Daily Rome Shot 245

9 Comments

1. prayfatima says:

   13 August 2021 at 11:41 AM

   Very strange artwork in the background there.
2. Fr. John Zuhlsdorf says:

   13 August 2021 at 11:47 AM

   No, it isn’t.
3. prayfatima says:

   13 August 2021 at 12:02 PM

   There are no titles available so I have no idea what the work is about. It looks a little scary to me, is that a baby drinking from a wolf?
4. Venerator Sti Lot says:

   13 August 2021 at 12:15 PM

   Dear Father,

   It is some perspective painting that takes some looking at, and thinking about, though – and also makes me wonder if there are iconographic conventions where Romulus and Remus are concerned to which I have not been paying enough attention… for example, is that Romulus in the foreground and ‘further back’ along the line of the body of Lupa – on her right, seeming at first sight to be having an easier time of it, getting his milk? Or, quite the opposite?

   A splendid photograph in any case with – which of the later bearded Popes, in three-dimensional bronze, as embodiment of christened Rome, with the nurturing of pagan Rome in its long praeparatio in the background?
5. Venerator Sti Lot says:

   13 August 2021 at 1:01 PM

   Trying to learn more about the iconography, just now, I found the English Wikipedia article, ‘Capitoline Wolf’, full of interesting things new to me, but not without its frustrations. It says, “The programme of conservation undertaken in the 1990s resulted in an exhibition devoted to the Lupa Capitolina and her iconography.” The footnoted link in the Wayback Machine has photos of a couple interesting coins (with no notes about them) – and gives the name of the curator, Claudio Parisi Presicce – which let me learn that the Italian Amazon has second-hand copies of his exhibition catalogue listed. The WorldCat tells me there is a online eBook version of it, but not (so far as I can see) how to get a look…

   The Wikipedia article also put me on to the fact of a statue at the Siena Cathedral and the ‘Siena Cathedral’ article tells me no more about it, but has a photo of a pavement about which it says, “The She-Wolf of Siena with the emblems of the confederate cities (Lupa senese e simboli delle città alleate) probably dates from 1373 (also restored in 1864).” As far as the iconography in the sample photos goes, Romulus and Remus and Lupa seem to be depicted in various different ‘poses’ down the centuries…
6. Fr. John Zuhlsdorf says:

   13 August 2021 at 1:13 PM

   This is in the Sala of the Orazi and Curiazi in the Palazzo dei Conservatori on the Capitoline Hill. The bronze is of Pope Innocent X (Pamphilj), also famously depicted in paint by Velazquez.
7. Gab says:

   13 August 2021 at 7:07 PM

   Interesting juxtaposition of the shepherd and the wolf. Great photo!
8. Venerator Sti Lot says:

   13 August 2021 at 9:50 PM

   Dear Father,

   Thank you! I did not have a proper sense of the painter, Giuseppe Cesari, or the sculptor, Alessandro Algardi, or indeed of the Palazzo dei Conservatori and all the great works found together there, or of the Sala of the Orazi and Curiazi (how hopeful was the Treaty of Rome when signed there? – and what horrors have followed!)
9. Venerator Sti Lot says:

   24 August 2021 at 8:51 PM

   This has helped nudge me finally to start getting acquainted with Plutarch’s Life of Romulus (if only in translation, at first) – wow, what I’ve missed all these years, without knowing it.

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