Today was maybe the most cardio-intensive of the days so far. We started this morning with a trek to Allianz Arena, stadium of FC Bayern, where we walked around the stands, the press room, the locker rooms, the field itself a little bit, etc. I’ll admit that soccer is not one of my personal interest sports, but it was definitely cool to look around and learn things about this history of FC Bayern, see how they maintain their field, and some of the rearrangements the stadium is undergoing right now in preparation for the Bundesliga Championship game that’s taking place at the end of this month.
After that was the Munich Residenz, which was one of the things I was looking forward to the most. The palace was an interesting merger of styles and aesthetics, with expansions that have occured to the palace as time has gone on with the crowning of new rulers of Bavaria. It’s also a clash of theologies and regions, with Chinese gods being represented by pieces that the kings of Bavaria held to be interesting and very valuable, Rome was paid a lot of service on the inside, particularly with the room lined with busts of Caesars, but also in it’s architecture. Hand-in-hand with Rome walked Christianity, with iconography that at least borrows from Christian ideas, if not depicting distinctly Christian images explicity. In the same room with the Caesars, the ceilings were painted with women representing the virtues that made great leaders, flanked by cherubim. The three at the far end of the room were “faith”, “hope”, and “love”, which I believe is a direct reference to Paul’s first epistle to the Corinthians, writing “And now these three remain: faith, hope, and love; but the greatest of these is love.” Rome and Christianity have always had a distinct connection, it was the Romans who carried out the act of crucifying Christ, it was a Roman centurion (commonly thought to be named Longinus) who realized that they had just crucified the Son of God. It was the Roman Empire under Nero that was the primary target of the aforementioned Apostle Paul’s ministry, and the Romans under Nero ultimately martyred both him and the first leader of the Church, Simon Peter. Constantine’s Rome ultimately legalized Christianity after Constantine himself converted, and so on.
The final theology that recieved representation was Greek mythology, and I believe that Athena, Apollo, Hermes, Poseidon, and Perseus all recieved recognition through statues (though I may be incorrect on some). Ultimately, I found it amusing to see this fusion of styles, though it was not non-sensical. Many empires throughout history, even the United States in some ways, has emulated Rome. Rome is inextricably linked to Christianity through all the factors I just mentioned, and is linked to Greece through the adaptation of it’s mythology and borrowing of it’s architectural styles. So, any nation, particularly any Christian nation looking to emulate Rome, will take on these traits. The easiest example of that is just looking at the name of the Empire that Germany was involved in beginning in 800 AD, the Holy Roman Empire.
