Lucci Hotel Rome Blog

Our Blogger: Marcelo

-Did the atmosphere of the Eternal City enchanted even the most acerbic of philosophers to the point of falling in love? Marcelo tells the story.

Due to health problems, Friedrich Nietzsche lead from 1880 until his collapse in January 1889 a gypsy-like existence. Searching for better climates his travels took him through Nice (during the winters), the Swiss alpine village of Sils-Maria (during the summers), Leipzig, Venice, Rapallo, Genoa, Turin,  Messina, Florence, and…our beautiful city of Rome.

It was precisely there, in the Eternal City in 1882 that the unexpected happened: He fell in love…

This might be hard to believe if we consider certain sentences like: ‘‘Ah, women: they make the highs higher and the lows more frequent’’ and ‘‘For the woman, the man is a means: the end is always the child.’’

Nevertheless so it was, and probably the undeniable romantic atmosphere of Rome had something to do with it. In 1882 during a visit to Rome, Nietzsche, age thirty-seven, met the young Lou von Salomé  (a twenty-one-year-old Russian woman a student of philosophy and theology in Zurich). He soon fell desperately  in love with her, and even proposed her to marry him.

She declined.

From that moment  Nietzsche’s friendship with her and Mister Paul Rée took a turn for the worse: Salomé and Rée decided to moved to Berlin…and left Nietzsche.

Years after,  Salomé would become an associate of… Sigmund Freud! And would write with psychological approach of her relationship with the author of Thus Spoke Zarathustra.

It is as least part of his harsh view about women explained simply for a broken heart? Maybe, but he carried his pain on philosophically ‘‘That which does not kill us makes us stronger’’ and (what could be seen by many as surprising), with humbleness for ‘‘The demand to be loved is the greatest of all arrogant presumptions.’’

The philosopher lived what for some would be seen as an unhappy life. But perhaps his most important legacy is that is possible for us transform pain into something beautiful, by a complete “life-affirmation” (central core of his philosophy), a total yes, pain included.

No pain no gain.

If somebody is still skeptical about Nietzsche’s romantic approach here you have a last and maybe unexpected quotation: ‘‘Love is not consolation. It is light.’’

Still skeptical? Visit Rome and fall in love! Check our availability at www.hoteldesartistes.com and www.yeshotelrome.com !!!

Our Blogger: Marcelo

Prepare yourself for the most fantastic journey…A journey of over 14,000 lines turned into the most amazing show before your eyes. The Dante’s journey through the three realms of the afterlife. A journey to the unknown which becomes possible due to the imagination of one of the greatest writers of world literature.

Lost in a dark wood, unable to find the ‘’diritta via’’ (straight way) to salvation Dante finds the guidance of his ‘’Idol’’ the Great Virgilio through the Inferno (Hell) and Purgatorio (Purgatory). But for the Great Pagan Poet it is not possible to continue. Then Beatrice his beloved and ideal woman takes him through the Paradiso (Heaven).

In Hell, the poetic justice rules and so in  this terms each sin finds its right punishment. If  for example you were a fortune-teller in life, you are condemned  to walk with you head on backwards (unable to see what is ahead). Quite fair after all. Isn’t it?

The Purgatory represents the Christian life. The hope of “the conversion of the soul from the sorrow and misery of sin to the state of grace’’ in which faith finds its very basis. It may sound funny but certainly The Purgatory is notable for suggesting the medieval knowledge of a spherical Earth…

Finally Beatrice guides Dante through the celestial spheres of Heaven, of course concentric ones (as suggested by the Aristotelian cosmology). From the most ancient times, the circle was seen as the most perfect form in the universe. However, Dante accepts the fact that his vision of heaven is only  the one that his human eyes allow him to see.

For him, as a consequence,  the  soul that has reached Paradise stops at the level suitable to it. All depending on their human ability to love God. There is indeed a heavenly hierarchy but not determined by time or learning but by their proximity to the Divine.

This Show offers a colorful representation of the great mystery of human condition. A way to re-think from a different point of view this day-to- day life of ours,  by contemplating the eternal scene of the world beyond. And hopefully each one of us will find his own paradise…