Yet he is somehow able to turn the papa cattivo (evil pope, as he is remembered) into a lovable bad boy, whom we can’t help rooting for. Although the gaunt and ruggedly handsome Irons may be physically contradictory to the actual historic figure (fat and ugly), he does capture the inner qualities the Borgia pope possessed in abundance: magnetism, sensuality, and undeniable charisma. While critics have claimed that The Borgias dulls in comparison to the (even racier, if possible!) German version, Borgia, I can’t imagine a better cast, or one with more titillating chemistry.

The cast of Showtime's The Borgias

Now, I know April is still two months away, but, for some strange reason, I’ve got that family of miscreants on the mind right now, and I just can’t wait for Season Three to begin! Last night I went back and watched the first episode of Season One, which features the conclave of 1492 and the election of Rodrigo Borgia as pope. I couldn’t help comparing the climate of tension, suspicion and political intrigue depicted in that episode to what is going on right across town, in this, the 21st century.

Scandal! Rumors! (Almost) unprecedented occurrences!

No pope has willingly given up his position since 1294 when Celestine V, who had not even participated in his own election, and who had very reluctantly accepted the tiara, resigned after only five months to return to his life as a hermit. Despite a few hints that Benedict XVI may have dropped over the past few years, everyone was shocked when he announced on 11 February that he would be resigning, effective 28 February. While I won’t comment on my suppositions as to why the pope has chosen to resign (I prefer not to get too political on this blog), from the church’s official line to the most disparaging journalists, and everywhere in between, everyone has an opinion. Rumors are swirling and many of them are not pretty.

The headline in this morning’s La Repubblica read, “Sesso e carriera, i ricatti in Vaticano dietro la rinuncia di Benedetto XVI” (Sex and career: the Vatican extortion behind the resignation of Benedict XVI). With the “Vatileaks” debacle early last year that saw the pope’s butler thrown into a medieval prison, the on-going sex abuse scandals, accusations of money-laundering, and now this, who needs the hi-jinks of Alexander VI, Lucrezia Borgia and Giulia Farnese? We’ve got enough disrepute to rival the Borgia pope himself.

Jeremy Irons as Pope Alexander VI and Lotte Verbeek as Giulia Farnese

Over 500 years have passed from the time of the Borgia pope, but has life in Italy really changed that much? This is a question I have asked myself many times since I moved here and began studying Renaissance Rome and papal history. With the secrecy and intrigue within the Vatican, the rampant corruption on every level of society, a political system that still gives credence to buffoons  like Berlusconi, and a class divide that is turning into an impassable chasm, sometimes I feel it hasn’t changed at all.

Case in point: When a young priest secured the undivided attentions of his delicious teenage sister, Giulia Farnese, for the newly crowned Alexander VI, the grateful pontiff thanked him with a coveted cardinal’s hat (the key to wealth and power in Renaissance Italy). Not surprisingly, Cardinal Farnese became pope himself in his time, although he could never shake the ridiculous circumstances of his rise to power, and was laughingly referred to as Cardinal Petticoat.

This could be likened to the case of the 25-year-old showgirl with (surprise surprise) no political experience, who was nevertheless elected to Italian parliament thanks to her inclusion on the ticket of the president of the region of Lombardia. How did she end up on that ticket? It seems it was “wanted at any cost” by then-premier Berlusconi. Don’t worry, she didn’t serve long; she was eventually indicted for her part in providing him with an underage prostitute.

This is just one example, but parallels between Renaissance Rome and today’s Rome can be drawn with sickening ease. With the parliamentary elections this weekend, it’s looking more and more like nothing is going to be changing in the near future. So I suggest you grab a bowl of popcorn and find a good seat. The new season of The Borgias may not start until April, but with the pope’s resignation and the upcoming conclave, we are about to witness a piece of history, and Showtime’s got nothing on it.

Stay tuned for more posts as I follow the Pope's (nearly) unprecedented resignation and the exciting conclave that will follow!

Image sources: 1, 2, 3, 4

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Life in Italy, in a nutshell

My darlings, I have something wonderful to share with you today. (I know that about this time you are expecting a post about tempting frappe or those sinfully delectable castagnole, but you'll have to hold off a just a little longer!) This is one of the first, and very few, YouTube videos I will ever post on this blog. Trust me that I would not be sharing this with you if it were not so uncannily illustrative of the soul of the Italian people.

Yesterday, in a small town just outside Naples, a slightly-past middle-aged man was parking his car. Take this situation out of Italy and you're left with an uneventful couple of minutes that will be forgotten before the emergency  brake is on.

But in Italy, nothing is ever simple. And rarely is it boring. Frustrating, yes, gnash-your-teeth-and-tear-your-hair-out maddening, oh, hell yeah. But boring, no.

I know you're sitting there reading this, thinking: a man parks a car, and she thinks it's entertaining? What could possibly happen to make a man parking a car interesting? Could this really be worth 9 (sorry) minutes of my time?

The answer is yes.

This one little video sums up the entire country of Italy. On the surface, it shows how bereft of basic driving skills some of its inhabitants are. But it's much deeper than that. It illustrates the undying bond between an older man and his even older mother. It showcases the indignant outrage that can be inspired in a man who is clearly in the wrong yet blames everyone else around him. It tells of motorcycle gangs who strap whole hocks of prosciutto to the backs of their bikes. It shows how any occasion can be an opportunity to make a dramatic and impassioned scene and how even the simplest tasks cannot and must not ever be completed easily or quickly. It shows how everyone has an opinion on what should be done, yet somehow, nothing gets done. It reminds us that nothing can be resolved without the benevolent help of the Church. But most of all, it shows that Italians, so quick to anger, throw up their hands and scream curses in dialect, are the very same ones who will, a moment later, laugh, cheer and throw you a flower.

P.S. Please note: they are all parked on the sidewalk. Good to know it's not just Rome.

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First day of Carnevale in Rome

Flight of the Churches, Brigid Marlin

Carnevale kicks off today, and in honor of that colorful, vivacious, and heady festival, I couldn't help but share with you this gorgeous work of art. Carnevale will be forever linked with Venice (even though it did not originate there) and this fantastical image of Byzantine balloon-churches taking off from Piazza San Marco somehow reminds me of the unforgettable Carnevale I spent in that amazing city in 2005. The painting is the work of Brigid Marlin, an American artist born in 1936 who has been described as the first in a new generation of surrealist artists.   

But this is The Pines of Rome, not The Pines of Venice, and it's been many years since I have visited La Serenissima. Instead, I am going to extol the virtues of Roman Carnevale. It's pretty fantastic, if I do say so myself.

I plan to post a few times over the next ten days of the "holiday", about the traditions, the events and, perhaps best of all, the sweets that make Carnevale Romano just about the most wonderful time of the year. But until then, I leave you with this little taste that I encountered, almost by chance, on my afternoon walk today.

For a bit of background on Roman Carnevale, check out last year's post: Eat, drink, and be merry! Carnival in Rome.

Image sources: 1; 2 and 3, by author

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100 years of Renato Guttuso

Self-portrait, Renato Guttuso, 1975. Collezione Archivi Guttuso, Roma

Hello, lovelies!  I am determined to make up for the dearth of exhibit-themed posts on the blog lately. Hopefully you had a chance to catch Paul Klee in Italy before it closed on Sunday! Another exhibition that won't be around much longer is the Vittoriano's celebration of 100 years of Renato Guttuso, ending 10 February.

I funerali di Togliatti, Renato Guttuso, 1972. Museo d'Arte Moderna di Bologna.

Born near Palermo, Sicily in 1911, Guttuso was greatly infulenced by Socialist Realism but developed his own unique painting style that, late in his career, tended toward Surrealism. He passionately opposed fascism and the mafia, and joined the banned Italian Communist Party in 1940. He considered himself a political painter and his works often expressed his beliefs and positions, for example the above homage to the exiled leader of the communist party, Palmiro Togliatti.

La Vucciria, Renato Guttuso, 1974. Università degli Studi di Palermo 

This is my favorite work in the exhibition. It transported me back to my solo visit to Palermo back in 2007, when I spent long days exploring every angle of that rich, fascinating city. One of the best ways to get to know a city is to visit its markets, and historic Vucciria is one of the most colorful, lively and authentic city markets in the country. Vucciria has come to mean 'confusion' in Sicialian dialect, although it originally derived from the French word boucherie or 'butcher shop'. Guttuso's depiction has captured the ordered chaos of this magical place where the flavors and scents of that magnificent island mingle together, mirroring the diversity of its people and its long history.

For visiting information, see my Exhibits on Now page.

All images are provided courtesy of Comunicare Organizzando and may not be reproduced without permission.

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Tullus Hostilius: The Hostile Third King of Rome

If I never become known for anything else, at least I can claim the honor of having written the most blog posts about Rome’s second king, Numa Pompilius, than any other blogger in the world. (Not that I’ve ever checked that. I just can’t imagine anyone else––save an actual scholar––coming up with so much to say about him). Now, whether anyone reads these posts is another story. Here’s hoping.

I started my [ahem] weekly history posts a good two years ago, with the legendary founding of Rome by Romulus. Two years later and I’m only up to Rome’s third king. Not very impressive. But it’s quality, not quantity, that matters, am I right?

Tullus Hostilius. Let’s see if we can dissect this guy’s reign with just one post (don’t count on it).

If our old––and by now very close––friend Numa Pompilius was the most religious of all Rome’s kings, and the most peaceful, then Tullus Hostilius was the most aggressive. The most bloodthirsty. The most hostile. Hostile Hostilius! Could that be where the word comes from? Oh, goodness, etymology gets me so excited! With but a moment’s worth of Google-powered research, I see that hostile comes from the Latin hostilis (of an enemy), which in turn comes from hostis (enemy). What do you think, was the word hostile derived from this king’s antagonistic behavior, or did he earn the name because of his behavior?

Actually, as it turns out, the name is at least a few generations older than Tullus. According to Titus Livy, during Rome’s war with the Sabines, Tullus’ grandfather Hostus Hostilius, a friend and comrade of Romulus, valiantly strode into battle ahead of the rest of the army to defend the Roman citadel against the Sabine invaders. (He died of course.) Was this hostile behavior the root of the word, then? We'll probably never know, but whatever the case, it does seem that this affinity for battle rubbed off on his grandson.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, during Rome’s regal period, succession did not necessarily pass from father to son. When pious King Numa finally succumbed, Tullus was elected by the senate and became king in 673 BC and ruled (supposedly) until 642. Although he may not have been the wise, pacific ruler his predecessor was, his skill on the battlefield led to conquests of Fidenae, Veii, and, most famously, Alba Longa (more on that in a later post).

The Victory of Tullus Hostilius over the armes of Veii and Fidenae, Cavalier d'Arpino, 1601. Musée des Beaux Art de Caen.

His successful military campaigns brought glory to the burgeoning backwater that was Rome, increasing its power dramatically. Its territory expanded and its population swelled (as the conquered peoples were absorbed into the Roman populace). Tullus was also credited with building the city's first senate house, the Curia Hostilia in the Roman Forum, (although according to archeological evidence, it was built closer to the year 600 BC, and Tullus died in 642, but let's not squabble over a silly thing like dates).

As in the case of Romulus, bad weather can be blamed for Tullus' unlikely demise. Near the end of his reign, a meteor shower pummeled the city, followed closely by an outbreak of the plague. Livy recounts that these omens were brought about by Tullus' neglect of the religious rites and observances that were so fundamental to the survival of the city. When the King himself caught the plague, he finally saw the light and tried desperately to mend his ways. But it was too late. After botching a sacred ritual to honor Jupiter, he was smitten by a lightening bolt and that was the end of Tullus Hostilius.

But we're not quite done with Rome's bellicose 3rd king yet (what did I tell you?). Tune in next week and I'll regale you with one of the most dramatic and improbable battles in Roman history. If you thought the Roman twins were exciting, wait to you read about the Roman triplets!

What have we covered so far?

The Birth of Rome, 21 April 753 BC

The Rape of the Sabine Women

An Introduction to the Seven Kings of Rome: Fact or Fiction?

Romulus, First King of Rome

The Death of Romulus

Numa Pompilius, Second King of Rome

Numa Pompilius and his calendar

Numa Pompilius and the Vestal Virgins 

Numa Pompilius and the Nymph Egeria 

 

Image sources: 1, 2, 3

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Paul Klee in Italy at the GNAM

Crosses and columns, Paul  Klee, 1931. Modern Art Gallery, Munich.

I realize, dear bloglings, that I have been inexcusably remiss when it comes to posting about Rome's many delicious exhibitions. We Romans (native or otherwise) are incredibly lucky to have so many diverse, world-class exhibits on at any given time. It is truly a challenge to find the time to see them all (and to write about them, I must admit!).

Japanese-American, Paul Klee, 1918. Private collection.

Now, I am not going to pretend that Paul Klee, the Swiss-born German artist whose work was influenced by expressionism, cubism and surrealism, is my favorite artist. In fact, I visited the Paul Klee Museum in Berne in 2008, and I concluded that I had seen more than enough of his art to last me for the rest of my hopefully long life.

Mazzarò, Paul Klee, 1924. San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.

So I will admit that I didn't whoop with joy when I heard that an exhibit of his work was coming to Rome. But I have to give it to him, his works are incredibly diverse and contrasting from one another. You could not possibly be bored by an exhibition of his art. Overwhelmed, perhaps. Bored, no.

Portrait of Mrs. P in the South, Paul Klee, 1924. Peggy Guggenheim Collection, Venice.

This particular exhibit, held at the Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Moderna (GNAM), is titled Paul Klee in Italy. The majority of the works exhibited were inspired by Klee's numerous sojourns in Italy, where he traveled six times between 1901 and 1932. Here are a few highlights from the exhibit. It ends on 27 January 2013, so if you are a fan, do not delay! For opening hours and other info, visit my Exhibits on now page.

The Torso and her family with the full moon, Paul  Klee,  1939. Private collection.

Jester, Paul Klee, 1904. Zurich.

Night party, Paul Klee, 1921. Guggenheim Museum, New York.

With a gas lamp, Paul Klee, 1915. National Gallery of Modern Art, Rome.

All images are provided courtesy of Arthemisia Group and may not be reproduced without permission.

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My secret Italian dream-job

Perugia, April 2005

I have a secret dream, dear bloglings. A deep, burning desire that comes upon me strongly almost every time I walk down a busy street in Rome, and often when I'm walking down a quiet one.

I want to be a vigilessa. A lady traffic-cop.

Now I don't mean that I actually think that it could happen, or that I would ever go through with such a thing--even if it were possible.

But every time I see someone double- or triple-parked, I long to flip out a ticket pad and write them a big fat multa, right on the spot. Or better yet, get their oversized (and completely unnecessary) SUV towed far, far away. Every time I see some unprincipled maniac swerve to avoid a tottering old lady on the crosswalk, coming perilously close to knocking her to the ground, my blood starts to boil and I wish I had the power to stop them. To make them see that what they are doing is not only a violation but a reckless endangerment of their fellow citizen. Every time I see someone riding in the front passenger seat with a baby in their lap, I want to shout, "You won't take your baby out on a sweltering summer day without a woolen undershirt, but you're fine with letting her fly through a windshield? For shame!" Every time an ambulance is blaring down the street, only to be held up in traffic because no one will pull over to let it pass, I wish I could make them imagine it was someone they loved in that ambulance, in desperate need of a doctor.

I know there are much more terrible atrocities in the world, but what bothers me is that these things are done with such complacence, such indifference, and so often. I see at least one of these things happen every single day. And no one seems to bat an eye; it is so utterly accepted.

How I long to bring these reprobates to justice. How I yearn to show these vile degenerates that there are consequences for their shameless, selfish behavior. How I would delight in their sputtering, indignant outrage at being expected to obey their city's laws, laws that were only designed to protect them and their community, their shock at being make to recognize that their convenience should not come at the cost of another person's safety and peace of mind.

I would write so many tickets I would get carpal tunnel and tendinitis. I would have the tow truck company on speed dial. I would be the nightmare of every double-parking, red-light-running, texting-while-driving, child-endangering person who dared to get behind the wheel of a car. I would inspire terror in every last rione.

But, no. It is not to be. I can do nothing.

Sure, I can glare at them until my eyes are sore. I can throw them a few local gestures so maybe they'll understand. I can even shout obscenities that they'll never hear. A friend of mine will happily testify that I once slammed my hands down on the hood of a car as I was crossing a sidewalk when the driver thought it was okay to inch so close to me that her bumper was actually touching my knees. I might even scribble down a license plate number when I see something truly heinous, but even if I reported it what good would it do?

As I walked from my bus stop back to my apartment yesterday, I witnessed a well-dressed businessman on a scooter with a small boy on the back and a toddler on the front. The toddler had no helmet. Maybe daddy's reasoning is that the smaller the head, the less it will be damaged if it smashes into asphalt. Mere seconds later I saw a man texting with his phone inches from his face as he sped down the street. And as if this wasn't enough to start me seething, the next car that passed had a friendly-looking mother and her little girl standing up in the back seat, leaning through the two front seats to chat with her mom. As I stared wide-eyed at the little girl, I noticed the mother smile at me. She probably thought I was admiring her child. This all happened in less than a minute.

As I turned to walk onto my own street, I could barely make it onto the sidewalk. My street has one of those imaginary sidewalks, where there is no actual curb, nothing to separate the pedestrian from the homicidal drivers but a faded blue line of paint. Nothing to stop those drivers from parking right on the narrow path we pedestrians rely on to avoid getting mowed down. Nothing to stop them from inventing parking spots that don't exist, blocking the end of the sidewalk so that anything thicker than the legs of Kate Moss would never be able to fit through, God forbid a parent with a baby carriage or someone in a wheelchair. Nothing to stop them, when their car won't fit in the parallel parking spot, from parking diagonally, with the nose of their car virtually touching the wall of the building, so that even Kate Moss would have to walk out into the street to get around it. Nothing, that is, except...

Super-Vigilessa!!

I see myself flying in to save the day, with a navy blue cape, white leather gloves, and a white, cone-shaped helmet (see photo above). With a flick of my whip I can yank cell phones out of drivers' hands, disintegrating them with a twinkle of my eye. I blow my whistle and drivers' brakes are instantly hit, so the little old lady can make it safely across the street without having to fear for her life. Any cars parked irresponsibly will be crushed with a single glace. I would have to wear a mask, because the percentage of villains (bad parkers/drivers) in this city is so extremely high, my life would be in constant danger. But I would be brave, and fight traffic crime to my dying breath. I would be the hero of every pedestrian whose only dream is to be able to use a crosswalk without getting crushed, or to open their front door without finding a parked car blocking it. Ah, I can see it all so clearly.

But it'll never happen. Because in Italy, the only thing more important that doing your job...let me rephrase that...one of several things more important than doing your job is looking good while you're doing your job. So in Italy, when traffic cops are not posing for photographs in a sunny square in Perugia (see photo above) they are doing this.

It's lovely. Don't get me wrong. Very picturesque. That's why I took a picture of it. But it doesn't actually accomplish anything. It doesn't make me, a pedestrian, feel any safer.

I have to cross Via Ostiense at least twice a day, and every time I step onto those zebra stripes, I take my life in my hands. Or rather, I put my life into the hands of unscrupulous lunatics who, at best, don't give a damn how close they get to me as long as they manage to swerve around me as quickly as possible, and at worst, figure that even if they do hit me, they'll probably be able to get away, and if not, the consequences won't be too bad. It's not like they'll do jail time, maybe just a little fine.

And that's the root of the problem: no consequences. My staunchly law-abiding Maritino will often grumble about the double-parked cars on a street we often take, as it causes major back-ups because, although it's a two-way street, only one lane of cars at a time can fit down it, due to all the double-parkers. It makes him almost as angry as it makes me. This is when I smugly inform him that if his country's laws were actually ENFORCED, certainly not everybody, but most people would stop breaking them.

But that will never happen, will it?

Italy needs a Super-Vigilessa.... why can't it be me?

All photos by author

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Metaphysics at La Brèche

Passeggiata, Francesco Ferlisi

Just a quick post tonight, before I promise to start posting regularly again. Got to start those New Year's resolutions sometime!

Just wanted to let you all know that selected works of my favorite Rome-based contemporary artist, Francesco Ferlisi, will be on exhibit from tomorrow, 12 January, until the 18th at La Brèche Association with the theme of metaphysics. The opening takes place tomorrow at 6pm, and I highly recommend stopping by if you enjoy exploring the work of local artists. Ferlisi's work is dramatic, colorful, often ironic, and rich with hidden meaning. You can see a few other examples of his work here. Perhaps I'll see you there!

La Brèche Association. Via Virginia, 22 (Metro Furio Camillo). www.labreche.it

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A quiet New Year's Eve in Rome: Soaking up the simple beauty

Would you like some Trinità dei Monti with your fairy lights? No, that's all right, the fairy lights are enough for me.

Since moving to Rome over eight years ago, I have come to realize that it is the simple things in this splendid city that fascinate and charm me the most. Of course I adore the Pantheon and Castel Sant’Angelo (and while I may not adore the Colosseum or St. Peter’s Basilica, I recognize what works of incredible human achievement they are), but those monuments are not what thrill my soul, nor what make me sometimes think, “How could I ever leave Rome?” Instead it is the minute details, the curiosities, the simple pleasures, which are often overlooked (even though, I must admit, in Rome even the simple things are extraordinary.)

This afternoon I took a long New Year’s Eve walk with my adorable Maritino through some of the most picturesque neighborhoods in the city. I’m a sucker for the twinkling lights and other decorations that make it even more magical than usual at this time of year. I’ve never been one to make too much of a fuss over New Year’s Eve (although I have always dreamed of going to a big fancy ball à la Meg Ryan in When Harry Met Sally). My first priority has always been to be among good friends and I usually end up at a cozy house party and maybe going out for post-midnight drink, and generally I am tucked up in bed by 1am or shortly thereafter.

But this year, the Maritino and I decided to ring in the New Year quietly, on our own. It’s after 8pm, and we still haven’t decided if we’ll go out for an informal dinner or stay in with a bottle of champagne and a movie. Either way, it will be simple and quiet.

But we did create a new tradition: a long, leisurely, afternoon walk through the sparkling city, trodding the sanpietrini of some of the loveliest streets and piazzas of the city, from Via dei Coronari to Via dell’Orso, Piazza San Lorenza in Lucina, Via del Campo Marzio, Via Borgognona and many more. And what simple yet enthralling pleasures awaited us at every turn: ogling the priceless antiques in the store windows, stopping to admire a never before seen (by us) curiosity, reminiscing about moments passed together in hidden corners of the city, marveling at the Borromini and da Cortona that seem to follow us around every bend, grabbing a piping hot slice of pizza al taglio, seeing locals and natives greeting each other with boisterous “Buon Anno!”s and “Happy New Year!”s, catching snippets of the song of an unusually talented street performer, and stopping for a pot of tea at Babington’s. The city was so rich and alive. It made me grateful to be alive and to be able to live in this extraordinary place, and to be able to keep on loving it so passionately, day after day, year after year.

Here are just a few photos from our epic five-hour walk. I would have taken more, but I was so busy feeding my pupils with the gorgeousness all around me, I simply forgot most of the time!

What's hiding behind that plant on Via dei Coronari?

Oh, no big deal, just a fragment of an ancient sculpture, plastered right into the wall of a building.

You know when you walk around the corner and run into a massive church you don't remember ever seeing before? (If this were Twitter, the hashtag would be: #onlyinRome) (In case you were wondering, it's San Salvatore in Lauro)

An almond cupcake by the fire at Babington's. Delicious, but can't compare to Christina's!

Tea and cake at Babington's: it costs at least as much as a full meal any decent trattoria, but it is the only place to get proper cup of tea in Rome.

Happy New Year, my darling bloglings! Thank you for reading my humble words in 2012. I promise there will be more, hopefully many more, posts in 2013. I wish you a thrilling New Year’s Eve wherever and however you might be celebrating it. Here’s to drinking in the beauty that is all around us every moment, whether simple or extraordinary, or both!

All photos by author

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Celebrating 100,000 hits!

(I'm sure there's a hilarious mobster joke to be made about that title somehow, but it's just not coming to me.)

I am excited to announce that my itty, bitty blog reached the (to my ears) impressive figure of 100,000 hits yesterday! I know that there are many blogs out there that receive 100,000 hits a day, so in the grand scheme of things, 100,000 in the 2 1/2-year life of a blog sounds like small potatoes, but I'm still excited and proud!

Image source

To my faithful bloglings out in the ether, thank you for every single one of your clicks; they have brought me steadily closer to this milestone! In spite of the stats that I can regularly check, and the wonderful comments that I receive, it is sometimes hard to believe that anyone is actually out there, reading my humble thoughts and musings. As a blogger, you send your missives out into the great void and hope that someone is out there reading. A number like this is an assuring proof that my readers actually exist.

But where do all my lovely readers come from? How do you find my site? Could it be that it's just my mom and a few loyal Facebook friends and Twitter followers? Luckily, Blogger makes it possible for me to see where the bulk of my traffic is coming from, and the overwhelming majority of it is from Google searches. And what are you searching for that leads you to my site? The top queries that have pointed people to my blog are, in order: Caravaggio (what a shocker), Illuminated manuscript, Numa Pompilius (it turns out I've written four posts about the guy), Pinturicchio, the Last Judgement, and the Mars of Todi. What I've taken from this is that the more obscure the subject I write about is (with the exception of Caravaggio of course), the more likely people searching for information on it will come to me, since fewer sites have written about it.

My traffic from Facebook and Twitter is surprisingly insignificant by comparison. This is probably my own fault as I don't post to those sights all that often, although I have read that Facebook now shows your posts to only a small percentage of your page's fans (unless you pay them), but that is a topic for a different post.

And then there are the occasional bursts of traffic when an important website or publication mentions my blog, like the Irish Times or the Fatto Quotidiano, and that is always a plus.

But mostly it's people's curiosity, facilitated by Google, that leads thems to my site, and hopefully many of them like what they find and come back for more.

Another interesting question is where do all of you lovely readers live? What countries are tuning into The Pines of Rome the most? Topping the list is the United States (not surprising since I'm from there), followed by Italy (I live there and write about it) with the UK coming in third. Rounding out the top ten are Canada, Germany, France, Australia, the Netherlands, Russia and Spain. I am always thrilled when unexpected, distant and diverse countries pop up on my traffic report, and there have been many, including Vietnam, Mauritius, Algeria, Venezuela, Sri Lanka, Chile, Qatar, Iraq, Pakistan, Ghana, Ethiopia and Mongolia. Readers from at least 109 different countries have visited my blog. This makes me very, very proud.

But perhaps the most important question is, what are you reading? Which posts have the most visits? The overwhelmingly most popular post is Michelangelo's Last Judgement and Marcello Venusti's copy (who would have guessed?) with 6343 hits to date, more than double the second most popular, Six months a wife and an illuminated manuscript. In third place we have Caravaggio, you devil!, followed by Numa Pompilius and his calendar, Salvador Dalì: Renaissance-inspired Surrealism, and The Borghese Gallery and the fate of an ill-gotten collection, part 2. I am particularly happy to see that last post on this list as it is one of the ones (together with its prequel part 1) that I am most proud of.

And speaking of, what are my personal favorite posts? Probably my absolute favorite is Siamo Romane.... Trasteverine, written back in 2010 when I thought I was leaving Trastevere forever, an ode to my beloved neighborhood. This post has garnered very few hits, as I wrote the title when I didn't know anything about SEO (P.S I still don't, but I do know to write my post titles in English now). I had particular fun writing Are Italian women really unhappy?, The Borgia Pope, Pinturicchio, and La Bella Farnese, The lost art of writing by hand, A Room with a View, fate and the allure of Italy, and So you want to move to Rome? My advice: do it!

As you probably know by now, I'm not that into self-promotion (except in this post, of course), but I will take the opportunity of this blogger-milestone of 100,000 hits to ask you to help The Pines of Rome continue to be more and more read. If you like this site, please share it with your friends and family and anyone you think might enjoy it. If you have a blog of your own, consider adding mine to your blogroll. You can follow the blog directly if you have a Google account, or you can subscribe to get new posts delivered to you by email. If you are on Twitter, please follow; if you are on Facebook, please "like". And, for goodness' sake, comment! Reading your comments is truly a joy, and I respond to every single one.

My goal is to rack up another 100,000 hits in less than half the time it took to get the first 100,000. That is, I aim to reach 200,000 hits one year from today. I can't do it without my lovely bloglings, so keep reading, friends! And, in the meantime, if anyone would like to explain to me (using small words) what pings and backlinks are, I would be most happy to learn!

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