Melissa Spilman reflects on her trip to Italy and Greece with others from the rhetoric school in the summer of 2007. Melissa will graduate in May of 2008.

It has proven to be quite a difficult task deciding which part of our trip to share with you–like a diamond, each side of it reflects something entirely unique, beautiful, and worthy of attention. That being said, as an art student I find myself inexplicably drawn to sharing the aesthetic side of any experience. This trip brought those familiar but dim photographs to vividly-colorful life.

Looking out the frosty window of the airplane, the excitement and anticipation grew as we drank in the view: waves crashing on a foreign land, one covered in a green patchwork of fields and sprinkled with little Italian villas. Thinking back to last November, I can remember making a poster for a fundraiser for the trip and painting the shape of Italy in bright green. It was an amazing feeling knowing that we were now there, not in the familiar outline of America, but over there, in the one shaped like a boot. It was now so real, and I could not wait to see the rest of it.

After our journey through Tuscany (one of the most beautiful landscapes I have ever seen, particularly the medieval-looking churches), we arrived in Florence and subsequently visited the Accademia, which most notably houses Michelangelo’s David. Walking into that room with David at the other end was positively surreal. I felt elated and absolutely stunned at my first view of what Italy had to offer. The “perfect” image of a man was right there in front of me, larger than life. I watched the light slip slowly over the marble figure as I approached, highlighting every contour in turn. It was truly an act of God that enabled Michelangelo to find that man in the block of marble with which he started.

Poking around the rest of the museum, Kara and I momentarily paused in front of a Madonna and Child, and I’m sure we caught the eye of some of those in one of the many Asian tour groups gracing most of Italy with their abundant presence. What might have attracted attention was our swaying as we examined that particular painting. We had discovered that the artist had used a different paint to ornament the figures, and we found that if we moved in a certain way we could see the light hit the gold trim he had added and see where it was raised from the rest of the painting. While this may seem a simple thing to study, we found it fascinating, and upon further reflection, I have realized that this particular detail would have certainly escaped us in a photograph.

I saw many, many feet and hems of robes over the course of this trip, as the paintings were so large that when I was up close enough to examine them, feet were the only things at eye level. The most memorable feet I saw were those of a man in Raphael’s Transfiguration in the Vatican Museum. I was unaware until this trip that one can be visually stimulated to gasp, but, indeed, it is possible, and this particular painting inspired just such a reaction. Walking into that shadowed room and seeing it in the middle, its rich colors and moving figures shining in the only lights in the gallery not dimmed, pulled my gaze straight to it. I was thrilled right down to my ballet flats–I was in the same proximity to it that Raphael himself had been. It was truly inspired, one of the most amazing things I have ever seen. As Michelangelo once said, “The true work of art is but a shadow of the divine perfection.” This painting was one of the best shadows of God’s “divine perfection” that I have ever witnessed – to see that God guided him to create such a beautiful thing was quite an inspiration to an aspiring artist such as myself.

When writing on the aesthetics of a trip including Rome, one cannot overlook the Sistine Chapel and St. Peter’s Basilica. When we finally found the Sistine Chapel (no small feat, I might add, as we had to walk through countless rooms in the Vatican Museums, each promising that it was around the next bend,

before we finally reached it), we found ourselves in a crowded room full of people making more noise than one might imagine they would, with several guards standing around for the express purpose of shushing them. When we finally sat down at the edge of the room, and at last began to take in what was above us, the noise seemed to melt away as I stared up at a ceiling painted hundreds of years before, but still vibrantly depicting biblical stories. It caught me completely off guard, for I had seen that ceiling a hundred times in pictures, but words cannot describe the magnitude of its beauty and the feeling one gets when allowed to marvel at it in person. That same feeling returned at St. Peter’s Basilica and all the churches we saw on the trip. To be able to worship God through the beauty of the building one is in as well as through the service being held must be the height of worship, and one of my deepest regrets about our trip is not being able to attend a service in one of those breathtaking cathedrals.

Some of the most impressive of the many columns that we saw on the trip were at the Colosseum. It is made of four different styles of columns, each having its own level. We learned that this was Rome’s way of showing that they were built upon past generations and pressing into the future. On a side note, we were delighted to learn a few fun facts about the Colosseum as we sat just inside it, attempting to shield ourselves from the chilly rain from which it offered little protection. Our tour guide, Mario, informed us that the Romans used sand to cover the arena because it absorbed blood so well, and that they could fill it with water to re-enact a water battle in as little as eight hours. It was particularly interesting to hear this as, only moments later, we beheld the ruins of the arena, the platform used to fight on, now completely gone. As the rain swirled around us, it was easy to imagine the wet walls and columns covered in marble and glistening as Romans and people from around the world stood in the very places we were stepping as we dodged puddles. The view from the upper levels, coupled with a good imagination, transformed the Colosseum into a beautiful symbol of the architectural prowess of Rome.

Leaving Rome saddened us, but the prospect of Greece was comforting. As we stood on deck of the “cruise” that would take us away, the wind whipping our hair, we ponytailed it for a clear view of Italy and said our farewells. We awoke to the turquoise waters of coastal Greece. We traveled by bus up to Delphi, our bus driver greatly impressing us as he navigated the cliffs and narrow streets with daring precision. (It is worth mentioning that those who designed European streets clearly did not have charter busses in mind, making it possible to stick your hand out the window of said bus and touch signs attached to buildings as you passed them.)

We arrived at our hotel and then were off to the temple of Delphi, assaulted by rain once again. However, for the imaginative soul, there was repeated that sense of almost being a part of the past. One of the things Mr. Eatmon told us that articulated that feeling with striking accuracy was that we were separated from all those who had ever been at those places only by time. So there we were, walking with men such as Socrates around the temple of Apollo, with only a few thousand years between us.

Finally, we spent our last night in Athens. That night we went up to the top of our hotel and looked out over the city. We could see for miles; it was a bit of a shock to be surveying all the lights and movements of the city, and there in the middle stood the Acropolis, lit up and glowing against the black night sky. It was incredible to stand there and feel a breeze that only moments before had swirled around the columns of the Parthenon. It seemed close enough to touch, so real, yet it felt surreal as it appeared so dramatically different than when we had visited it that day.

Our journey through Italy and Greece was one of the most profound experiences of my life. Beauty was in everything: insignificant parks had statues, street lamps were mounted on decorative swirling iron, mountains took our breath away, cafes hid in alleyways, frequent fountains gave a soothing background to the hustle and bustle of city life, and looking down almost any street we saw rows of buildings beautifully decorated with balconies filled with flowers and shuttered windows topped with sculpted swirls. We so frequently saw something beautiful in unexpected places that it was easy to take it for granted, but it would often hit one in the most delightful ways. All this is to say that what we saw, felt, heard, tasted, and experienced on this trip was unforgettable and will remain with us as a brilliantly-faceted memory for the rest of our lives.

Left: The Tranfiguration by Raphael
Above: The Creation of Adam (Sistine Chapel) by Michelangelo