Get Ready for Rome
Arts & Culture Podcasts
Get Ready for Rome helps the thoughtful traveler prepare to visit the Eternal City by introducing the city’s main monuments and the sometimes acrimonious dialogue they imply. Add value to your visit to Rome by getting to know in advance the ideas and history that stand behind St. Peter’s Basilica, the Colosseum, the Sistine Chapel and other familiar but put poorly understood sites of one of the world’s greatest cities.
Location:
United States
Genres:
Arts & Culture Podcasts
Description:
Get Ready for Rome helps the thoughtful traveler prepare to visit the Eternal City by introducing the city’s main monuments and the sometimes acrimonious dialogue they imply. Add value to your visit to Rome by getting to know in advance the ideas and history that stand behind St. Peter’s Basilica, the Colosseum, the Sistine Chapel and other familiar but put poorly understood sites of one of the world’s greatest cities.
Language:
English
Episodes
108. From the Cattle Market to the Palatine and from Aeneas to Romulus
4/18/2024
After two episodes on the Forum Boarium, we move up to the Palatine Hill. At the same time, we move from Rome’s distant prehistory and Aeneas to its founding by his descendant Romulus, the son of Mars. Later still, Caesar and his adopted son Augustus presented Aeneas and Romulus as precursors of the Caesars.
Duration:00:15:26
107. The Two Temples of the Forum Boarium
4/5/2024
The two temples in the Forum Boarium as illustrations of Rome’s cultural flux over the ages.
Duration:00:14:39
106. The Forum Boarium and Rome's Mythical Prehistory
3/27/2024
There is scant evidence regarding the prehistory of Rome, but the Romans supplied this defect by handing down and codifying engaging myths. Today we visit the Forum Boarium, where Rome’s distant ancestors met and began to form the people from whom the Romans would descend, or so at least Livy and Virgil tell us.
Duration:00:17:26
105. The Making of Modern Italy
3/17/2024
Today is March 17, the anniversary of the proclamation of the birth or making of modern Italy. It seems strange to me that this anniversay is largely overlooked, so I invite listeners to think for a moment about its meaning.
Duration:00:13:39
104. Where are we?
5/2/2023
If the Sistine Chapel reflected the moral vision of Christian Rome, is there any such coherent view in Modern Rome of how we humans should understand our purpose and live our lives?
Duration:00:17:59
103. A Pope's View of a Modern Problem
1/17/2023
Popes have frequently attacked the moral, political, and intellectual developments that gave birth to modern Italy. On the occasion of the death of Pope Benedict, we today review his controversial Regensburg Address to see what it says about modern Rome.
Duration:00:21:54
102. The Secularism of Modern Rome
12/29/2022
We return today to the "secular" or non-religious character of modern Rome in order to see more clearly how much the Rome of the People has changed from the Rome of the Popes.
Duration:00:22:10
101. Michelangelo's Last Judgment
12/15/2022
Today we introduce Michelangelo's "Last Judgment," his vast fresco painted on the altar wall of the Sistine Chapel.
Duration:00:23:54
100. The Four Corners of Michelangelo's Sistine Ceiling
12/1/2022
The four Pendentives of Michelangelo's Ceiling of the Sistine Chapel represent four different dramatic stories from the Old Testament. What are these stories, and what do they teach?
Duration:00:24:19
99. The Subjects Represented on Michelangelo's Sistine Ceiling
11/17/2022
We know that Michelangelo's painting of the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel was an extraordinary achievement, but what subjects does he represent and what teaching do they convey?
Duration:00:24:10
98. The Design of the Sistine Ceiling
11/3/2022
Michelangelo used painted architecture and numerous nudes to divide the Sistine Chapel ceiling into separate panels and give it a complex design. Today we summarize the elaborate arrangement he came up with.
Duration:00:23:20
97. Botticelli’s Facing Frescoes in the Sistine Chapel
10/20/2022
Michelangelo dominates the Sistine Chapel, but the chapel's walls feature twelve frescoes by the previous generation of great Florentine artists. We look at two by Botticelli as an introduction to all twelve.
Duration:00:21:12
96. Reintroducing the Sistine Chapel
10/7/2022
We return for a second introduction to the Sistine Chapel and outline some of the main challenges Michelangelo had to overcome in painting the ceiling.
Duration:00:21:22
95. The Overlooked Side Walls of the Sistine Chapel
7/14/2022
This episode introduces the twelve frescoes on the side walls of the Sistine Chapel, which invite a comparison between the lives and laws of Moses and Jesus.
Duration:00:20:40
94. Introducing the Sistine Chapel
6/30/2022
We today make a first visit to the Sistine Chapel and look generally at the three different waves of Renaissance frescoes that decorated it. Two of these are by Michelangelo.
Duration:00:21:43
93. The Disappearance of Ancient Rome (Part II Lanciani)
6/16/2022
The difficulty of seeing Ancient Rome is that not much of it exists. The distinguished archeologist Rodolfo Lanciani documents this, and today we compare his ways of explaining its disappearance with those of Edward Gibbon.
Duration:00:22:45
92. D-Day and the Liberation of Rome, June 1944
6/6/2022
American troops liberated Rome from German occupation just 2 days before D-Day. What made it possible, and why did the liberation occur when it did?
Duration:00:24:26
2.6: D-Day and the Liberation of Rome, June 1944
6/6/2022
American troops liberated Rome from German occupation just 2 days before D-Day. What made it possible, and why did the liberation occur when it did?
Duration:00:24:02
91. The Destruction of Ancient Rome (Part I Gibbon)
6/2/2022
We have taken an introductory look at the reasons Paganism was replaced Christianity, but why have so many of the magnificent buildings the pagans built simply disappeared? Was it simply the work of time? We begin today with Gibbon's answer to this question.
Duration:00:21:30
90. Edward Gibbon on the Destruction of Paganism
5/19/2022
We today consider Gibbon’s explanation of how the Christians of Constantine’s century advanced their faith by taking active measures against paganism. As he makes his case, Gibbon also extends his unflattering portrait of the followers of the new faith, perhaps to weaken their successors in his own day.
Duration:00:22:13