Attempted Bloggery: Robert Day: When in Rome...

Thursday, August 22, 2019

Robert Day: When in Rome...

The Temple of Venus and Roma was the largest temple ever built in Rome. It was dedicated by the Emperor Hadrian in the year 135. Today ten exterior columns that originally were part of a row of surrounding double pillars stand on the temple's massive elevated base. I photographed the columns last month as an afterthought, hastily looking back as our tour darted from the Colosseum to the Forum.

Columns of the Temple of Venus and Roma point toward the Colosseum, July 8, 2019.

Seventy-five years ago the New Yorker published a cartoon by Robert Day that was set just about here. World War II was still raging, but Mussolini had been ousted as the Italian Prime Minister in July of 1943 and the Armistice of Cassibili was signed in September of that year. With Italy subsequently fighting on the side of the Allies, Americans in the summer of 1944 must have known they were winning the war.

The return of tourism to Europe was still a ways off, but New Yorker readers must have been comforted by the lighthearted antics of the serviceman shown here carrying on for the camera. With its trivial subject matter in the setting of ancient ruins, this is not a great gag by any means but it may be something more important than that: a reassurance that in a world torn asunder by the pain of war some lucky few might soon be able once again to experience a few glorious, carefree moments.