Roman Quarantine – Day 25

Roman Quarantine – Day 25

Coronavirus

Tweet Back in the distant haze of early March, today was the date given as the end of the emergency shutdown, but of course we’re nowhere near the end. At present, current measures – leaving the house only for necessity (food shopping, taking out rubbish, medical...
Roman Quarantine – Day 24

Roman Quarantine – Day 24

Coronavirus, Roman Forum, Roman Painting, Rome

Tweet palimpsest, n. and a.(ˈpælɪmpsɛst) [ad. L. palimpsēstus n., a. Gr. παλίµψηστος scraped again, παλίµψηστον a parchment whence writing has been erased, f. πάλιν again + ψηστός, from ψάω, ψῆν to rub smooth.] Oxford English Dictionary...
Roman Quarantine – Day 22

Roman Quarantine – Day 22

Coronavirus, Rome, Rus in urbe

Tweet I took the bins out today. My first foray to street level in six days. I’ve started dreaming of long walks in Rome’s abundant and excellent parks. What Martial called, when speaking of the house of Sparsus (not without envy), rus in urbe. Literally the “country...
Roman Quarantine – Day 21

Roman Quarantine – Day 21

Coronavirus, Rome

Tweet Three weeks have passed since the evening when, while making pasta e fagioli, the initial lockdown (subsequently further tightened to close all non-essential shops and services, and to limit all shopping and exercise to the immediate vicinity) was announced. I...
Roman Quarantine – Day 20

Roman Quarantine – Day 20

Coronavirus, Rome

Tweet Today is the third Sunday of the Roman Quarantine. And because it’s Sunday we had lunch. After all standards need to be maintained, and though this all feels like punishment we haven’t in fact been bad. So, following the Instagram example of my pal Hande, we...
Roman Quarantine – Day 19

Roman Quarantine – Day 19

Coronavirus, popes, Rome, Vatican

Tweet In the distant world of Day 7 of the Quarantine, I wrote of the papal pilgrimage which saw Pope Francis visit two churches with particular connections to historic banishments of plague. Yesterday evening at 6pm Rome time he once again sought to appeal to the...
Roman Quarantine – Day 18

Roman Quarantine – Day 18

Coronavirus, Rome

Tweet Today was, once again, a dreary and grey day of drizzle in Rome, and I stayed inside working on a translation I was asked to do by a loyal and appreciative client from the wonderfully named Department of Sciences of Antiquity at Rome’s oldest university, La...
Roman Quarantine – Day 17

Roman Quarantine – Day 17

Off the beaten track, Rome

Tweet Welcome to Day 17 of the Roman Quarantine. In case you’re wondering how things are they are a) fine, but also b) I just had to look up what day we’re on. So that perhaps is the best indication. Today was a drizzly grey sort of day (which I don’t mind at all, as...
Roman Quarantine – Day 16

Roman Quarantine – Day 16

Rome

Tweet Yesterday was the anniversary of one of the grimmest moments during the Second World War in Rome. On 23 March 1944, during the Nazi occupation of the city, partisans in the city exploded a bomb at via Rasella, opposite the entrance to Palazzo Barberini (it is...