On the way to Vatican, we saw a huge round building that
looked like a cholate tart, on the bank of the river Tiber. It is Castel
Sant’Angelo, affectionately nicknamed ‘The Wedding Cake’ by locals due to its appearance.
It is now a museum and has a long history which dates back to ancient Rome. Started
as an ancient imperial tomb of Emperor Hadrian in the year 138, turned into
fortress in the year 401, then functioning also as prison for many centuries. Among the prisoners were the sculptor Benvenuto
Cellini, charged with crime of sodomy; the philosopher Giordano Bruno, sentenced
to death as a hardline heretic; Giuseppe Balsamo, known as a conman sorcerer; Beatrice
Cenci, a noblewoman sentenced to death accused for having killed her abusive
father. The prison was also the drama setting for the third act opera of
Giacomo Puccini's Tosca.In this tragic
scene, Tosca, overwhelmed by the death of her lover, jumps to death to escape
capture by her enemies from the wall of the prison.
On top of the castle we can see a statue of an angel holding
a sword but not in a brandishing way, rather the angel is depicted to lower his
sword to return it to the sheath. Why is it like that? According to legend, at the end of the sixth
century AD, a terrible plague fell upon the city, named as the Justinian plague, with thousands
falling ill and the bodies of the dead choking the street. The disease spread
as far north as Denmark and west to Ireland, then further to Africa, the Middle
East and Asia Minor.
Pope Gregory then led a procession through the city, praying
to God to spare those who still lived. Looking up to the old mausoleum of Emperor
Hadrian, long fallen into disuse and ruin, Pope Gregory had a vision of a radiant
figure high atop the massive tomb. It was the Archangel Michael, his
outstretched wings, glowing brightly and holding a bloody sword and then lowering
it to return it back in the sheath. The Pope saw this as a sign of the end of
the plague that had been raging for about 50 years. Indeed, after this vision,
the plague ended, therefore the Castle was named as Castel Sant Angelo – Castle
of the Holy Angel. The current bronze statue of Archangel Michael on top of the
building was created in 1748 by Peter Anton von Verschaffelt, a Flemish
sculptor, to replace the marble statue damaged by time.
Photo: Wikimedia
Castel Sant’Angelo was slowly turned into a fortress and in
1277 it was acquired by the papacy. Popes used the castle as a refuge in this fortified
structure in times of danger. Living conditions inside the fortress were
probably not very comfortable, so Pope Paulus III decorated many of the rooms
inside the Castel with beautiful frescoes, mostly done by Perino del Vaga. The
most beautiful room is undoubtedly the Sala Paolina, with its lavishly
decorated walls and ceiling. In the beginning of the 14th century,
the Castle became the summer castle for the Pope. In 1901 it was converted to become
a national museum, named the Museo Nazionale di Castel Sant’Angelo.
Walking for about 1 km from Fontana di Trevi, we will reach
the Spanish Steps. The walk is only around 15 minutes, however in this place,
we can find many interesting buildings in every turn, so it may take longer if
you wish to ‘sight-seeing’ too.
The giant stone Spanish Steps starts from Piazza di Spagna (the
Spanish Square) up to the Trinità dei Monti church. The 135 steps staircase, built
in 1725 and designed by Alessandro Specki and Francesco De Santis, is a
favourite spot among tourists to sit, relax and enjoy the views of Piazza di
Spagna at the bottom. Piazza di Spagna itself was the location of the Spanish
Embassy for Vatican in the seventeenth century. So the Spanish name was extended
to the square and the steps as well.
As I climbed the Spanish Steps in a spring afternoon, in a
moment I remembered the song “Credo” by the rock group Refugee:
I believe in constant pauses
Like a Roman holiday
And I often stop for air
As I climb the Spanish stairs
Indeed I often stopped for air, and near the top of the
steps I also stopped and looked down to the Piazza di Spagna. This square is an
important way to connect to the historic centre of the city and a famous
gathering place for locals and foreigners. Some of the city’s most iconic
streets branch off the square, such as Via del Condotti, Via del Babuino, Via
della Propaganda and Via Sistina.
At the centre of the square lies the Fontana della
Barcaccia, a fountain featuring a half-shrunk stone ship sculpted by Pietro
Bernini, father of Gian Lorenzo Bernini.
The name Fontana della Barkaca means “Fountain of the Old Boat” as it has the
form of a sinking ship based upon a folk legend. According to the legend, as
the River Tiber flooded in 1598, water carried a small boat into the Piazza di
Spagna. When the water receded, the boat was deposited in the center of the
square, and it was this boat that inspired Bernini's creation.
I had the pleasure visiting Martin's hut, often referred to
as “die Hütte", at Todtnauberg, on the edge of the Black Forest, southern
Germany. He considered the seclusion provided by the forest to be the best
environment in which to engage in his philosophical thought, and here was where
he wrote his most famous book Being and Time.
It is a small ski hut measuring six meters by seven, the low
hanging roof covers three rooms: the kitchen which is also the living room, a
bedroom and a study. Scattered at wide intervals throughout the narrow base of
the valley and on the equally steep slope opposite, lie farmhouses with their
large over-hanging roofs. Higher up the slope the meadows and pasture lands
lead to the woods with its dark fir-tress, old and towering…This is his work
world.
That day he hiked the way up mountain, then ski back down,
he is an avid hiker and an accomplished skier.
I greeted him at the hut front door this short and stout professor with
dark piercing eyes, his sun tan face gleaming. We sat at the coffee table,
ready to discuss ‘Being and Time’.
I said:
“According to Plato truth is determined by how it relates to
the world and whether it accurately corresponds with that world, true beliefs
and true statements correspond to the facts. What is truth according to you?”
Martin, talking slowly and deliberately:
“For Plato, and those that followed, truth meant
correctness, a correspondence between knowledge, judgement, and the object. This view of truth implies that the experience
of truth is structured in terms of the relationship between a subject and an
object. There is an essential difference between viewing truth as correctness,
and truth as unconcealment , Aletheia. Truth as correctness has ignored the experience
of truth as an opening that lets unconcealment occur. In unconcealment, truth
lies not only in a judgement, but in the human existence itself. To draw real
things from concealedness to unconcealedness, Aletheia, requires a certain
'light'. This light is the existence of Being (Dasein) itself, its being-in-the-world.
Because of Dasein’s open-stance,
which involves engagement to the world as a whole, it is able to unconceal,
opening up its world for itself. “
I said:
“You reportedly saw the painting of Van Gogh “A
pair of shoes” on an exhibition in Amsterdam
and you were impressed by it. Tell us about your insight on the painting.”
Photo: Wikimedia
Martin, smiling:
“As long as we only imagine a pair of shoes in general, or
simply look at the empty, unused shoes as they merely stand there in the
picture, we shall never discover what the equipmental being of the equipment in
truth is. From Van Gogh’s painting we cannot even tell where these shoes stand.
There is nothing surrounding this pair of peasant shoes in or to which they
might belong — only an undefined space. There are not even clods of soil from
the field or the field-path sticking to them, which would at least hint at
their use. A pair of peasant shoes and nothing more. And yet.
From the dark opening of the worn insides of the shoes the
toilsome tread of the worker stares forth. In the stiffly rugged heaviness of
the shoes there is the accumulated tenacity of her slow trudge through the
far-spreading and ever-uniform furrows of the field swept by a raw wind. On the
leather lie the dampness and richness of the soil. Under the soles slides the
loneliness of the field-path as evening falls. In the shoes vibrate the silent
call of the earth, its quiet gift of the ripening grain and its unexplained
self-refusal in the fallow desolation of the wintry field."
I said:
“Your insight on this painting of rugged old shoes is very interesting,
it unconceals both the being of the shoes and the peasant women’s world to us. The painting lets us know what the shoes are
in truth, andit is not separable from
the entities in the world, including the one who unconceals the entities and
also oneself, Dasein. According to your book Being and Time this is authentic
Dasein, authentic Being-in-the world, Dasein’s understanding about the truth”.
Martin:
“Unconcealment can occur authentically, without a set of
predispositions. Entities are initially manifest but nevertheless concealed in
what they most authentically are. Authenticity by contrast, consists in Dasein
learning to “uncover the world in its own way … this uncovering of the ‘world’ is
… always accomplished as a clearing away of concealments and obscurities, as a
breaking up of the disguises with which Dasein bars its own way.”
I said:
“You further described that authentic Dasein means being something
of its own, not someone else, the Dasein that does not bow to assertion of the
mass, the public, which you call as ‘das Man’, or the ‘they’. The authentic
Dasein does not choose to follow tastes, interests, fashions, pop culture that
are made as consumer goods. Authentic Dasein is thereby opposed to inauthentic,
public Dasein, which is what Dasein is when submitting to the control of a
not-oneself, the public, the ‘they’, das Man. Authentic Dasein chooses its own
possibilities and acts on them, shutting out the voice of das Man and with it
the public understanding of the world.”
Martin:
“Yes, Dasein is authentically itself only to the extent that, as concernful
Being-alongside and solicitous Being-with, it projects itself upon its ownmost
potentiality-for-Being rather than upon the possibility of das Man. Becoming
authentic requires a process of self-assertion and self-initiated liberation
from the temptations of inauthentic understanding. In its normal, everyday way
of living in the world, Dasein is under the dominion of inauthentic understanding. Dasein has
a tendency to become absorbed in the concerns and possibilities that the world
presents to it as valuable.
Das Man comforts Dasein by hiding the truth from it, an act
that Dasein is complicit with. As a result, the particular Dasein in its everydayness is disburdened by
das Man. Not only that; by thus disburdening it of its Being, das Man
accommodates Dasein if Dasein has any tendency to take things easily and make
them easy. And because das Man constantly accommodates the particular Dasein by
disburdening it of its Being, das Man retains and enhances its stubborn
dominion. Inauthenticity is a “tranquilizing” way of existing.”
I said:
“What do you mean inauthencity is “tranquilizing” way of
existing?”
Martin:
“In utilizing public means of transport and in making use of
information services such as the newspaper, every Other is like the next . . . . We take
pleasure and enjoy ourselves as they, de Man, take pleasure; we read, see, and judge about
literature and art as they see and judge; likewise we shrink back from the ‘great mass’ as they shrink
back; we find ‘shocking’ what they find shocking.”
I said:
“In ‘The Question Concerning Technology’ you viewed
technology negatively. Technology, despite its contribution to humankind in
this modern era, you described it as a major threat to the authentic Dasein.”
Martin:
“The coming to presence of technology threatens revealing,
threatens it with the possibility that all revealing will be consumed in
ordering and that everything will present itself only in the unconcealedness of
standing-reserve. Human activity can never directly counter this danger. Human
achievement alone can never banish it. But human reflection can ponder the fact
that all saving power must be of a higher essence than what is endangered,
though at the same time kindred to it.”
I said:
“In what way does technology is dangerous to human
existence?”
Martin:
“Our current modern age is the epoch of technology which manifests
a specific way of understanding and interpreting the world, machination, just
as das Man manifested the public understanding of the world.
Machination, as technology’s mode of understanding, is a
“swaying of being”. Machination expands its sway as coercive force. By securing
power, this coercive force develops as the immediately eruptible and always
transformable capability for subjugation . .. . To the extent that in the epoch
of machination that is empowered to its unbounded coercive force man also
grasps himself as animal living-being, the only thing that remains for man
himself . . . is the appearance of self-assertion vis a vis beings.
But ‘the epoch of technology’ is far more than the control
or enslaving of man by technology. The dominant understanding of reality in the
epoch of technology is largely encompassed by the term ‘calculability,’ meaning
that everything that is real is understood in terms of discrete, calculable,
orderable units, of what can be produced or used for production.
Machination fosters in advance the completely surveyable
calculability of the subjugating empowering of beings to an accessible
arrangement. Machination fosters in advance a particular understanding of
beings such that they are accessible because calculable. Access to beings is
defined by calculability; to grasp what a being is, one must be able to
understand it in a calculable manner. Reality is organized, ordered, something
counted and assembled from parts.
What it is to exist, according to the epoch of technology,
is to be calculable; the world is understood as calculable, goals and purposes
are understood in terms of calculability and producibility, i.e., as discrete
entities consisting of potential forces that can be harnessed for ends.”
I said:
“That being said, if anything, can one do? “
Martin:
“Wherever man opens his eyes and ears, unlocks his heart,
and gives himself over to meditating and striving, shaping and working,
entreating and thanking, he finds himself everywhere already brought into the
unconcealed.
Man’s proper stance is to slow down, take a breath, and
observe the world around. Man is always in a world full of meanings that come
from beyond him, and the most important step to realizing that, by drawing away
from the modern rush and allowing the world itself to show itself as it is,
without trying to master it.”
I said:
“In ‘The
Origin of the Work of Art’ you said that the nature of art is poetry and the
nature of poetry, in turn, is the founding of truth. A work of art has the
ability to set up a world. World is a self-opening openness of thebroad paths of simple and essential
decisions in the destiny of a historical people. Art creates meaning by
allowing letting truth arise, by means of which Being becomes comprehensible.
The meaning of a work of art cannot be considered separately from the
conversation that the work initiates and which the artist anticipates. Can you
explain this please.”
Martin:
“What poetry,
as illuminating projection, unfolds of unconcealedness and projects ahead into
the design of the figure, is the open which poetry lets happen, and indeed in
such a way that only now, in the midst of beings, the open brings beings to
shine and ring out.
I like to
cite the poem ‘Autumn’ by Friedrich Hölderlin:
Nature’s gleaming is higher revealing,
Where with many joys the day draws to an end,
It is the year that completes itself in resplendence,
Where fruit come together with beaming radiance.
Earth’s orb is thus adorned, and rarely clamours
Sound through the open field, the sun warms
The day of autumn mildly, the fields lie
As a great wide view, the breezes blow
Through boughs and branches, rustling gladly,
When then already to emptiness the fields give way.
The whole meaning of this bright image lives
As an image, golden splendour hovering all about
This poem of Hölderlin is capable of awakening us the ‘astonishing’
and to the wonder of the ‘extraordinary’ in ‘the ordinary’.We think of the images of the landscape which
are resplendent. Yet the landscape is not yet nature itself, ‘being’ (sein) is
not ‘Being’ (Dasein) itself. Nature lets shine forth everything that belongs to
the landscape. In the look of landscape, which nature grants, the gleaming of
nature is higher revealing, that is to say, of divine essence. “
THE END
This is an imaginary
interview in memory of Martin Heidegger
Sources:
Derek R. O’Connell-
Heidegger’s Authenticity
https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/158301888.pdf
MJ Geertsema - Heidegger’s
onto-poetology: the poetic projection of Being
Wherever we go, grandeur
monuments are usually located in a spacious popular plaza to enhance the
monument’s grandeur presence and importance. We can easily navigate these
monuments as the location must have been popular and we can see the place from
a distance. But this monument that we are going to visit is different, it is
stuck in a narrow square surrounded by buildings, restaurants, shops in the
middle of the city. There are many streets leading to this place, they are
narrow streets passing through ancient buildings, restaurants, shops. Surrounded
by building, while walking we cannot see what is a head of us in a distance. Thus,
coming from via del Lavatore, as we turned the corner, the suddenly monument emerged
in front of our eyes with its grandeur, with a distinct sound of gushing water.
Statues of ancient Greek mythological figures stand out in the fountain,
presenting a drama in the green water. The crowd admire the monument from the
side of the fountain, and trying to figure out what the display is telling us.
It is Fontana di Trevi,
the grand fountain depicting Oceanus, the Sea God, the divine personification
of the ocean, standing in a shell chariot to tame the water.The shell chariot is drawn by winged horses
led by Tritons, one Triton struggles with a wild horse whilst the other Triton
hold a tamed one. The theme “Taming of the Waters” is presented in grandiose
baroque style at the backdrop of Palazzo Poli. Designed by Italian architect Nicola
Salvi in 1732 and completed by Giuseppe Panini in 1762 after the death of
Nicola Salvi, and was decorated by artists from Bernini School. Its facade and reef were constructed using
Travertine, an elegant natural stone formed by hot springs near Tivoli.
In ancient Rome, water
was worshipped as divine substance and the availability of huge water supplies
was considered a symbol of opulence and therefore an expression of power. The
Fontana di Trevi water is supplied by the Aqua Virgo duct, an aqueduct
originally completed in 19 BC by Marcus Agrippa. Aqueducts serve to transport freshwater from water
source in highland about 13 kms away through ducts on top of arcades and
underground. Gravity alone was utilized to transport enough water for most of
the civilization, yet the aqueducts had very small gradients to do so. The
design and construction to create aqueducts transporting high volume of water
over long distances and varying terrains demonstrates the wealth of the
civilization constructing it. In this
context, the theme “Taming of the Waters” portrays in dramatic way the Greek Sea
God Oceanus taming the waters, like the way the ancient Roman aqueduct arranged
the water and the civilization’s amazing ability to control and manipulate
water.
The 11 aqueducts of ancient
Rome ensured enough water supply into the city to provide for more than a
million inhabitants, but the Aqua Virgo duct terminating at Fontana di Trevi is
the only aqueduct still being used in modern times as it mostly ran underground.
Today, most of the water is recycled for environmental reasons, but the source
is still from the ancient Aqua Virgo duct.
In the crowd we can
see some people throw coin into the fountain over his opposite shoulder. This habit
root back thousands of years BC, whereby
valuable items were tossed into water sources to keep the water gods happy. In
modern times, we still do that with a wish to return to Rome. Around 3,000 Euro
is tossed into the fountain every day, the money is collected each night and
given to a charity that supports the needy.
Fontana di Trevi is
really a dramatic fountain that scathed an wonderful memory of Rome, so when we
leave Rome this time saying “Arrivederci Roma”, Goodbye Rome, we wish to hear
“Bentornato a Roma”, Welcome back to Rome, the next time…..
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