Rome, Latium — August 20, 2024

August 20th, Rome. I started at the brick flank of Santa Maria degli Angeli — Michelangelo's church built inside the warm rooms of Diocletian's old baths. Out front, broken capitals and a single tall vessel sat on patchy grass like the city had emptied its pockets. Inside, red granite columns climbed into a vault under scaffolding and CAPUT MUNDI banners. I drifted to Santa Maria Maggiore: a gold half-dome over the apse. Then the Pantheon — coffered ceiling, oculus pouring one clean column of light onto the marble. A side chapel held a triptych under a small dome; another, behind iron gates with brass rivets, kept its statues in soft shade. One idea I carried home: Rome doesn't replace, it nests — a basilica inside a bathhouse, a chapel inside a basilica, a saint inside a temple. The city is layered, each generation building on the last.