#Palazzonuovo
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fotoreportage00.bsky.social
Photo of the Day:
Morforio, Palazzo Nuovo, Rome, Italy.
#oceanus #rivergod #Morforio #Rome #Palazzonuovo #campidoglio #art #Canoncameras #pixoftheday #photooftheday #picoftheday #travelphotography #photography
The doors were ajar just enough to create a natural frame enticing you in. Again, bit lucky.
September 29, 2025 at 5:24 AM
anthonymajanlahti.bsky.social
For #SarcophagusSaturday I offer this #sarcophagus front with a #lion #hunt scene. The two central figures are husband and wife, with her face unfinished, but both of them battling a pride of lions. This #relief is in the #palazzoNuovo of the #CapitolineMuseums in #Rome. #AncientBluesky 🏺
SARCOPHAGUS FRONT WITH LION HUNT, C. 260-270 CE. CAPITOLINE MUSEUMS The mid C3 was a terrible time for the Roman empire. Constant civil war fractured the empire's unity, destroying trade and ruining crops, and opening the door to starvation and plague. The emperor Gallienus (co-emperor with his father from 253, then sole emperor from 260 to 268) was engaged in a continual effort to suppress rebellions but nonetheless lost the province of Gaul. He managed to reconquer the eastern empire after his father Valerian was captured by Shapur II, the Sasanian emperor, in 260. In this context the violent turbulent movement of this sarcophagus front makes sense - the lion hunt can be read as a metaphor, the deceased Roman commander surrounded by ferocious predators, but triumphing over them with the help of the female divinity at centre left, with a helmet and one breast bared. Her face is unfinished, so she must be the commander's wife. Two huge lion heads, unrelated to the action, protrude on either side of the front, which derive from the form of the sarcophagus "a tinozza" or "a lenòs", both referring to tubs in which the lion heads held rings for carrying. This was found along the urban section of the via Appia in the Vigna Moroni, more or less directly across the via di Porta S. Sebastiano from the Tombs of the Scipiones, in a series of tombs and columbaria first excavated (well, plundered) in the early C18. This property is now part of the gardens of the villa of the actor Roberto Benigni.
April 12, 2025 at 9:47 AM