Fahey Ventures

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The Inn at the Spanish Steps

Posted on | March 8, 2010 | No Comments

A Preview of the Spanish Steps
Image by Storm Crypt via Flickr

The Inn at the Spanish Steps is one of Rome’s best-kept secrets: a luxury hotel in Rome, uniquely located on Rome’s famed shopping street beside the historic coffee-house, founded in 1760. Listed as a national monument, our building was a stately home in the 1800’s and is now fully renovated with air conditioning and modern comforts. Quiet and exclusive boutique hotel, it retains the flavor of that era with its period decor. Several rooms have fireplaces and frescoed ceilings. We cater to a distinguished clientele.

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Hotel de Russie

Posted on | March 8, 2010 | No Comments

Hotel de Russie
Image by much ado about nothing via Flickr
The Hotel de Russie is a luxury five-star hotel located in the heart of the beautiful city of Rome between the Spanish Steps and Piazza del Popolo on the Via del Babuino. The hotel is within easy walking distance of Rome’s key attractions, fashion houses and Via Condotti. The Vatican City, with St Peter’s and the Sistine Chapel, is just a ten-minute walk from the Hotel de Russie while Piazza Navona and the Trevi Fountain are also within easy access.

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Musée d’Orsay

Posted on | February 28, 2010 | No Comments

Musée d'Orsay
Image by Cosmovisión via Flickr

The national museum of the Musée d’Orsay opened to the public on 9 December 1986 to show the great diversity of artistic creation in the western world between 1848 and 1914. It was formed with the national collections coming mainly from three establishments:

* from the Louvre museum, for the works of artists born after 1820 or coming to the fore during the Second Republic;

* from the Musée du Jeu de Paume, which since 1947 had been devoted to Impressionism;

* and lastly from the National Museum of Modern Art, which, when it moved in 1976 to the Centre Georges Pompidou, only kept works of artists born after 1870.

– musee-orsay.fr

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Category: 7e arrondissement, France, Paris, Saint-Thomas-d'Aquin, Saint-Thomas-d'Aquin Art
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Spanish Steps

Posted on | February 28, 2010 | No Comments

Spanish steps Rome
Image via Wikipedia

Following a competition in 1717 the steps were designed by the little-known Francesco de Sanctis, though Alessandro Specchi was long thought to have produced the winning entry. Generations of heated discussion over how the steep slope to the church on a shoulder of the Pincio should be urbanized preceded the final execution. Archival drawings from the 1580s show that Pope Gregory XIII was interested in constructing a stair to the recently-completed façade of the French church. Gaspar van Wittel’s view of the wooded slope in 1683, before the Scalinata was built, is conserved in the Galleria Nazionale, Rome. The Roman-educated Cardinal Mazarin took a personal interest in the project that had been stipulated in Gueffier’s will and entrusted it to his agent in Rome, whose plan included an equestrian monument of Louis XIV, an ambitious intrusion that created a furore in papal Rome. Mazarin died in 1661, the pope in 1667, and Gueffier’s will was successfully contested by a nephew who claimed half; so the project lay dormant until Pope Clement XI Albani renewed interest in it. The Bourbon fleur-de-lys and Innocent XIII’s eagle and crown are carefully balanced in the sculptural details. The solution is a gigantic inflation of some conventions of terraced garden stairs. -wikipedia.org

– rome-accom.com

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Saint Peter’s Square

Posted on | February 28, 2010 | No Comments

Saint Peter's Square
Image by Søren Hugger Møller via Flickr

The open space which lies before the basilica was redesigned by Gian Lorenzo Bernini from 1656 to 1667, under the direction of Pope Alexander VII, as an appropriate forecourt, designed “so that the greatest number of people could see the Pope give his blessing, either from the middle of the façade of the church or from a window in the Vatican Palace” (Norwich 1975 p 175). Bernini had been working on the interior of St. Peter’s for decades; now he gave order to the space with his renowned colonnades, using the Tuscan form of Doric, the simplest order in the classical vocabulary, not to compete with the palace-like façade by Carlo Maderno, but he employed it on an unprecedented colossal scale to suit the space and evoke emotions of awe. – wikipedia.org

– greatbuildings.com

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Santa Maria sopra Minerva

Posted on | February 23, 2010 | No Comments

Gothic church, Rome
Image by adman_as via Flickr

In the area surrounding the basilica and the former convent buildings, there were three temples in Roman times: the Minervium, built by Gnaeus Pompey in honour of the goddess Minerva about 50 B.C., referred to as Delubrum Minervae, the Iseum dedicated to Isis, and the Serapeum dedicated to Serapis. Details of the temple to Minerva are not known but recent investigations indicate that a small round Minervium once stood a little further to east on the Piazzo of the Collegio Romano. In 1665 an Egyptian obelisk was found, buried in the garden of the Dominican cloister adjacent to the church. Several other small obelisks were found at different times near the church, known as the Obelisci Isei Campensis, which were probably brought to Rome during the first century and grouped in pairs, with others, at the entrances of the temple of Isis. -wikipedia.org

- http://www.basilicaminerva.it/

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Santa Sabina

Posted on | February 23, 2010 | No Comments

Santa Sabina looking west
Image by Lawrence OP via Flickr

Santa Sabina was built by Priest Petrus of Illyria, a Dalmatian priest, between 422 and 432 on the site of the house of the Roman matron Sabina, who was later declared a canonized Christian saint. It was originally near to a temple of Juno.
Pope Honorius III, a member of the Savelli family, approved in 1216 the Order of Preachers, now commonly known as the Dominicans. At that time the church and associated buildings formed part of the holdings of the Savelli family. In 1219, Pope Honorius III gave his family church to Saint Dominic, the founder of the Order of Preachers. Since then, it has been their headquarters. The church and convent of Santa Sabina on the Aventine hill in Rome have been home to the Order of Preachers (Dominicans) since the church was given to the Order in perpetuity on June 5, 1222. – wikipedia.org

romanchurches.wikia.com

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Pantheon, Rome

Posted on | February 22, 2010 | No Comments

M·AGRIPPA·L·F·COSTERTIVM·FECIT (2006-05-158)
Image by Argenberg via Flickr

In the aftermath of the Battle of Actium (31 BC), Marcus Agrippa built and dedicated the original Pantheon during his third consulship (27 BC). The form of Agrippa’s Pantheon is debated. Augustus’s Pantheon was destroyed along with other buildings in a huge fire in 80 AD. Domitian rebuilt the Pantheon, which burned again in 110 AD. Not long after this second fire, construction started again, according to a recent re-evaluation of the bricks dated with manufacturer stamps. Therefore, the design of the building should not be credited to Hadrian or his architects. Instead, the design of the extant building might belong to Trajan’s architect Apollodorus of Damascus. The degree to which the decorative scheme should be credited to Hadrian’s architects is uncertain. Finished by Hadrian but not claimed as one of his works, it used the text of the original inscription (“M·AGRIPPA·L·F·COS·TERTIVM·FECIT”, standing for Latin: Marcus Agrippa, Lucii filius, consul tertium fecit translated to “‘Marcus Agrippa, son of Lucius, Consul for the third time, built this”) on the new facade, a common practice in Hadrian’s rebuilding projects all over Rome. How the building was actually used is not known.

- wikipedia

– italyguides.it

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Colosseum

Posted on | February 22, 2010 | No Comments

Colosseum
Image by QXZ via Flickr

Construction of the Colosseum began under the rule of the Emperor Vespasian in around 70–72AD. The site chosen was a flat area on the floor of a low valley between the Caelian, Esquiline and Palatine Hills, through which a canalised stream ran. By the 2nd century BC the area was densely inhabited. It was devastated by the Great Fire of Rome in AD 64, following which Nero seized much of the area to add to his personal domain. He built the grandiose Domus Aurea on the site, in front of which he created an artificial lake surrounded by pavilions, gardens and porticoes. The existing Aqua Claudia aqueduct was extended to supply water to the area and the gigantic bronze Colossus of Nero was set up nearby at the entrance to the Domus Aurea.

-wikipedia

- the-colosseum.net

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Basilica di San Clemente

Posted on | February 22, 2010 | No Comments

Basilica di San Clemente
Image by Kaeru via Flickr

Very little is known about the life of St Clement (92-101 AD). According to the oldest list of Roman bishops, he was the third successor to St Peter in Rome.

He is the author of an Epistle to the Corinthians which was written c. 96 AD in the name of the Church of Rome to deal with disturbances in the Church at Corinth. The letter is one of the earliest witnesses to the authority of the Church of Rome and was so highly regarded that it was read publicly at Corinth with the Scriptures in the second century.

St Clement is revered as a martyr: fourth-century accounts speak of his forced labour in the mines during exile to the Crimea in the reign of the emperor Trajan (98-117 AD) and his missionary work there which prompted the Romans to bind him to an anchor and throw him into the Black Sea. Sometime later, the accounts continue, the water receded, revealing a tomb built by angels from which his body was recovered.

The relics of St Clement are reserved beneath the high altar of the basilica and on 23 November, the Feast of St Clement, they are exposed for veneration and carried in solemn procession through the neighbouring streets.

– basilicasanclemente.com

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