Giornale 4 at Basilica of Santa Maria in Trastevere (6/2)

For my fourth and final Giornale, I went to the Basilica of Santa Maria in Trastevere.  I thought this was really appropriate as this is the same church that some of us briefly visited on the first day.  To be perfectly honest, I remember sitting on the steps on the fountain in the square and looking at the collection of Greek and Latin inscriptions on the walls underneath the portico, but I don’t remember going inside.  Sarah B, Frini, and I all walked over there together after Kevin and Sarah D. had gone home following the Republic Day parade.  The church sort of snuck up on us as we were wandering through Trastevere.  It is a very unassuming building in a very inconspicuous square, with the entrance almost hidden from view underneath the portico, almost as if it is hiding.  We approached and I stopped to admire the inscriptions for a minute before walking inside.  The inside almost overwhelmed me with gold when I first saw it, but I soon grew accustomed to it and really began to enjoy it.  The ceiling is covered with a gilded pattern, framing a painting of a woman in the center.  The front apse was also covered primarily in gold, but with some paintings as well.  The most prominent was depiction of Jesus flanked by several men on each side and a woman sitting next to him.  The background was gold with the faces and clothes of the people in color.  Underneath this was a painting of several lambs or sheep, but this time with a darker background.  Many other people were depicted on the walls of the bema.  The altar was quite plain, with solid dark columns holding a roof above it.  I was sitting in a pew near the back for a bit as I took this all when people began to sing.  It might have been in Latin or Italian, I couldn’t tell.  I sat and listened for a while before getting up to investigate the side apses.  The right aisle was mostly in shadows and many of the apses were similarly dark.  The first one, closest to the back, contained a portrait of a woman receiving the Eucharist.  The second apse displayed a scene depicting baby Jesus.  I continued down the area, peeking into the other apses on my way up the stairs to a small, empty chapel to the left of the central apse.  It seemed much removed from the rest of the church and very serene.  There was a sign saying that it was exclusively for prayer, so I didn’t enter.  I then descended the stairs and met up again with Frini and we both went to investigate the right hand chapel as well as the singing that was still coming from it.  The left aisle was much brighter than the right one because of the sun.  As we got closer we saw a crowd and I stood on tiptoes to see a young man dressed in white looking very happy and hugging people.  Frini said that she thought it was a ceremony for a newly appointed priest, and that seems logical to me.  It was a very nice thing to happen upon.  We stood there for a bit, enjoying the happiness in the air before running into Sarah on our way out of the church.