Borromini and Leonardo da Vinci

Today mostly revolved around the rivalry between Bernini and Borromini. The first place we visited today was the Piazza Navona, where one of my roomates, Philip, gave his presentation on Bernini's Four River fountain in the middle of the plazza. He went into exemplary detail on what the fountain meant. The fountain itself represented the four continents that people believed existed with their best knowledge at the time. He described this knowledge of only four continents as Ignorance. It made me think about the very term of ignorance, and how in today's world, it equates with a very negative definition. This isn't necessarily the case. This reminds me of my studies in Chemistry, and how a hundred years ago, scientists' view of atoms and molecules deviates very much from our current knowledge now,  which will probably be disproven yeg again in another hundred years, yet we couldn't build our knowledge without the theories of findings from the alchemists of the past. Is art history any different? But, perhaps, I'm getting ahead of myself.

The next place we visited church of St. Agnes, which was amazing because it was probably the only church in Rome where the altar pieces were made up entirely of sculptures. Specifically relief sculptures done by Bernini's students. They were quite beautiful to look at.

Our journey as a group continued with a tour through Boroque Roma. We got to see several different sites where the general theme was the competition between the sculptor, Bernini, and the architect, Fracesco Borromini. Sant'Andrea della Fratte was the first chapel we got to see for this tour. It was cool to learn about the chapel's name, Fratte meant 'wood' because the chapel used to be embedded in a more sylvan environment. it had two copies of original Bernini statues of angels that illustrated the suffering of Christ. Fun fact: those angels could also be seen on one of the bridges crossing the Tiber.

Our tour concluded with a visit to Sant'Ivo alla Sapienza. This was a univeristy dedicated to Theology, Medicine, and Law. The tour guide, Irene, went into detail about the importance of the architecture and mindset of Borromini, who was a bitterbrival of Bernini who reportedly tore down a chapel Bernini built. Close to his house. While he was trying to sleep. 

Thag was the end of the day for us as a group, but I wanted to see the Leonardo da Vinci exhibit before I left for home. Unfortunately, there wasn't any original art or sketches by Da Vinci himself, but the people behind the exhibition took Da Vinci's sketches and created models based on the various machines and military inventions. It was interesting learning more about the techincal side of a Rennaisance artist such as Da Vinci. The walls were also covered with enlargements of Da Vinci's anatomical sketches.