Imagined angels and demons and the readers in pursuit
Where Dan Brown's imagination roams, hordes of fans follow - even to the big screen. The Louvre in Paris and Rosslyn Chapel outside Edinburgh were inundated after the 2006 film version of Brown's novel "The Da Vinci Code." And now Rome is facing an onslaught of tourists eager to see its attractions as portrayed in "Angels & Demons," which is shooting around the Eternal City this summer.
"Business has never been better for tour guides," said Sienna Reid, an American who runs an "Angels & Demons" tour here.
The "Da Vinci" prequel is a thrilling chase from the dank and claustrophobic crypts of St. Peter's Basilica to the heights of Castel Sant'Angelo. There's a hired assassin, a handful of kidnapped cardinals, the Swiss Guard, and the reluctant hero, Robert Langdon - yes, the same New England academic who solves the mystery in "The Da Vinci Code" and played again by Tom Hanks.
To get a jump on the crowds before the film comes out next May, I set off armed with only a guidebook, a map, and the novel to chart my way through the book's narrative, along the so-called Path of Illumination, to sumptuous sculptures by Bernini that act as signposts for a secret sect plotting to blow up Vatican City.
The first stop is the Piazza del Popolo, one of the most scenic squares in Rome. There's an Egyptian obelisk, two seemingly symmetrical churches (an architectural tromp l'oeil), and the Pincio, a breath of green space that tumbles down from the Villa Borghese park above. It's a perfect spot to read up on the clues and symbols that point to the killer's path. I settled in at an outdoor table at Rosati, one of the fashionable cafes and once the hangout of Rome's intellectual left: Italo Calvino, Alberto Moravia, and Pier Paolo Pasolini were regulars.
The church of Santa Maria del Popolo is tucked into the piazza's immense gate. Inside are two Caravaggio paintings, Rome's first stained glass windows, frescoes by Pinturicchio, ghoulish skeletons, and the Chigi Chapel designed by Raphael with two Bernini sculptures. For Brown, it's the setting for some grisly business involving suffocation; for me, it remains an example of how rewarding it is to scout out great artwork tucked away in the corners of this bountiful city.
Langdon gets to his next destination in an Alfa Romeo. I have to navigate Rome's mad traffic as I make my way on foot to St. Peter's Square. Roman Catholics have been coming to this massive piazza for centuries, for papal audiences and to take in the sweep of history surrounded by Bernini's grand rows of curving columns. Like outstretched arms these travertine pillars topped with sculpted saints symbolize the church's embrace of pilgrims. Most people assume this vast square is in Vatican City. It's not. It's part of Rome.
Oddly, Brown makes a point in the book of claiming the accuracy of his locations. But I know Rome - I walked here from Switzerland in the company of the pope's protectors, the Swiss Guard. And when I read that the narrative traveled next to Piazza Barberini, the site of the church of Santa Maria della Vittoria, I thought: wrong!
Stefano Gardi confirms my suspicions. As the doorman at the Hotel Bernini Bristol, he is constantly asked for directions to the church, which Brown locates on this square. "It's not here, I tell them. There is no church," he said. In fact, it's up the road a few hundred yards, and he's happy to point people in the right direction.
Devotees in search of the "Angels & Demons" experience will want to check out - and maybe even check in to - the landmark Bernini Bristol, recently renovated and now with an elegant lounge on the roof deck. And you don't have to be a guest to enjoy a cocktail and the terrific views of the city at sundown. Brown sets a romantic interlude here between Langdon and his sexy collaborator, Vittoria Vetra.
The church I'm looking for stands at a busy intersection on Via XX Settembre. I head straight for "The Ecstasy of Saint Teresa," a Bernini sculpture of a woman on her back, mouth agape. It's little wonder a replica can be viewed in a museum of erotica in Amsterdam. An angel, in a suggestive pose, is poised above her, grasping an arrow. The arrow's tip points across town, in the direction of Piazza Navona, as Langdon follows on the heels of the assassin.
Bernini's thunderous Fountain of Four Rivers is the centerpiece of this square and features giant pagan figures that dwarf all human dimensions. Towering above it is another obelisk, this one with a bronze bird on top - a clue for Langdon to decode. This is also the site of one of the city's many outdoor markets, although this one sells more touristy artwork than anything else. I find a fruit shop and grab a peach to fuel my urban hike.
Fans of the book will want to see the Pantheon, the circular edifice built around 125 AD with its vast oculus open to the sky. Castel Sant'Angelo on the banks of the Tiber River, now a museum, is also part of the chase. Some readers may be surprised to learn that the Passetto, the secret passageway connecting the castle and the Vatican, is above ground. In Brown's description, this escape route used by countless popes in real life - and Langdon and Vetra in his book - could be subterranean.
At its best, the book inspired me to tour the necropolis below St. Peter's where tradition holds the apostle is buried. It's not on any "Angels & Demons" tour, says Vatican guide Daniela Piermattei Taennler, and you have to book months in advance. It's a crucial location in the story but she wonders whether the author ever visited. "I'm told his description is nothing like what's here," she said, adding she hasn't read the book and doesn't want to after the church labeled "The Da Vinci Code" blasphemous and asked the faithful to boycott the film.
Underneath the church is a narrow street lined with mausoleums decorated with paintings of flowers and early Christian iconography. The weight of the past is made all the more real when we duck under low ceilings and pass walls that over time have accumulated layers of civilization. Approaching the tomb believed to be that of St. Peter, I'm startled to see feet moving in the ceiling. There are grates overhead with views into the soaring basilica above us. We're walking under the baldacchino, Bernini's giant marble canopy positioned not under Michelangelo's dome - as "Angels & Demons" claims - but directly over St. Peter's tomb and the high altar. A curious boy glances down from the church and I wave to him.
Back in daylight, Taennler says the Vatican refused director Ron Howard's request - along with a handsome sum - to shoot in the churches featured in the book. No surprise there, considering it called "The Da Vinci Code" "an offense against God," she said. Of course, that's the kind of publicity you just can't buy. The filmmakers will re-create the church interiors on a Hollywood set.
I won't give away the ending, but let it be said that visitors should take Brown's version of Rome with something larger than a grain of salt. When I ask the commander of the Swiss Guard what he thinks of transforming his colorful custodians of the pope into machine gun-toting action heroes, Colonel Elmar Maeder lets out a laugh and says he wasn't consulted for the movie.
"You must remember," he says, "this is only fiction."
Paul French can be reached at paul.french@sympatico.ca.
