A Novel Experience

Reveling in all its glory with its ancient history and spell-binding architecture, the eternal city of Rome shows us another more mysterious side to it on a tour based on the Dan Brown novel and now motion picture—Angels and Demons. By Raul Dias


En route to fashionable Milan from Mumbai, I’m flying somewhere over Turkey or so the onscreen flight show on channel number 2 lets me know. As the tiny blip that represents me and my co-passengers inches forward towards a boot-shaped country, a smile materializes on my travel-weary face. But then Italy always seems to have that effect on me. Images of the mastery of Giovanni Bernini and Leonardo Da Vinci, the sheer magnitude of the mighty Coliseum and the divine Sistine Chapel all intermingle in a high-octane orgiastic frenzy in the confines my bedazzled mind. I put down the book that I have just finished reading and indulge a bit more in my lustful day dreaming. Suddenly a mellifluous voice speaking in lilting Italian-accented English snaps me out of my reverie. “Have you taken the tour?” a statuesque flight attendant asks me as she refreshes my Campari on the rocks. “Sorry? What tour?” I ask in surprise. “The Angels and Demons tour Signore,” she says, pointing to the book lying face down on the tray table. “I strongly recommend doing it if you liked the book,” she says with a smile. “Why not? Rome it is then!” I hear myself say, as I get ready to relive the mysteries of Dan Brown’s page turner in first person…


The cool Roman air is perfumed by the heady smell of the amaretto-laced Caffé Corretto that attempts to keep me awake. Beat from my 7am flight in from Milan, I find myself congregating with a dozen other tourists in the Piazza del Popolo waiting for the tour guide to rendezvous with us. On the suggestion of the flight attendant, I had already pre-booked my four hour Angels and Demons tour online and all that is left for me to do is to walk the path of the Illuminati.
For the uninitiated, the Dan Brown novel Angels and Demons, that has spawned the aforesaid tour, is a high-octane rollercoaster ride that brings an ancient secret organization, the Illuminati, and the Vatican together in a present-day battle for ‘politico-religious’ control. Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon must join forces with scientist Vittoria Vetra in a frantic race to save the Vatican from a powerful bomb which threatens to destroy it and the cardinals who have gathered within the Sistine Chapel to elect the next Pope. Their journey takes them (and us vicariously!) across Rome and into cathedrals, piazzas and the Illuminati lair—the Castel Sant’Angelo. Along the way, they uncover many secrets, including who is responsible for the threat to the Vatican. In the end, they save the Vatican from the sinister annihilation plans.
Bang on the dot of 9.30am the silence around us is punctured with a raucous shout that originates from a rather stocky, bearded man in a red shirt and jeans who calls himself Massimo—our tour guide du jour. He hands us our very own copies of the map of the Illuminati path and we are set, stretching before us our first stop is the Piazza del Popolo that means the square of the people. “This piazza was designed in the neoclassical style by the architect Giuseppe Valadier, and was once a place for public executions,” Massimo lets us know this gory tid-bit as he mimics a guillotine slicing through a human head, sound effects et al.
The riveting Fontana del Nettuno and the obelisk from Heliopolis, Egypt are the crowning glory of the piazza that also houses a very important ‘character’ in Angels and Demons—St. Maria del Popolo Church. This is the place where the protagonist Robert Langdon finds the body of the first missing Cardinal branded with the Earth anagram—the first in a series of associations with the Illuminati’s four primordial elements: Earth, Air, Fire, and Water.
The 11th century stone church stands at the base of a hill on the southeast corner of the piazza and houses the Bernini masterpiece, the sculpture of Habakkuk and the Angel in the church’s Chigi Chapel. Featuring some amazing works of art by greats like Caravaggio, Pinturicchio and sculptures by Andrea Bregno, the church’s dome is clearly inspired by Michelangelo’s similar work in the Sistine Chapel. Massimo tells us that the St. Maria del Popolo church’s current facade was updated by Bernini in the Baroque to give the church a more “modern” look. He also makes it a point to let us know that the Chigi Chapel that is named after the banker Agostini Chigi, is decorated with a mosaic called ‘Creation of the World’ designed by Raphael. “This is rather unique! Since, by the time of the Renaissance, mosaics were somewhat archaic, if not old-fashioned,” quips Martin Baumgartner, an American art history professor who has taken the tour “just to test its authenticity,” he tells us. So far he has no complaints!

But there is nothing old-fashioned about the super comfortable coach with a killer music system that whizzes us away from the divinity of the St. Maria del Popolo Church to our next stop—St Peter’s Square in the Vatican, the very nerve centre of Catholicism. “Although it is a known fact that Michelangelo designed the St Peter’s Basilica, St Peter’s Square is another one of Bernini’s creations,” Massimo lets us know almost conspiratorially as he herds us off the coach in a comical single file.
In the centre of the square another obelisk rises 81-feet tall in all its verticality, as an army of the Vatican’s Swiss Guards march past it. Emperor Caligula’s 350-ton obelisk also has atop it a hollow iron cross that was affixed in 1656. It was at the West Ponente wind rose tile located on the west side of the base of the obelisk that Langdon made his second ghastly discovery that was dedicated to the second element—Air.

Although we issue feeble protests to stay here a little longer and marvel at the gargantuan square and the largest church in the world, Massimo will have none of it and he placates us with a promise that we will be returning here shortly for the “climax” of our tour. So off we are again on our modern day ‘chariot’ cruising through Rome on to our third stop of the tour that was turning out to be worth every € 56 that I had spent on it.
The St. Maria della Vittoria Church that was first named San Paolo was built in the 15th century by the Discalced Carmelite Friars and its façade is by Giovanni Battista Soria. But it is what is inside the edifice that is vital to the Angels and Demons tour. Bernini’s magnificent sculpture, Ecstasy of St Teresa that was once banished out of the Vatican by Pope Urban VIII due to it being too sexually explicit is housed here. The sculpture depicts St Teresa on her back with a Seraph Angel (the fire angel) about to pierce her with his fiery spear. And it was here that Langdon finds the Illuminati abductor in the act of setting the third missing cardinal on fire—the third and penultimate element.

A quick detour to the Pantheon that also features in the novel is next on the cards and we are given a crash course on the wonders of this monument that was once a temple to many gods hence the name Pantheon which means pan (many) and theon (gods). It is also here that Raphael was reburied in 1759 as part of a historic tribute to eminent Italians.
And as the mid-day sun warms us up a bit along with the steaming cappuccino that Massimo has materialized out of thin air, we carry on foot to the nearby Piazza Navona for our tryst with the fourth element—water and some more Bernini.
Nowhere else in Rome is Bernini’s genius more apparent than at the Piazza Navona that is dotted with masterpieces everywhere you look. A Michael Jackson impersonator threatens to distract us with his moon walking antics, but thankfully Bernini triumphs this time. The main attraction of the Piazza Navona is the central and largest fountain, the Fontana dei Quattro Fiumi (fountain of the four rivers). It was constructed between 1647 and 1651 on the request of the Pope Innocent X. The design of the fountain—where Langdon makes his watery night-time discovery, theatrically illuminated in the dark—was first commissioned to Borromini, but it was ultimately handed to Bernini. The fountain features four figures, each representing a river from a different continent - the Nile, Ganges, Danube and Rio della Plata.

Back on the coach trying to keep up with Massimo’s Italian rendition of Gloria Gaynor’s ‘I will survive’, we roll down the cobblestone streets to the Castel Sant’Angelo where we have to alight just before the Bridge of Angels and make our way on foot to the castle at the end of it. Now a museum, the Castel Sant’Angelo was built as a cylindrical mausoleum by Rome’s Emperor Hadrian on the Tiber river. It was then converted into a military fortress before the Pope fortified it in the 14th century. The castle is named after the statue of Archangel Michael found on top. In the novel the castle serves as The Church of Illumination and it sure looks every bit imposing! After a hurried wander through the castle, Massimo herds us back on to the coach. He does after all have a promise to keep.

True to his word, the last stop on Massimo’s detailed itinerary is a trip back to the Vatican, this time to peek at the end of the ‘Il Passetto’ or the secret subterranean passage that links the Vatican and the Castel Sant’Angelo. Although we can’t really see the passage, Massimo assures us that it was there and we take his word for it.

13.30pm: A quick glance at my watch indicates that we are done with the tour. But are we done with Rome? Not a chance! How can anyone ever be done with Rome?

(First published in India Today Travel Plus)