NB! · Geography · Rome

A Very Handy Crib Sheet to the Seven Hills of Rome

NB! · Art · Museums · Heritage · Paris · Rome

Napoleon stole the Apollo Belvedere from the Vatican in 1797 and brought it to Paris with great pomp, installing it as the supreme trophy in the Central Museum of Arts, the future Louvre

Napoleon stole the Apollo Belvedere from the Vatican in 1797 and brought it to Paris with great pomp, installing it as the supreme trophy in the Central Museum of Arts, the future Louvre. After Napoleon's fall the statue was returned to Italy

Cutaway illustration of the Colosseum with crowded seating, an arena with elephants and palms, underground chambers and a golden statue at left.

NB! · Architecture · Observations · Rome

Cutaway reconstruction of the Colosseum showing the arena, underground chambers and seating

The Colosseum in cross-section. I adore diagrams like this

Archaeology · Architecture · Heritage · Rome

Theatre of Marcellus in Rome, topped with an Orsini family palace in the 16th century

One of the partially surviving ancient stone theatres of Rome: begun under Julius Caesar and opened under Octavian Augustus, destroyed in 64 and surmounted in the 16th century with residential storeys, the Theatre of Marcellus was excavated and restored in the 1930s. The living quarters above the old arcades were

Faith · Observations · Society · Rome

Pope Francis on the eve of the Synod of Bishops, in which not only bishops and ordinary clergy but also laypeople will take part, among them, for the first time in history, 54 women

Among other things, the World Synod is to discuss the ordination of women to the priesthood and the blessing of homosexuals, and, along with it, to touch upon same-sex marriage as well. But it seems that nobody expects anything good any longer from Pope Francis with his incredible opportunism,

Art · Museums · Rome · Saint Petersburg

Elephants in Tiepolo's painting and their use in the Roman army

The strange appearance of the elephants in Giovanni Battista Tiepolo's painting "The Triumph of Manius Curius Dentatus" in the Hermitage is explained by the fact that the artist had never seen the animal and imagined it from written descriptions and eyewitness accounts. With that in mind,

Architecture · Rome · Humour

These columns in Rome remember Julius Caesar, and still, not bad, the old dears are holding up!

And so must you.

An elderly man in white vestments and a white skullcap laughs at a laid table with wine bottles, bread and carafes.

NB! · Faith · Mores · Rome · Humour

Wine and the Vatican, from the Conclave of 1378 to the Wine Institute's Assessment

The Vatican was flooded with wine when the Romans ransacked the Apostolic Palace during the conclave of 1378. Today the Wine Institute names the Vatican one of the most wine-drinking countries in the world

Architecture · Mores · Rome

Flooding of Piazza Navona in Rome in July and August for two hundred years

Piazza Navona, one of the central squares of Rome, was turned into a lake for the hottest months of the year from the seventeenth century onwards. For two hundred years the Roman authorities used Piazza Navona to cool the city, flooding it in July and August. This greatly hindered traffic

Archaeology · Art · Museums · Observations · Rome

The Roman marble figure of the 2nd–1st centuries BC, found in the Baths of Titus and showing a youth biting the hand of his companion, was at first known as the Cannibal

The Roman marble figure of the 2nd–1st centuries BC, found in the Baths of Titus and showing a youth biting the hand of his companion, was at first known as the Cannibal. One man bites another man: who can he be, if not a cannibal? But in 1760 the

Art · Museums · Paris · Rome

Paris, Rue Saint-Merri

Judith and Holofernes, Michelangelo da Caravaggio, collection of the Palazzo Barberini

NB! · Observations · Rome