Rome

The plot thickens in an unusual legal battle pitting the city of Rome against Philadelphia lawyer and Barnes Foundation president Richard H. Glanton. The Italian city sued Glanton and the foundation last month, claiming he had reneged on an oral agreement to make Rome a stop on the Barnes Foundation's celebrated and never-to-be-repeated world art tour. Glanton's lawyer, Robert J. Sugarman, now claims the suit in federal court in Philadelphia should be dismissed because "no action has been taken by the city of Rome to authorize the litigation.

ROME - It is still hot in Rome this time of year. That doesn't mean you shouldn't go. In fact, a little sweat seems a small price to pay for the chance, at almost every corner, to duck into a church where you can sit in the shade and stare at a lustrous virgin by Raphael or a strenuously ardent saint by Caravaggio. Still, on a recent trip to the Eternal City we happened to lodge in the ancient Trastevere section, and on one particularly sweltering day, not wishing to walk too far, we crossed the Tiber River to explore the nearby neighborhood, Rome's former Jewish ghetto.

Giovanni Battista Piranesi (1720-1778) was the most celebrated printmaker of 18th-century Europe. He is best known today for his "prison" etchings - cavernous, gloomy chambers characterized by complex perspectival views, massive arches and grand staircases spiraling upward toward indeterminate destinations. It has been suggested that these striking architectural medleys, which Piranesi called Carceri, depict the Mamartine prisons of ancient Rome, but there isn't any evidence for this view.

The Philadelphia Orchestra is making medical as well as musical news on its European tour. Sunday night, violist Anna Marie Ahn Petersen suffered an attack of appendicitis. Edward Viner, the physician traveling with the orchestra, took her to a hospital for tests early Monday. She underwent surgery a few hours later. Viner reported she was doing well, and said she would probably fly to Philadelphia on the weekend. Viner continues to monitor the progress of Neil Courtney, the bass player who suffered a heart attack May 12 in Warsaw.

Imagine the Bolshoi Ballet inviting the Mummers to dance with it around Red Square. Well, no - let's upscale this a bit. How about the Vienna Philharmonic asking the Philadelphia Orchestra to play a joint concert in Austria? Closer. Now cut the music, heighten the high seriousness (yes, even more), and you've got the distinguished adventure that will begin Sunday for Philadelphia's very own American Philosophical Society, founded by Benjamin Franklin in 1743, the oldest learned society in the United States.

Serena Williams hasn't played the French Open in 3 years and hardly seems ready for this month's clay-court major. She made an array of mistakes yesterday in her final match before the French Open, losing to Patty Schnyder, 6-3, 2-6, 7-6 (5), at the Italian Open quarterfinals in Rome. "I'm going to obviously want to work harder and just do some things differently," Williams said. "Where I am today, in Paris I'll probably be even better. " In the semifinals, Schnyder will face third-seeded Jelena Jankovic, who routed Elena Dementieva, 6-2, 6-1. Second-seeded Svetlana Kuznetsova beat sixth-seeded Dinara Safina, 6-1, 6-3, in an all-Russian match and will next play ninth-seeded Daniela Hantuchova, who beat unseeded Anabel Medina Garrigues, 7-6 (8)

My wife, who is handicapped, and I plan to visit Rome, and we're wondering what sites are accessible to wheelchairs. Where can we get such information? - B.B., Downingtown Contact the Travel Information Service at Moss Rehabilitation Hospital, 12th Street and Tabor Road, Philadelphia 19141, or phone 456-9600, for a packet that can tell you what to expect. There's a nominal fee to cover handling and postage. These organizations and publications also may be helpful to you: Society for the Advancement of Travel for the Handicapped (SATH)

An awkward move during practice, a sudden wrenching pain in her lower back, and No. 1-ranked Lindsay Davenport joined the growing list of top women tennis players with injuries heading into the French Open. The 23-year-old American pulled out of the Italian Open in Rome before the third round yesterday after suffering what tournament officials called an acute low-back strain. Later, the tournament lost its defending champion when Venus Williams was beaten by 17-year-old Australian Jelena Dokic, 6-1, 6-2. Magnus Norman stayed on course for consecutive titles when he beat Younes El Aynaoui, 3-6, 6-1, 6-4, to reach the quarterfinals of the German Open in Hamburg.

It came as a surprise. It came as a big fat surprise. In fact, if you were to rank surprises in order, this one would come right after finding out your grandmother was pregnant. We got a call. A friend had two tickets to Rome. He couldn't use them and he wanted to give them to us. Free. Would we go? Would we? Is the Pope Catholic? (And if I didn't know that one, Rome was just the place to find out.) So we were off, the three of us: me, my husband, and his fear of flying.

A Cultural, Visual, and Personal History By Robert Hughes Knopf. 512 pp. $35 Reviewed by John Timpane Could you have a better guide to Rome than Robert Hughes? To the idea of Rome, I mean, or, closer yet, to the idea of the history of Rome? This book is a panoramic account of Rome's several ascents: pagan empire of 1,229 years; Christian empire for nearly as long; capital of art for millenniums; one of the homes of modernism; dysfunctional yet somehow influential modern citadel of corruption.

Jesse Joensuu 's winning goal with nine seconds left lifted Finland past the United States, 3-2, on Thursday for a place in the semifinals of the hockey world championships in Helsinki. Joensuu opened the scoring at 13 minutes, 27 seconds in the second period, before the Anaheim Ducks' Kyle Palmieri scored 20 seconds later. Bobby Ryan added a goal for the U.S. early in the third period. The Minnesota Wild's Mikko Koivu tied it with 6:58 left in the third.

In July 2010, my boyfriend Eric and I were five days into our first trip together. After two days in Marseille, France, we planned to take a train to Nice. From there, we'd fly to Rome. When we got to the train station, Eric asked a conductor (in French!) which train went to Nice. We boarded, settled into comfortable seats, and pulled out our books for the trip. As we pulled away from the platform, the conductor began announcing the stops. After a minute, I realized the cities were going the wrong direction.

SARAJEVO, Bosnia-Herzegovina - Bosnia's government declared a state of emergency in its capital on Saturday after Sarajevo was paralyzed by snow, while in Rome residents dug out from the city's biggest snowfall in 26 years, which shut down the Colosseum. The weeklong cold snap - the worst in decades in Eastern Europe - has killed at least 176 people, many of them homeless, especially in countries such as Ukraine. In Rome, unusually heavy snow capped the dome of St. Peter's Basilica and the Roman Forum's ancient arches.

MINNEAPOLIS - A Minnesota couple missing after a cruise ship capsized off the west coast of Italy are devout Catholics who spend part of almost every day at church, where he teaches religious classes and she hands out baked goods to parishioners. Church members described the kindness and good deeds of Jerry and Barbara Heil yesterday as a search continued along the Italian coast. Diane Vorland, who is confined to a wheelchair, said that Jerry Heil, 69, came to her house every Thursday for the past three years to administer her Communion and recite the rosary.

Leonard P. Nalencz, 65, of Center City, a lawyer and partner with the firm of Blank Rome, died of lung cancer Saturday, Dec. 31, at Penn Hospice at Rittenhouse. Mr. Nalencz joined Blank Rome in 1973 and became a partner in 1977. For many years, he served as chair of Blank Rome's tax department and the combined tax and fiduciary departments. "He spent his entire career - nearly 40 years - with Blank Rome," said Alan J. Hoffman, the firm's managing partner. "His exemplary client service earned him the privilege of representing generations of families with the most intimate details of their lives.

Beloved in life for his broad smile and gregarious ways, the late Cardinal John P. Foley lay in state Thursday, uncharacteristically solemn, as hundreds of mourners made their way up the aisle to his bier in the chapel of St. Charles Borromeo Seminary in Wynnewood. A priest of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia who spent 27 years in Rome as a spokesman for the Vatican and grand master of a papal knighthood, Foley died Sunday at age 76 after a long bout with leukemia and anemia. His open bronze casket, flanked by two seminarians, rested under the vaulted ceiling of the majestic St. Martin of Tours Chapel.

Cardinal John P. Foley, a jovial, popular priest of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia who rose from working-class roots to become a "prince of the church" and the Vatican's longtime spokesman on Catholic social teachings, died Sunday. He was 76. Once described as "the nicest guy in the Vatican" by the National Catholic Reporter, Cardinal Foley had suffered in recent years from leukemia. He died at Villa St. Joseph, the archdiocesan home for retired priests in Darby, the town where he was born.

A Cultural, Visual, and Personal History By Robert Hughes Knopf. 512 pp. $35 Reviewed by John Timpane Could you have a better guide to Rome than Robert Hughes? To the idea of Rome, I mean, or, closer yet, to the idea of the history of Rome? This book is a panoramic account of Rome's several ascents: pagan empire of 1,229 years; Christian empire for nearly as long; capital of art for millenniums; one of the homes of modernism; dysfunctional yet somehow influential modern citadel of corruption.

In some classical music circles, the ultimate put-down is declaring some famous conductor as the world's greatest interpreter of The Pines of Rome - usually implying a shallow personality and huge ego. Fortunately, Yannick Nézet-Séguin has solid depth credentials, if not from European radio broadcasts of his Mahler Symphony No. 9 then from last week's Brahms A German Requiem with the Philadelphia Orchestra. So Friday afternoon's concert at the Kimmel Center was about having some high-tone fun in a mid-to-lightweight program, ending with a Pines of Rome that left the audience pleasantly stunned, not unlike last week's German Requiem . If there's one consistent characteristic with the orchestra's next music director, it's this: Agree or not with his interpretive ideas, he stands behind them, fully committed.

ROME - Rome's mayor said yesterday that it could cost at least a $1.4 million to recover from the havoc wreaked by rioters who smashed windows, tore up sidewalks and torched vehicles after breaking off from a peaceful protest. The estimate came as clean-up work continued in damaged neighborhoods, where many charred vehicles remained parked along the streets. The hundreds of rioters infiltrated a march Saturday by tens of thousands of demonstrators unhappy about the global financial crisis - part of a worldwide version of the Occupy Wall Street protests in New York.