Today we went to the Villa Giulia which is the National Museum for Etruscan Art. The Villa Giulia was the summer home of Pope Julius the 3rd, so the setting itself was beautiful. There were huge courtyards with gardens and paintings on all the walls. I guess life as a Pope can't be too bad.
The art we saw was amazing. The museum has a huge collection of Greek pottery which I could have looked at for hours. Of course it made me want to study classics, but I guess that will have to be for another trip.
My favorite part of this trip was seeing the Apollo of Veii. I studied this piece in my Survey of Art History course so it was really neat to see it in real life. The statue is a life sized one of Apollo that would've been on the top of an Etruscan temple. The Gallery which had the Apollo also had pieces of the temple which is belonged to so we were able to get a complete image in our heads. We also got to see the Euphronius Vase which was only recently returned to Italy from the Met. I don't think I ever saw the vase in the Met, but it was so beautiful. It was in a room with many other vases that have been repatriated, so it was a great opportunity to see a giant collection of them. After seeing a few key peices the museum had we were given an opportunity to wander through the various galleries. It was definitly a museum worth visitng even if just to see the collection of items from Etruscan daily life.
After the morning adventure, and it was sort of an adventure finding our way to the museum, I had most of the day to myself. Tomorrow I am going to design my syllabus for the Italian independent study, so I have to choose three novels to read. I am excited and nervous and definitly looking forward to my first full weekend in Rome.
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