Archaeology · Mores · Rome
Roman pugilists fought absolutely naked, wearing only a kind of glove known as the caestus on their hands, studded with metal strips or balls, which often made the bouts end in death. Gladiators' gloves also had iron spikes. This part of the fighting culture came from Ancient Greece
Archaeology · Heritage · Nature · Rome
Caesar defeated Pompey, and Caesar's partisans disgracefully deprived Pompey of his life. Caesar himself was murdered in an assembly hall attached to the largest of Rome's theatres, the one named after Pompey. And the place survives to this day. The ruins of the so-called Curia
Heritage · Mores · Society · Rome
Italian authorities will punish a man who scratched his sweetheart's name on the wall of the Colosseum. The Minister of Culture has already expressed his concern (and how could he not!). It is strange that the vandal was not detained at the scene of the crime, given the
NB! · Faith · People · Rome · Humour
Asked by an Italian television presenter which programmes he enjoyed in his youth, Pope Francis, aged 86, replied: “I'll let you in on a secret. When I was young, we had no television.”
Faith · Art · Mores · Rome
Attacks on Michelangelo's fresco "The Last Judgement" on the altar wall of the Sistine Chapel began while it was still being painted. The grievances were various: some disliked the treatment of the subject, others were displeased by the realistic manner of depiction. The masterpiece was called
Art · People · Rome
When Orest Kiprensky presented a portrait of his father to the Roman Academy of Painting, the president declared, on behalf of the Academy, that the Russian artist was attempting to pass off as his own work a painting from the brush of Rubens. Certain academicians expressed their conviction that the
Art · Mores · People · Rome
Orest Adamovich Kiprensky, already a very celebrated artist in Russia (1805: Large Gold Medal for the painting “Dmitry Donskoy on the Field of Kulikovo”; 1812: academician; his contemporaries called him the Russian Van Dyck), lived for long stretches in Rome, which he first reached in 1816, at the age of
Art · Books · Observations · People · Rome
I got for my labour only a goitre, a sickness (So muddy water bloats the cats, A common plague in parts of Lombardy!) And my chin wedged into my belly; My chest like that of the harpies; my skull, to spite me, Crept up to my hump; and my beard
Faith · The East · Observations · Society · Rome
Pope Francis receives a delegation of the Fo Guang Shan Humanistic Buddhism Association from Taiwan. It is curious to watch the Vatican persist in its attempts to take part in the international political agenda. The Pope, all the same, delivered a very measured speech on the importance of cooperation. "
NB! · Archaeology · Architecture · Faith · Rome
Art · Monarchies · Museums · Rome
The Prada Foundation in Milan has put on show a re-created copy of the 13-metre marble statue of the Emperor Constantine, dating from the 4th century, of which 20 fragments survive to this day, kept in the Capitoline Museums in Rome. The head, right arm, right knee, right
Faith · Observations · People · Rome
On the morning of 11 February 2013, Pope Benedict XVI announced his forthcoming voluntary abdication from the papal throne. "...in today's world, subject to so many rapid changes and shaken by questions of deep relevance for the life of faith, in order to govern the barque of