Shaking off the Middle Ages: the Castiglione Chapel at San Clemente

Art History, Caelian, Churches, Early Renaissance, Fresco, Late Medieval, Late Medieval Art, Medieval Art, Rome

Tweet On Monday morning I was exploring underground sites on the Caelian Hill with a charming couple from California. We started off a stone’s throw from the Colosseum at the church of San Clemente where layer upon layer of the city’s history can be explored; a...

Antoniazzo Romano – Pictor Urbis: Rome’s home-grown Renaissance painter

Art History, Centro Storico, Churches, Early Renaissance, High Renaissance, Late Medieval Art, Melozzo da Forli', Renaissance, Rome

Tweet I’ve always been rather fond of Antoniazzo Romano (1430/5-1510), a Rome-born mid-fifteenth century artist who bound the developments of Florentine painting to the medieval traditions of religious art, creating an inimitably Roman style. He rose to prominence...

A foray to the Centrale Montemartini

Archeology, Capitoline Museums, Esquiline, Greek Sculpture, Rome

Tweet Last week amid a maelstrom of tours all over the city I spent a morning “off” scootering to the Ufficio Tributario of Rome: the office that deals with fines. Rome is a place where fines are a part of life’s expenses. Sometimes one needs to be...

Via del Mandrione: Where Piranesi meets Pasolini

Aqueducts, Archeology, Rome

Tweet A stone’s throw from where I live, on the other side of the railway tracks, is a road I will happily take a detour to drive along. Grubby and pavementless it makes for an awkward walk, but on a Vespa is a dream. Via del Mandrione runs along a stretch of...

A spot of magic at the lights – San Carlo alle Quattro Fontane

Architecture, Art History, Baroque, Baroque Rome tour, Borromini, Quirinal, Rome

Tweet On my way home from yesterday afternoon’s tour of the Galleria Borghese (it’s glorious, go!), I scootered up via delle Quattro Fontane and past the Palazzo Barberini to the tight junction with via del Quirinale, to the only traffic light I always...

One can always spot an emperor by his haircut

Art History, Augustus, Empire, Greek Sculpture, Roman sculpture, Rome

Tweet Brand recognition is nothing new; the use of image as an immediately identifiable expression of the power of the state was one perfected by the Roman emperors. Today heads of state have a standard image: identical portraits of Queen Elizabeth II look down on...