A View from the Heitz

As I walk around the ruins of Ancient Rome, I find myself musing about how future generations will explore our ruins.  Today we build for the hear and now, even the current buildings have expected life spans of 20-40 years.  I’m also struck by amount of recycling of everything from surfaces to art as power shifted throughout the centuries.  Most of Ancient Rome was built to last and is still an engineering marvel to this day.  For example, today in Rome there is less water per person then the ancient Romans had with their extensive aqueducts and plumbing.

The reason for all of this was tied up in the idea of memory.  The Roman emperors were especially concerned with how they would be remembered and for them memory was the link to the eternal.  Their buildings were a testament to their power and would still remain when they were gone.  And so I found in Rome a disturbing quest for eternity that ranges from violent emperors to corrupt popes expressed in everything from religion and construction to art and culture.

Being there in physical space and seeing the immense structures from the Colosseum to St. Peters Basilica, brings this whole idea in focus.  St. Peters took so long to build that the last pope just plastered his name on the front of the building and took credit for the whole project–no mention of Peter the Apostle.  Maybe the pope really was that unsure of his salvation…

This entry was posted on Sunday, July 13th, 2008 at 9:23 am and is filed under Arts & Culture, Travel.