Dear Nila,
You asked me to light a candle for you in a church in Italy. I wanted to do it in the Venetian cathedral Santa Maria dei Frari, my favorite cathedral in the whole world. Behind its towering but unpromising brown brick facade, Santa Maria dei Frari houses the most magnificently vast nave, with tiny high windows and white and red checkered floor tiles that make your footsteps echo all the way to the ceiling vaults. There are 16th-century tombs along the walls with statues so real that you almost apologize to them when you walk too close. One of the tombs is flanked by skeletal figures holding up a proclamation. Most people find that one creepy, but ever since I first saw it four years ago, I thought it had an eerie kind of beauty.
Unfortunately, the day we were in Venice, Santa Maria dei Frari was closed for renovations. And we never made it as far as Tivoli, which had been my fallback plan.
So by the time Rachel and I got to Rome, we really, really owed you an overdue candle.
In Rome we found a basilica tucked into the crumbling frigidarium of the crumbling Baths of Diocletian. From the outside, the baths are this towering heap of ancient brick. You wouldn’t even know there was anything inside except archaeological conservationist scaffolding, till you walk round the half-crescent of what looks like it used to be a rotunda, and you find a discreet marble sign reading Basilica Santa Maria degli Angeli e dei Martiri:
When we walked in, we were presented with this hidden gem of a Renaissance Catholic church:
…and with this sign:
Since Rachel’s sundress had spaghetti straps and my camera dangled from its strap around my wrist and we both had our smartphones in our bags, we chose to interpret the message thus: no black clothes, no tripods, no ancient flip phones.
I went looking for a candle to light for you. The first thing I found was this bank of candles beneath a statue of Saint Bruno:
If you look closely, you may notice that the wicks are lightbulbs. When you drop a coin in, presumably a bulb turns on for a set amount of time.
I decided this was cheating, so we went looking for real candles.
Finally, near the back, dwarfed by the altar, I found this stand:
The little offering box requested 50 cents to light a candle. I didn’t have a 50 cent coin, so I dropped in a whole euro. So karmically speaking, your candle is extra potent.
Not having a Catholic bone between us, I’m embarrassed to admit how long it took Rachel and I to figure out how to light a candle from another candle without singeing our fingers or dropping it out of the tin. I almost resorted to asking the priest for help, but I was afraid he would sense my Jewish ancestry, Wiccan sympathies, agnosticism and general inability to tell a paternoster from a primogeniture, and kick me out. We got it eventually.
This is your candle:
Sending good thoughts/prayers/love your way. I hope you feel better soon.
Love,
Kate