A Roman Angel
The one in the photo is one of the ten statues adorning the Bridge of Angels in Rome, one of the most beautiful and ancient bridges in the world. these marble statues, full of movement and lightness, both in their position and gestures and in the way their clothes are animated by the wind, symbolizing their participation in the Passion of Christ. The ten angels stand on tall bases, which originally supported the wooden columns of the bridge’s roofing.
Some of them look serene, in their certainty that Christ will resurrect; others seem to hardly contain the compassion and pity for his suffering.
Each of the ten angels holds an instrument of the Passion: they present them to passersby, as if along the Via Dolorosa in Jerusalem, or a Via Crucis like the one on the Sacred Mountain of Varallo.
This was one of Gian Lorenzo Bernini’s most insightful ideas: to create a Via Crucis where the instruments of the Passion could be contemplated, to repent, to prepare for the Confession as one walked towards the Vatican Basilica, towards the first of Christ’s disciples, the Holy See, Corpus Domini, and salvation.
The bridge is placed between east and west, and therefore one can take amazing shots of the angels both at sunrise and at sunset since the sun lits them perfectly. The best time between the two though, is sunrise, because at that time the rising sun goes to lit St. Peter's Church in the background
