EDITOR”S NOTE: This weekend’s think piece is a kind of time capsule, written and published earlier this month as the coronavirus crisis appeared on the horizon in the city of Rome.

This piece was written by the veteran religion writer previously known as Roberta Green, best known for her work at The Orange County Register. She was living in Rome for several months, as she will explain, while researching and writing a book on art, faith and the importance of beauty. That’s the kind of topic that sends a writer to Rome. She returned to the United States on one of the last flights out.

This was published on March 9th at Religion Unplugged. I have made no attempt to update it, in terms of the COVID-19 statistics. I find it kind of sobering to read this essay and then think of all that has happened in the relatively short time that has passed since this was written. (tmatt)

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ROME — When my husband and I decided to move to Rome for the first half of this year to escape distractions and try to write books we’ve been working on for years, we had no idea that we’d be living in one of the centers of a global epidemic.

At the time we left California in January, coronavirus had surfaced in China and the World Health Organization was yet to name the disease it caused COVID-19. We didn’t expect to encounter it in Rome. But we did. 

The epicenter of the disease in Italy is Milan and the North, including Venice. On the morning of March 8, Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte put nearly 16 million people in Lombardy, the Veneto and Emilia Romagna under virtual quarantine until April 3. The decree also ordered the closure of all cinemas, theaters, museums, nightclubs and casinos throughout the country.

In addition, Vatican City, which is a separate nation, announced the closing of the Vatican Museum and access to the Sistine Chapel also until April 3. 

Over the past several weeks the number of cases in Rome have grown from three to 49 at the latest report. The decree also closed the blockbuster Raphael show of more than 100 of the artist’s paintings and drawings. Ironically, the exhibition marks the 500th anniversary of the Renaissance artist’s death by fever at the age of 37 at height of his career while working in the papal apartments, which of course are also now closed. 

As of Sunday, the latest reports from Italy’s Civil Protection Agency said that a total of 7,375 people have tested positive for the virus and 366, up from 233 from just the day before, have died from COVID-19, the disease it causes.

Already last week the national government closed all schools and universities. Schools in the quarantined region will not open until April 3, while in the rest of the country schools are set to open March 15. American colleges and universities with programs in the city sent their students home. Airlines have canceled flights. And, those that remain are virtually empty, as my husband learned last week flying back from London. Our inboxes have been packed with friends asking how we are and if we are still in Rome.

Google “coronavirus Rome” and the headlines tell the story. NPR: “With Italy’s Coronavirus Cases Rising Fast, Rome’s Streets Go Quiet.” or “Coronavirus Repercussion: Tourists Abandon Rome’s Streets.” The Daily Beast: “Coronavirus Is Turning Rome’s Tourist Spots into Ghost Towns.” You get the picture.

While we take the necessary precautions, our daily routines haven’t changed much. We do wash our hands a lot more and steer clear of anyone who is coughing. And, since we came here to eliminate distractions so that we could work on writing projects, it’s hard to imagine a place with fewer distractions at the moment.

The recent closures make two experiences we had last week even more precious than they seemed at the time. Just last Thursday, my husband and I along with our friend who is a top Vatican guide had the entire Vatican Museum, the Rafael Rooms and the Sistine Chapel to ourselves. Us and the guards with the keys. Don’t they make movies about stuff like this?

Our visit started at 6 p.m. when the museum closes. We were early and so was our friend. Very few people came out. Our friend talked with the guards — she knows them all. They even hugged.

We went inside, through security, and into the huge and wondrous elevator with benches so you can sit. My favorite elevator in the whole world. We stepped out and the museum was ours.

Our first stop was the porphyry sarcophagi of Emperor Constantine’s mother Helena and his daughter Costanza. Carved out of rare red-purple marble found only in Egypt — and used only for emperors and kings — each sarcophagus is the size of a small room or miniature travel trailer. They face each other in the marble-clad entry hall of the building Pope Julius II transformed to become the Vatican Museum in 1506.

An avid collector of antiquities, Julius gave his collection to the church to be used for the educated to further their understanding of art. Julius is the pope who tore down the original St. Peter’s Basilica to make way for the Renaissance masterpiece we know today. In spite of the nickname the Warrior Pope for his many battles, Julius also commissioned Michelangelo to paint the Sistine Chapel ceiling and Raphael to fresco the walls of the papal apartments. 

From the entry, we start down the marbled hall displaying Roman sculpture and artifacts. The idea, according to our guide, was to show both the wonder of Roman artistic achievement and the fact that the art of those who persecuted Christians had become a witness to how much people can change. 

It was hard not to jump up and down or dance with elation at having this space to ourselves. No crowds. No selfie sticks in our faces. No pushing. No shoving. Just us, our friend, and the art.

We turned down a hall lined with the tapestries made to decorate the Sistine Chapel for the feasts of the liturgical year. Pope Leo X, Julius’s successor, commissioned Rafael to paint cartoons for a series of the lives of the apostles, which were not on display. (One of those with its cartoon, on loan from the Victoria and Albert Museum, is in the now-closed Raphael show.)

Continue reading “Rome In The Time Of Coronavirus” by Roberta Green Ahmanson at Religion Unplugged.