Pro­nounce Roma, Ro·ma (ro-mah):
[audio:http://www.ladolcedivainc.com/thesweetlife/wp-content/uploads/2009/07/roma.mp3]

The third city on our Bella Div­ina fra­grance tour is Roma, the cap­i­tal city of Italy.  Indeed, one of the most fas­ci­nat­ing places on the planet. Chock-full of his­tory and myth. What’s not to love?

Like most of the famous cities of Italy, there is so much to tell about Rome. There are stacks of books writ­ten about the city, it’s peo­ple, the food, the mythol­ogy, the Roman Empire, archi­tec­ture, reli­gion and on and on. It can be overwhelming.

My best advice about get­ting to know Rome is to soak it up! She is one mag­nif­i­cent open-air museum. Impe­r­ial, Clas­si­cal, Renais­sance, Baroque and Mod­ern peri­ods are all present in the art and archi­tec­ture. All this is mixed in with cell phones, ipods, traf­fic, open air mar­kets,  lux­ury shops, huge local pop­u­la­tion and tourists on the streets. To put it in Diva terms, Rome is one-stop-shopping for the Past, Present and Future. She lives up to her name as the Eter­nal City.

The majesty, scale and tac­tile his­tory of Rome is phe­nom­e­nal. There are so many his­tor­i­cal land­marks through­out the city and have become part of mod­ern day. You will even find your­self suc­cumb­ing t o the nor­malcy of say­ing “Turn right at the Trevi Foun­tain”, ” My favorite gelato is near Vat­i­can City”,  ” …just before you get to the Forum”, “Meet you at the Pan­theon.”

Your head will be spin­ning with the names of the Cae­sars (there were twelve), popes and artists that helped to make the city what it is. At times you will stop in your tracks in awe at the sheer mag­ni­tude and scope of Rome itself and the impact on the world.

And then, you will feel Rome’s magic. It is the home of La Dolce Vita, after all. She will not let you go with­out giv­ing you a taste of the  sweet life. You just have to be willing…

Just when you can’t take another step.…respite in a park, a piazza or a garden…a rose gar­den will come into view. One of the most beau­ti­ful and famous rose gar­dens in the world, the Roseto Com­mu­nale,  sits atop one of Rome’s seven hills, the Aven­tine. Between the Pala­tine and Capi­to­line hills lies the Roman Forum, once the cen­ter of Roman life, there­fore, the cen­ter of the world. The hill­sides were ter­raced with foun­tains and gar­dens. Rose gar­dens, in par­tic­u­lar, were a favored place to spend an after­noon. At one time,  there were over two thou­sand pub­lic rose gar­dens in Rome.

Rose petals lined the streets upon cer­e­mo­nial returns of Julius Cae­sar and the arrival of Cleopa­tra. Dur­ing the Renais­sance, the rose came to mean love and lovers. At the same time, devo­tion to the Rosary (Catholic prayer beads) was pop­u­lar­ized. Rosary trans­lates into “rose gar­den.” The prayer said for each bead is a rose offered up to  Our Lady of the Rosary, Mary, Mother of God. Also, since this time, one of the most cher­ished tokens of rev­er­ence that the Catholic church bestows is a Golden Rose.

Roses have long been a clas­sic and lux­u­ri­ous ingre­di­ents in baths, per­fumes, cos­met­ics and décor. There was  no ques­tion that it and it’s fab­u­lous aroma should be hon­ored by rep­re­sent­ing the most clas­sic and lux­u­ri­ous crown jewel cities of Europe in our Bella Div­ina collection.

Although the romance and magic or Rome is hard to see past, it is a city with a fierce, tur­bu­lent and often bru­tal his­tory. It started with the found­ing of the city by the mytho­log­i­cal Romu­lus and Remus, sons of the God of War, Mars and a for­mally Vestal Vir­gin, Rhea Sil­via. I won’t go into all the back­ground, but don’t you just love a city that’s his­tory is based on mythol­ogy? Any­way, in order for the 2 boys not to be killed by a jeal­ous rel­a­tive, they were placed in a bas­ket on the banks of the Tiber River. The river flooded and car­ried the twins down­stream. The river deity, Tiber­i­nus, brought the chil­dren up the Pala­tine Hill where they were nursed by a wolf, Lupa– in latin. The she-wolf nurs­ing 2 small chil­dren is the mytho­log­i­cal sym­bol of Rome today. You will see the ref­er­ence through­out the city. Later, the boys fought over who be the founder of the new city, obvi­ously, Romu­lus won. Roma was born.

The next time some­one asks if you were raised by wolves, don’t take it as an insult, such a child founded one of the great­est cities in the world.

We hope you enjoy the essence of Italy:
Roma Col­lec­tion:
Body Lotion, Body Wash, Body But­ter, Body Pol­ish, Lip Care, Bath Milk, Gifts and Trav­els sets and more.