Stefano Rovinetti Brazzi came down to Rome from Bologna for the day on Sunday.  Stefano came to the Navajo Language Academy several years ago.  We went to Villa Giulia, which has the world's best collection of Etruscan artifacts.  We had a guided tour in Italian, which was lots of fun for me (seriously!).  I understood quite a bit.  Still can't say all that much in Italian, but putting together French, Spanish and Latin I can understand much better than I can talk.

I've been curious about why Popes (Villa Giulia was built by Pope Julius III) were so sanguine about the fashion for Roman mythical figures.  Why didn't they treat statues of Zeus like statues of Baal?  I gather the reason is that Christianity basically just superimposed Jesus, Mary, Saints and Popes overtop of the indigenous belief system, so the Roman and Greek gods were thought of as the cultural ancestor to Christianity.  So building a reproduction temple with statues of various gods didn't count as constructing false idols. As you can see in Dante, the assumption was that if the Roman and Greek intellectuals had known about Jesus, they would have adopted Christianity.  Obviously actual idolators wouldn't be able to write great philosophy and literature. So, interestingly, Popes were commissioning statues of Zeus, Minerva, Bacchus, etc. at the same time that priests in Latin America were burning Mayan books (which obviously couldn't be philosophy or literature, since they were written by idolators).

Then we went to  Basilica Papale di San Paolo fuori le Mura, which is a Basillica originally built by Constantine but rebuilt several times.  It is built over the grave of St. Paul. 

Stefano at cafe

Villa Giulia (no pics of Etruscan stuff)

Nyadarium (altar/temple to Nyads)  Build by the Pope who built the Villa.
Popes in the Renaissance treated Roman gods like cultural heritage
rather than idolatry.

Basillica of St. Paul Past the Wall

It's huge.

Cloister/gardens at St. Paul Basillica