Hangin’ with Ma
Detail from the mosaics above.
Trajan’s Column
In the year 113 CE the Emperor Trajan, as part of his additions to the Roman forum (see post on Trajan’s Markets below), also built a huge library with separate wings for Greek and Latin manuscripts. Between the two sections, in a courtyard, Trajan had erected a 30m tall victory column sculpted with reliefs showing events of Trajan’s military campaigns against the Dacians, who lived in what it today Romania; and it was because of those campaigns that we call it Romania. The upper portions of the column’s decorations could be viewed from terraces on the upper floors of the libraries. This scene shows, as many do, Roman ships on the Danube River, off-loading supplies for the Roman soldiers. In the background you can see the walls of a Roman fortress. To the right, the emperor inspects the army standards.
Sleeping Cecelia
An interesting pendant to Bernini’s wonderful figure of Ludovica Albertoni (a few posts below) is Stefano Maderno’s recumbent sculpture of Santa Cecelia of 1600, found in the church of Santa Cecelia in Trastevere in Rome. It’s a remarkable work of art. Maderno, perhaps knowing he couldn’t beat Bernini at his own game, decided to make the drapery thin and clinging to the body, a delicate tissue rather than the heavy folds of Bernini. I didn’t chop off her head, that’s WordPress cropping my pictures in ways I have no control over [@#$#%&%$].
Santa Costanza’s Mosaics
Right beside the early Christian church of Sant’Agnese in Rome (see below) is the remarkable tomb structure of Santa Costanza, the sister of the Emperor Constantine, dating from the early 4th century. Much of the curving, circular vaulting of the building is covered in mosaics, very decorative but with a smattering of human and animal figures. In this one, a female figure dances in the abstract roundel.
St Agnese
The church of Saint Agnese isn’t often visited by tourists, unless they love early mosaics, like I do. These ones date from the 9th century. St Agnes is in the middle, with flames at her feet because she was put in a fire but the fire didn’t burn her. Like St Paul’s, this church is fuori la mura, that is, ‘outside the walls’. There’s another reason to go here, though. It’s right beside another very important early Christian work of architecture: Santa Costanza (see above).
Trajan’s Mall
Around 113 CE the Emperor Trajan had a large commercial and office complex build near the Imperial Forum. The complex has come to be know as Trajan’s Markets. Some have suggested that they may represent the world’s first shopping mall. The most distinctive feature of the complex is its curving, semi-circular configuration, which creates a beautiful open space in front, uncommon in the Roman fora where right angles predominated. While the walls would have been plastered, and quite possibly even painted, the gentle colour of the raw brick is part of the attraction today.
Blessed Bernini
In a small chapel of a not-often visited church in Rome, San Francesco a Ripa, one can find one of Lorenzo Bernini’s baroque masterpieces. The sculpture depicts the blessed Ludovica Albertoni in spiritual ecstasy, reminiscent of Bernini’s more famous, and very similar, statue of St Teresa of Avila in the church of Santa Maria della Vittoria, also in Rome. In a way, this sculpture seems even more intimate and less overtly theatrical. I prefer it to the St Teresa. A warm natural light comes in from the left, from a real window, bathing the figure in soft light. The drapery is a tour de force of animated folds. Ludovica Albertoni was a Roman noblewoman who dedicated her life to the caring of the poor of Rome. She was born in 1473 and died in 1533, but Bernini’s sculpture was done in 1671-74, a hundred and forty years after her death.
Paul Outside the Walls
The church of San Paolo fuori la Mura, St Paul Outside the Walls, is one of Rome’s most important churches. The original church was very early indeed, founded, like St Peter’s, by the Emperor Constantine in the first quarter of the 4th century. That ancient basilica was mostly destroyed in a fire in 1823, thus requiring an almost total rebuilding. But many medieval portions remained or were heavily restored, including the magnificent mosaics by Pietro Cavallini from around 122o, which you see here.
Towering Taormina
One of the most dramatically situated Greco-Roman theaters in the Mediterranean is the one at Taormina, Sicily. Perched on a steep hillside and overlooking the sea, the theater also affords a view of Mount Etna, which is usually steaming or sending out a plume of ash. This picture was taken from just below the Norman-era castle of Taormina, beside the rock shrine of Our Lady of the Rock (Madonna della Rocca).
Magnificent Malaparte
The Villa Malaparte is a modernist house perched on an unlikely but dramatic promontory on the Island of Capri. It was designed in 1937 by the architect Adalberto Libera for the patron Curzio Malaparte and was featured in Jean-Luc Godard’s film Le Mepris (Contempt) of 1963. It is one of the strangest, but also one of the most stunning, collisions of built object and natural environment. In my strange profession, I get to go to Capri a few times a year and I always anticipate with pleasure seeing this incredible sight.
Capital Idea
I’m a real sucker for a good capital: Doric, Ionic, Corinthian, Composite, Byzantine basket… This has got to be the best Ionic ones I’ve ever come across. It’s a bit baroque, but it’s so crisp and well preserved. It lives in the courtyard of the National Museum in Naples.
Latin Letters
I wish I knew Latin as I see so many inscriptions it would be great to be able to read them. For the time being, however, I’ll be satisfied with appreciating the purely graphic qualities.
New Tenant
Ancient sarcophagi were often reused in later ages, particularly the medieval period. The crypts of the churches of Europe are filled with medieval and renaissance period ecclesiastics entombed in Greco-Roman sarcophagi from which the original pagan occupants had long been evicted. This huge sepulcher originally had on its lid a face of the Gorgon Medusa with her wild hair. It was meant to ward off evil from the tomb. But the Norman adventurer Roger I, who with Robert Guiscard conquered the island of Sicily in the 1170s and began consolidating the Kingdom of the Two Sicilys, took the coffin for himself, but removed the face of the Gorgon and replaced the pagan image with a cross. Strangely, they kept the unruly hair, I suppose because it had been reduced to a merely decorative frame.
