Today Margret took us to the Piazza Navona, the Pantheon, and Santa Maria Sopa Minerva. Today, Piazza Novana is a beautiful square filled with shops, venders, bars and fountains. However, in the day of the Roman empire, in place or present day Piazza Navona, was an enormous stadium built for 30,000 fans to watch gladiator battles, executions, and Greek style athletic events. Greek style events were performed naked, making things especially interesting!

In Piazza Navona there are two main attractions: the Fountain of Four Rivers and Church of St. Agnese. St. Agnese church is named after a 12 year old girl and a martyr of Christianity. The king wanted Agnese to marry his son but she refused. Her refusal infuriated him and he began to plan her execution. However, Agnese was a virgin and virgins could not be executed. Therefore, he dragged her to the brothels to be raped. As the story is told, her beauty blinded the men at the brothel and she was not raped. He then tried to burn Agnese at the stake and the flames parted, never touching her body. Finally, he beheaded her. Her bones buried in the catacombs and her skull in the church in Piazza Navona. The church was built in the 1700s.

The Fountain of Four Rivers is another site to see in Piazza Navona. This fountain was designed by Bernini and built in the 1600s. The fountain was constructed to represent the Americas, Europe, Africa and Asia. There are four men on the fountain depicting the four largest rivers – one from each of the four major land masses of the world. The four rivers are the Ganges River (india), the Nile River (Africa), the Danube River (Europe), and the Rio della Platta (Americas). The statue representing the Americas has a pile of silver under him (South America is popular for their silver) and his arm is up as if he is protecting his face from something. It is speculated that he is hiding his face because of the ugly church in front of him but in fact, the church was built after the fountain. There is also a horse representing the Americas and a lion representing Asia. The statue representing the Ganges River is holding an oar to symbolize the navigability of the river. The stature representing the Nile River has a cloth over his head because no one at that time knew the river's origin. The statue representing the Danube River was touching the Papacy.

After Piazza Navona we walked over the the Pantheon. Most of us had been here before but this time was special because all of our questions about the building were answered. The Pantheon was built in 138AD by the architect Hadrian; he actually rebuilt the building built by Marcus Agrippa. It was customary to rebuilt destroyed buildings in the same place and orientation they had been built on previously. Hadrian was especially respectful to the original architect by maintaining many of the aspects of the original building and leaving the inscription of Marcus Agrippa intact. Hadrian did however want to surprise visitors of the Pantheon. So, he constructed a gigantic dome for the roof. The dome was hidden until the building was opened after ten years of construction. He kept it hidden by installing stairs at the front of the building so the pediment covered the top of the dome.

 The use of the Pantheon is unknown but is thought to be a place where all of the Gods could be worshiped. Another thought is that the Pantheon was a building where emperors could become deified and worshiped. When an emperor was deified a statue was erected of them and put in the Pantheon. These statues are no longer in the Pantheon but have been moved to museums.

Margret told us stories about climbing the dome years ago with her class when she was studying abroad in college. She had pictures of her and her classmates on top of the Pantheon and they were so cool! Margret is such an amazing tour guide, teacher, and person.

Our last stop was at Santa Maria Sopra Minerva. This is translated to say St. Mary on top of Minerva. Outside of the church is the smallest obelisk in Rome; the smallest of the 11 obelisk in Rome. This obelisk was taken from Egypt and has an elephant as a base with the obelisk supported on its back. The elephant represents a strong mind and the obelisk represents knowledge. The message to be gained from this statue is that it takes a strong mind to know true knowledge.

Today was great, of course, every day with Margret is great! I really enjoyed our time with her and look forward to our next excursion together!