Papal Scavenger Hunt
This week has been a stressful and busy one for me. It's my second to last week here (tear!), and so the work is piling up with final papers and looming exams. One thing I'm working on this week is a research paper for my theology class. Each student has to write about a different pope or Church organization from a list provided by our professor. I chose Innocent X, from the 17th century. Part of the paper is a biography and relating the works of the pope to the historical context of the work of the Church at the time. But, we also take advantage of being in Rome with the other part of our paper being about the works commissioned by the pope, aka churches, statues, fountains, buildings, paintings found all around the city. So, we have to go out and actually find those things that our pope did or built in Rome in order to describe and write about them (after receiving tips from our professor as to where to find them or looking up in our books/ online what the pope did). It's sort of a papal scavenger hunt! We're all on the look out for our pope's crest (sort of a coat of arms with the pope's family symbols) on or in churches and on monuments.
In my English class Tuesday, it was funny because we visited three churches in Trastevere, and b/c most of the students are in the Papacy class as well, we were all on the look out for last minute findings of contributions of our popes. When we entered a church, we'd all look around and my classmates would be like "There's my pope's crest! He must have done something here!" or "Ooo! There's my pope's name with that Latin inscription! Yes!" Everyone was really excited to find things their popes did, and my english teacher was amused by our enthusiasm in the project. Unfortunately, my pope wasn't involved in the construction of any of those churches, so no help for me!
Well I better get back to the life of Pope Innocent X and his famiily, the Pamphili. Wish me luck!
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