Rome, Italy

ROME, ITALY | "The Eternal City"

Rome is the most historically layered city in the world — two thousand years of continuous civilization compressed into a peninsula between the Tiber River bends, where the Colosseum, the Pantheon, the Forum Romanum, the Vatican, and the Baroque piazzas of Bernini and Borromini exist within a few kilometers of each other in a density of architectural achievement that no other city on earth can approach. The Colosseum was begun under Emperor Vespasian in 72 CE and completed under Titus in 80 CE, capable of holding 50,000 to 80,000 spectators for the gladiatorial contests, animal hunts, and public spectacles of the Roman state. In summer, the oleander trees that line the Via Sacra and the streets around the Forum bloom in deep pink against the warm travertine limestone of the imperial monuments, and the combination of the ancient stone, the botanical color, and the pale blue sky produces the specific visual signature of Rome in July.

The colors are warm and specific: the travertine limestone of the Colosseum turning from pale cream at noon to deep amber at golden hour, the warm ochre of the plastered Renaissance palazzos along the Tiber, the brilliant pink of the oleander against the ancient stone, and the specific deep gold of the cobblestones of the Centro Storico in the early morning before the city fills. It is the palette of two thousand years of sun on stone.