Rome is known as the "eternal city," and for good reason too. I studied abroad in Rome for six weeks after my freshman year of college, and it was one of the best decisions I've ever made. While studying and living in Rome, it was simply astounding to walk right past century-old monuments, to see Italian culture on a first-hand basis, and to speak Italian with the locals. On a daily basis, my friends and I would spend time in the Villa Borghese, where we would sit on a picnic blanket, munch on some snacks, and drink some wine. I'll never forget those moments.
My classes focused on classical ancient Roman history. I was learning about the enormous Roman empire that colonized a quarter of the world, I was delving into ancient Roman art and architecture, where I examined the etchings of Trojan's column and the symbols on the Arch of Titus, and I was becoming more attuned with the civilization of Rome as a whole.
Returning from Rome, I felt more sophisticated, more educated, and ready to delve more deeply into my classes at the University of Georgia. In my classes, I would recognize monuments and statues in my Italian textbook that I had seen in Rome. It was exalting! I was ecstatic that I had been there! I had seen that! I became even more enamored with Italian culture and language than ever before.
Whenever I read now (and I read quite a lot), I always take extra notice of the passages about Rome. For people see Rome just as salient as I do.
The Novel, by James A. Michener is a captivating story about the art of writing and the world of book publishing, written from four perspectives: a writer, a publisher, a critic, and a reader. In Part 3 of the book, a literary critic goes to Europe to gain more insight into the diverse literature he has read. When this critic travels to Rome, he says,
"...I now found Roma, as I insisted upon calling it, a city incredibly noble and historically rich quite aside from its close connection with the Vatican. Strolling with guidebook in hand, I could visit in the course of any one day pre-Christian ruins, heroic memorials of the great emperors, others dating from the time of Christ, churches from the time when civilization was darkened, monuments of the Renaissance, memorials of the papal states, and the grandiloquent vestiges of Mussolini's rampage. Does any other city offer so much? I asked myself as I wondered from one historic site to the next, and as my eight days drew to a close I suddenly realized that I had spent them all in Roma, not venturing into the countryside on a single exploratory bus trip. 'Roma is enough,' I said, and I went back to the Vatican to spend an entire day in its museums, awed by the wealth of sculpture and the variety of the paintings, about which I knew little expect that the Sistine Chapel, with its magnificent ceilings and walls, was worth more than a couple of hours."
Educated, by Tara Westover is another wonderful book -- one of my favorites in fact. It is a memoir about a girl, Tara, who grows up in a fundamentalist Mormon community in Idaho. Because of her parent's beliefs, she is not permitted to participate in any government-funded activities, which include going to school and visiting the doctor. When Westover finally gains entrance to college (BYU), she jumps at the chance to study abroad at the University of Cambridge in England. During her time traveling abroad, she travels to Rome with her newfound friends. Westover writes,
"For two days we explored Rome, a city that is both a living organism and a fossil. Bleached structures from antiquity lay like dried bones, embedded in pulsating cables and thrumming traffic, the arteries of modern life. We visited the Pantheon, the Roman Forum, the Sistine Chapel. My instinct was to worship, to venerate. That was how I felt toward the whole city: that it should be put behind glass, adored from a distance, never touched, never altered."
What’s more, my roommate studied abroad in Oxford, England this past summer. Before her study abroad program officially started, she traveled with her family to different cities around Europe for some time.
"Where did you go?" I asked.
"We went to London, Paris, and Rome."
"And which place did you like best?"
"Rome," she replied.
In short, the more time I spend away from this city, the more its glory slowly sinks into me. Before I visited Rome, the word “Rome” did not hold any significance to me. It was just another place on the globe that my eyes spanned over, uninterested. Even when I received entrance into my study abroad program, I thought, “Rome. I guess that’s cool. I mainly just want to go to Italy though, no matter the city.”
My views changed drastically during and after the program. Rome not only shaped me, but it has also impacted authors, art, literature, universities, world leaders, and other cities and states across the world. This metropolis holds its title of “eternal city” without a doubt. Rome is a character. A character that never leaves you, but sits in your mind and urges you to turn to the next page, even when you're done reading the book.
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