Writing Assignment #6

My assigned Rione is Vatican City, this is a unique district within Rome, since it's a country within Rome and in this respect differs from all of the other Rione's. Interviewing residents from our Rione proved to be difficult since there are very few people who actually are residents within the walls of Vatican City, 826 residents as of 2009; but talking to visitors of the city was extremely easy since there are tens of thousand of visitors here each day. We interviewed 2 people visiting the Vatican but I will get to that later. Vatican City is the where the pope resides and is currently viewed as one of the most important monuments to the Christian faith. Vatican City resides on .17sq miles on the left bank of the Tiber river, the church in it's current state was built in during the baroque era and this is reflected in the church's interior and also on the facade. The church was designed by multiple architects and is the culmination of much of their different original designs also, meaning parts of the church were designed by a single architect and not just one master design; the square and the colonnades were the design of Bernini. This main piazza is where we meet the people that we interviewed for this assignment, as it is the most assessable part of the whole Rione. The majority of the rest of the city is made up of the museums which we saw a few of, and also the gardens and areas that are off limits to the public. The Vatican museums hold some of the most valuable works of art in the world and also some of the most important religious pieces of artwork to the catholic faith. The Vatican also has its own military and police who are known as the swiss guard, in addition to this they also have their own economy and political system which is an absolute elective monarchy.

What we learned from the people we interviewed was that for many of them it was their first time visiting the Vatican and Rome, and that is was one of the attractions that they had came to see while they were in Italy. From sitting around and listening to the people visiting we learned that the vast majority of them were foreigners, while many from other western European countries and America their was a surprising amount from Asia also. I think that for many of these visitors visiting for the first time, they were overwhelmed by the immense size of the actual structure and the sheer size of the building and square.

For our first interview we decided to talk with an American couple who had been visiting Rome for the first time and also the Vatican. We discussed with them the first impressions that they had when entering the Vatican for the first time, and the thoughts that had about the importance of the city to themselves. The other person that we interviewed for this assignment was a student studying in Rome from an American university much like us. We asked them similar questions a we did the other people we interviewed and got answer similar to those above. The thing that really stood out to me about our Rione was the diversity of people that visit the site, in all actuality there are people from all over the world that visit this site everyday and that this city is host to some of the most important art and architecture in the world; and holds some importance for all of those who are catholic.