I spent most of the day moping about the weather and reading an oldish (1899) book about Rome that I’ve used forever but never actually READ. So after a long walk late in the afternoon I watched Strictly Ballroom (1992) . . . after which Netflix suggested Flashdance. Yes, I watched Flashdance (1983). Michael Nouri was so young!
Tonight our Center for Global Education held an information session for Spring ’14 programs – so at least some of the students who met with us* tonight will be with us in Rome this time next year! In fact, given how things usually go, we’ll be getting ready to leave for Naples . . . .
Time to launch a new category – HWS Rome 2014!
*this time I will be co-directing with Professor Christine Chin, who teaches and practices new media approaches to photo and video. This will be her first trip to Rome and her first time to lead a program abroad – though she’s worked with student groups on trips since she was in college herself.
The Mithraeum under the Baths of Caracalla will reopen soon – and with a Michelangelo Pistoletto site sculpture involved. Talk about layering Rome!
And guess who will be teaching in Rome Spring of 2014?
By the way, read the whole article. Skylights are ALWAYS a problem. Always. If an architect suggests skylights, fire him. If you’ve always wanted skylights, you’re wrong.
Yay, I get to teach the Pantheon today! This is the best picture I’ve ever taken there.
If you want classical beauty, you won’t do much better than this bronze Dionysus in the Museo Palazzo Massimo. Click to go to my Flickr stream and you can see him full length.
I love these figures with the inlaid eyes — in his case, limestone. What we would give to see them the way the Romans saw them, polished, colored, and in a better setting than a cold museum! While I was on the road I re-read Steven Saylor’s Catilina’s Riddle (on Kindle). At the end of that book, Gordianus the Finder trades a farm he inherited from a rich friend for the friend’s house on the Palatine; in the peristyle of the house is a statue of Minerva which must have been along the same lines as this, which seeing this Dionysus brought home.
This particular Dionysus was discovered along the Tiber during the construction of the Ponte Garibaldi in the mid-1880s, just upstream from Tiber Island. He’s of the Hadrianic era (c. 125).
At my favorite church in Rome. I was in a forward pew (not quite at the front) and focused through the 18th Century ciborium arch at the center of the 9th Century mosaic inscription.
Venere.com found me a really comfortable bed and breakfast near Termini – very comfortable! As in if you need somewhere very near the station sometime, check with me. But all good things come to an end, so I’m packing.
Last night I found out that the Corpus Christi procession from St. John Lateran to Sta. Maria Maggiore has NOT been transferred to Sunday. It was worth the wait. I’ll have pictures later (grrr).
My colleagues and I are brainstorming course development for 5th courses–that is the course our Italian partner delivers. Fun!
I went something like 25 years without having a piece of luggage delayed; the last time was for a wedding in Houston sometime 4 or 5 years after graduating from Rice.
Twice this year I have had rain delays in Chicago that caused baggage to be late. The first time was when I was headed home from Spring Break. This time is more complicated. I ran down to West Tennessee for a family funeral. I flew down on Monday and back Tuesday (I had to skip out of the memorial service to make my flight).
Tomorrow midday I leave with a group of Hobart and William Smith faculty for a study trip to Rome – so I had already planned to spend the night in Syracuse at an airport hotel (especially since my flight was scheduled to arrive at 11:59).
My plan was to get here at midnight, sleep till 9 (to recover from all this), and leave. Now we’ll see if United gets my luggage here in time for me to change clothes before leaving for Rome.
I’m not really the kind of person who can cheerfully replace his wardrobe at short notice. But it might be an interesting learning experience for the other folks!
FURTHER: Hurrah, luggage! Now I can change clothes before leaving for Rome!
via Greg the NPR addict:
This is supremely weird and fun — well, for people like me. A René Voorburg has made up an online reconstruction of the Peutinger Table (Tabula Peutingeriana), a c. AD 300 Roman road map. It was something like a AAA Triptych rather than a fold-out map. More than 2000 of the 2760 spots on the Tabula have been given geolocations.
You can put in your AB (from) and AD (to) locations and see the route on the map — and on the left, the figures for how long it will take! For example:
Ab ‘ROMA’ ad ‘Mediolavm’
Summa CCCLXXI Milia Passum / Leuga Gallica.
Fere XXV dies.
25 days! The Freccia Rossa fast train does it in about 3 hours now.
The Tabula
Some explanations.
I’m teaching my 300-level Roman course next semester — guess what we’ll be playing with!
via The Shekel – Coins, Law and Commentary, a blog I had never visited before I wandered there this morning, Lord only knows from where.
The Hunterian in Glasgow has opened a new gallery dedicated to the Antonine Wall — Rome’s northernmost frontier in Britain. The director says: “There are no interactives in this gallery. This is quite deliberate. The collections have the power to tell the narrative and must be given prominence.” That sounds almost defensive.
Here are some photographs. I like the distance slab (marking the completion of a stretch of wall).
Here’s Wikipedia, if you are interested in some specifics.
