Presley Beal ‘26
I had never experienced anything as foreign as traveling across the ocean. Foreign to me was leaving the extended corn fields of my Pennsylvania hometown and moving to college on the North Shore. My feet touched the ocean but never flew across it; my body was swallowed in it but never saw the other side.
Ten hours on a plane ticked by and I had landed in Rome. When my feet touched the pavement outside of the airport, the wind felt different. I wanted to close my eyes and let it brush my hair in whatever way it liked—I was in Italy now. I had crossed the Atlantic Ocean; this was foreign.
I was there for only hours when I noticed that not only was the air different, but the beauty was different. My eyes weren’t used to the way that the Italian alleyways were crafted, each stone on the ground laid complete like a puzzle. Who knows the lives that walked before me and the kisses that met others’ faces and the tears that may have streamed all before the birth of my being. It was a surreal feeling, and one that never crossed my mind in the streets of Boston or New York City.
The first couple days I walked the streets of Orvieto my being was quiet. I felt as if I was within a sacred art piece; if I laughed too loud the buildings might crack. Foreign was new to me, I had never experienced such a picturesque living space with perfectly fashioned townspeople and perfectly chosen jazz tunes played through the speakers on every main street.
“This is a different kind of beautiful,” my voice echoed over the phone one night towards America to my mother.
The croissants were rolled and crafted so intentionally. The cappuccinos were dripped and poured and flavored with unmatched Italian design. The art was crafted in a way where I felt as if I obtained the eyes of the artist themself. In that same matter, everything was art to me in Italy. Even my insignificant iPhone photographs of that city became art to me.
Since I was studying abroad for the next two weeks, my class took us outside of our campus in Orvieto to view the physical history of Senia, Florence, and Rome. Rome was the first of our travels, which I had only seen through pixels on a screen beforehand. Our professor and his wife had experienced Rome before and were able to take us by the hand this time and let us view it alongside their knowledge.
The historic Renaissance cathedrals seem to be abundant in Rome, casually standing beside sidewalks among tourist shops and gelatorias. With some, their height is not surprising; their outside appearance is bland, minimally saying ciao with a monochromatic exterior. Others stood wrapped in a trench coat of construction, unwelcoming and closed off. However, when we walked into that very first cathedral that our professor had taken us to, I failed to grasp how I fit within such a sacred art piece. Was it fair that I was standing in baggy jeans among centuries worth of praise? Gold lined the ceiling alongside hand-painted images of my Savior Jesus Christ while tourists raised their cameras. I couldn’t help but follow them; perhaps we were all followers of one another. All I knew was to try and capture the beauty and keep it within my little memory box–I had never been put in a place like this to grasp something with such grandeur.
Alongside our course, which focused on religion in Renaissance Europe, we viewed a number of cathedrals over the past couple days. I started to lose count and I was confusing St. Peter’s Basilica with San Bartolomeo with Basilica di Santa Maria Maggiore. The gold on the ceilings were lined in the same way and the statues were crafted in the same style. These cathedrals and the hands behind them were undoubtedly impressive, but when exposed with them over and over again, their beauty was becoming less to me. It was a horrible feeling; by the end of the trip, we were given fifteen minutes by our professor to freely roam a cathedral and my friends and I viewed it in less than two. I wondered if that’s how the locals of Rome felt; if you pass the Colosseum every day on your commute to work, do you even stop and stare anymore?
Beauty becomes familiar. In this instance, Rome mimics New York City for me. I’ve been so many times that I couldn’t move past the height of Times’ Square faster.
So how do you keep the extraordinary extra? How does beauty last in the eyes of one person?
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