We really filled up our P-Day (Monday Dec 19, 2022) with another trip to Central Rome. The area we wanted to get to was Piazza Venezia. Our hope for this trip was to find 🎵🎵🎵🎶"Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire" 🎵🎵 and to find the Vittorio Emmanuel monument. Success!! We got them both!!
This is the Street Vendor in the Piazza who was roasting the chestnuts over the very hot flame! I thought they were delicious!!
The Statue of Vittorio Emmanuel II is very hard to MISS! It is large and quite prominent there in the Piazza Venezia. For those who don't know--the Mumford family has quite an interest in this man and what he did for Italy as Ron's Grandfather's name is Victor Emanuel Mumford. We are not sure as to why Victor's father-- Gideon Moore Mumford ---chose that name for his 6th son (in the year of 1885) in a family of 12 children--7 of which are boys. Ron says he does remember that Gideon Moore Mumford loved reading and keeping abreast of things going on in the world at this time. His job as an Educator and Administrator might have propelled him to seek knowledge of world events. Let me share with you a little insight into Vittorio Emanuele II and help lay the back drop for interesting correlations within the Mumford family.
Vittorio Emmanuel II (1820-1878) was king of Sardinia from 1849 to 1861 and then the first king of Italy until 1878. He worked to free Italy from foreign control and became a central figure of the movement for Italian unification.
Next to the Piazza Venezia square there is the remarkable white monument honouring Italy's first king Vittorio Emanuele II. Italians also call the Monument of Victor Emanuel II ‘Il Vittoriano’ and ‘Altara della Patria’, or altar of the fatherland. The monument commemorates the unification of Italy in 1861 and the first king of Italy, Victtorio Emmanuel II. Although this monument was built in his honour, he is not buried there. Instead, he is buried in the Pantheon.
The impressive building was built between 1895 and 1911 on top of Palatine Hill. The Altare della Patria or "Altar of the Fatherland" contains a lot of white marble from the region of Brescia. It is a large statue and building(135 metres wide and 70 metres high) and some Italians have given it several nicknames, ranging from the wedding cake, the dentures, to the typewriter.
Vittorio Emmanuel retained the constitution, or Statuto, granted by his father in January 1848. Vittorio Emmanuel successfully met various crises in the early years of his reign. There were many obstacles, wars, uprisings in the task to unify Italy--which was a collection of smaller states or regions and different types of governing bodies. At the young age of 29--Vittorio Emmanuel II succeeded his Father, Charles Albert to the throne in one of the larger states of-the area that is now Italy-- the Piedmont-Sardinia region. In the 1850s Piedmont-Sardinia remained the only constitutional state in Italy, a haven for persecuted Italian nationalists and liberals who had been involved in the 1848-49 revolutions. On March 17, 1861, the kingdom of united Italy was proclaimed at Turin, capital of Piedmont-Sardinia, in a national parliament composed of deputies elected from all over the peninsula and the 1848 Statuto extended to all of Italy. Vittorio Emmanuel became the new country's first king-- First king (1861-1878) of united Italy .
Now these are the interesting "facts" that kind of point to why there might be some "unfinished business" in Italy--at least in regards to the Gospel of Jesus Christ and missions.
Map just to show how close famous places are in the
of Rome
The Trevi Fountain (“Fontana di Trevi” in Italian) has a history that predates the 1600s, and it’s the most well-known fountain in the world. “Trevi” is a mashup of the Italian words “tre,” meaning “three” and “vie,” meaning “roads,” because the fountain was constructed at the intersection of Rome’s then three most important thoroughfares.
Trevi is also one of those places that movies have helped make famous--Like Roman Holiday (1953), Three Coins in the Fountain (1954) and The Lizzie McGuire Movie (2003).
The 85-foot-tall, 65-foot-wide Trevi was Bernini’s largest undertaking ever, and as such a monumental attraction to tourists and natives alike, the world-renowned Italian fountain takes in approximately 1,250,000 euros annually (about $1.5 million U.S. dollars). While these large sums have attracted the eye of thieves throughout the ages, attempts at stealing from the Trevi have almost always been thwarted.
As travelers pray for a promise to return to Rome someday, the city of Rome uses the money gathered at the Trevi to pay for the food and upkeep of a market for the area’s poorest inhabitants.
Well that about wraps up this email. I've been wanting to explore this topic for quite awhile. Hope I didn't lose "readership" over it.
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