Roman History Books and More

ara pacis augustae

An In-depth Visual Documentation of the Ara Pacis Augustae.

Enjoy!

Now, if only I remembered who posted this on Facebook so I could give credit …

lod mosaic at the metropolitan museum in new york

Via an article by  G.W. Bowersock in the New York Review of Books I was reminded that I haven't been to the Met lately.

Image courtesy MetMuseum, click here or on image to enlarge

Here is more directly from the Met, including a video about the discovery of the mosaic and a link to this page.

For those living in the area, how about a field trip before April 3? Contact me at irenesbooks at optonline.net.

the metropolitan museum online: roman games: playing with animals

Tangentially related to our current book chats, i.e., games and gladiators, this was posted on the Met Museum's Facebook page today:

Roman Games: Playing with Animals

Public games were a major part of Roman culture, playing an important role in the social and political life of the city and its empire. Although the games had their roots in funeral or religious rites, by the late Republican period (ca. 70–31 B.C.), they had become a hugely popular form of public entertainment. They took several forms but all were essentially either races or fights. Known as ludi and munera, games could be staged in purpose-made arenas, most notably the Colosseum (L.2007.9.46) and Circus Maximus (L.2007.9.68) in Rome, either separately or combined in lengthy festivals.

Above Image: Gladiator cup, ca. 50–80 a.d.; Neronian–Early Flavianic; Roman; Found at Montagnole, suthern France Glass

From the Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History.

Enjoy!

cleopatra in philadelphia

In our online book chats, we are scheduled to read Kleopatra by Karen Essex on September 1.

There is a new exhibit at the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia, Cleopatra, the Search for the Last Queen of Egypt, through January 2, 2011.  The New York Times has a review:

Arts

Cleopatra’s Underwater Kingdom
By EDWARD ROTHSTEIN
Published: June 3, 2010

"Cleopatra: The Search for the Last Queen of Egypt,” at the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia, is a powerful exhibition.  But that’s not really because of Cleopatra.  read on

slide show

 
   Ryan Collerd for The New York Times

Today, The Telegraph has a related article:

Cleopatra papyrus goes on display
Hat tip: Lindsay Powell

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On our novel, Kleopatra, there is N.S. Gill's review & my own. I'd love to make a field trip together with any chat members living close by before September 1, but I'm not sure the timing works for me.

exhibit: pompeii and the roman villa

Thanks to Mary Beard's blog post of today, Pompeii in Washington DC, we have word of an exhibition at the National Gallery of Art which I overlooked and which will end March 22, only to move to on to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, May 3–October 4, 2009, so readers out there will be able to see it.

Here is the related website, Pompeii and the Roman Villa: Art and Culture around the bay of Naples.  An exhibition brochure can be downloaded as PFD file.  It's nicely illustrated, including a painting by the inevitable (?) Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema, titled "A Sculpture Gallery."

And here is Mary Beard's book:  The Fires of Vesuvius: Pompeii Lost and Found, December 2008, Belknap Press.

exhibit: hadrian – empire and conflict

An article from The Telegraph UK on Dorothy King's blog led me to this one:  Hadrian and the wall of silence, which reviews the new exhibit at the British Museum:

Hadrian: Empire and Conflict

Quote from the exhibit introduction:  "This unprecedented exhibition will provide fresh insight into the sharp contradictions of Hadrian’s character and challenges faced during his reign.

roman paintings

While looking for pictures of Io, I found this slideshow of Roman frescoes from the BBC reporting on an exhibition at the National Museum of Rome. Unfortunately the exhibition has finished, but you can still enjoy these.

house of augustus opens to the public

From the BBC:

Treasures revealed
The house of Roman Emperor Augustus opens to the public

And here is Mary Beard on this:   The house of Augustus: all mod cons?

virtual via flaminia

via David Meadows:  Virtual Museum of the Ancient Via Flaminia

It's a bit awkward to navigate (at least for this elderly person) so it's best to go to the Sitemap.  I do like the Archaeological sites feature.  And here is the actual map of the road.

N.S. Gill has more

for your diaries

Readers who will be in London between July and October 2008 might like to know that the British Museum will be devoting a major exhibition to Hadrian. For further details see this page from the BM's website.

ancient art follows me around . . . and villas in boscoreale, italy

Yesterday, I met a friend for lunch at the Pierpoint Morgan Library in New York City.  And as ancient art seems to follow me around, I was not surprised to see a couple of Roman pieces in the Rotunda and Library respectively of Mr. Morgan's Library and Study:

• A Pair of Double Cups with Repoussé Decorations of Cranes, first century AD, silver with traces of original gilding. They were fairly small but delicately worked.
• A statue, "Running Eros, Holding Torch," Bronze, from the second or first century BC, which was found in one of the villas in Boscoreale, destroyed by the Vesuvius eruption, or so it said.  If you google boscoreale villas, or boscoreale archaeology, you'll find a lot of interesting things, including these pages from the Metropolitan Museum of Art: Roman Painting: Frescoes From Campania.

met museum greek & roman galleries: an update

Good news:  the Met Museum has updated its pages on the new Greek and Roman Galleries.

Lots of stuff to see!

(Red and I will visit there in September and will report)

Marble grave stele of a little girl, ca. 450–440 B.C.; Classical
Greek
Marble, Parian; H. 31 1/2 in. (80 cm)
Fletcher Fund, 1927 (27.45)

the greek and roman galleries at the met – continued

Here is the latest version of the web pages about the New Greek and Roman Galleries at the Metropolitan Museum in New York.

From the site:

“The New Greek and Roman Galleries house art created between about 900 B.C. and the early fourth century A.D., tracing the parallel stories of the evolution of Greek art in the Hellenistic period and the arts of southern Italy and Etruria and culminating in the rich and varied world of the Roman Empire. The astonishing assembly of works on display—some never before seen by the public—bring to life the visual and conceptual roots of Western civilization.
Read more about the works on view, or see a list of images of selected highlights”.

more on the met’s greek and roman galleries

Sara Krulwich/The New York Times

Art Review

Classical Treasures, Bathed in a New Light

By MICHAEL KIMMELMAN

Published: April 20, 2007

With the Metropolitan Museum’s fine, new light-washed galleries for Greek and Roman art, Western antiquity from the Bronze Age through the reign of Constantine now unfolds in logical, stately order.

new greek and roman galleries at the met open

The new Greek and Roman Galleries at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City open on Friday, April 20.  Can't wait to get there!

The current museum page, with history.

The New York Times has an article on the life and times of the galleries and their designer:

Arts / Art & Design

Redesigning the Met’s Home for Greek and Roman Art

By ROBIN POGREBIN

Published: April 18, 2007

Over the last several years, architect Kevin Roche has been busy transforming the Met’s southernmost wing, which will officially open on Friday.

Next entry

exhibit: ‘ancient art of the cyclades’, female folded arm figures

Today, we took advantage of beautiful late fall weather and drove into the country, and stopped by the small Katonah Museum of Art in Katonah, New York.  The museum is a bit off the beaten path on Route 22, just south of the intersection with Route 35.

The museum currently shows the exhibit Ancient Art of the Cyclades, art created during the third millennium B.C. by craftsmen of the Cycladic islands in the Aegean Sea, in the white marble the islands are famous for.  Items displayed are mostly small female “folded arm” figures, the rest are pixides and other vessels in various forms.  Since there was no writing in the Cyclades at that point, the meaning of  the figures is not known and can only be speculated about.

The New York Times had an illustrated review on November 5, 2006, “Before Venus,” but unfortunately it's not online, or at least, I could not find it, TimesSelect access notwithstanding.

“Folded arm” figures as discussed here.

from naissus to eboracum, 1700 years on

The future emperor Constantine was born in Naissus, now Niš  in Serbia.  The local airport is named after Constantine, and the municipal website features a symposium on Niš and Byzantium to mark the 1700th anniversary of Constantine being proclaimed emperor in York on 25 July 306.  The history section in the menu on the left features “Niš through Centuries”, the first page of which covers the Roman period.  A villa of Constantine's day has been excavated in Mediana, now a suburb of Niš.  Again, follow the menu from history for more information on the villa and Constantine.

Also marking the 1700th anniversary of Constantine being proclaimed emperor is an exhibition in York (Eboracum), running until 29 October 2006.  The BBC has a gallery of images from the exhibition, and a smaller gallery of pictures from Roman York.

BTW, Trier (Augusta Treverorum), Constantine’s capital as emperor of the West under the tetrarchic system, is holding a major Constantine exhibition next year (2007).  Click here to read Irene’s account of her trip to Trier.  The municipal website includes photos and a video of the Basilica, built as Constantine’s audience chamber and now a church.

   
Irene’s photos of the Basilica (more)

an illustrated timeline of art history

Today I met a friend from out of town for lunch at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and we admired the new Mary and Michael Jaharis Galleries for Byzantine Art … and did a spot of nitpicking as experts (one) and seasoned museum goers (both of us).

I googled the thing and found Byzantium (ca. 330-1453), and discovered to my pleasant surprise that the Met Online has an illustrated Timeline of Art History,  with various navigating options. 

Drop-down list for Byzantine Art

Drop-down list for Greek and Roman Art

Enjoy!

For those of you who know the museum:  The Byzantine galleries are the ones at the left and right sides of the Grand Staircase (where you walk through to get to the Medieval Section), and they are connected by a crypt-like area that has been opened up underneath the staircase, with the original brickwork maintained.  It contains the section Byzantine Egypt in the South.  It says in the brochure that

[the] newly expanded galleries restore much of the original Morris Hunt and Richard Howland Hunt 1894-1902 Beaux Arts plan for the building’s monumental Fifth Avenue facade and entrance.

As to the museum’s new entrance fee policy, here is a recent piece by fellow blogger Dorothy King:  Into the Metropolitan Museum:  What’s It Worth to You?

brooklyn museum: jewish mosaics, photos

Finally got a few photos of the exhibit, see brooklyn museum: jewish mosaics from the roman empire and more.

Click on images to enlarge









Photos © Dave Kush

glass in antiquity

David Anthony Durham, in his afterword to Pride of Carthage, writes: This book is a work of fiction and should only be read as a novel. It was inspired by real figures and events, but I have taken many liberties to arrange the material into a workable narrative.

That is the fiction writer's privilege. But should that extend to anachronism?

Bingley found this passage:

The magistrate rose and fetched a jug of wine and a glass. It was early in the day, yes, but Silenus found himself thirsty as well. He motioned for the jug and drank directly from it, deeply enough to ensure that he would feel the effects. Diodorus took the jug from him and refilled his glass. A few moments passed like this, the two of them shuttling the jug back and forth, each captured by thoughts of his own.

And he wondered, did they have wine glasses in the 3rd century BCE? I did some checking, and it seems not quite yet: Wkipedia, Glassmaking in Antiquity, and The History of Glass Making all refer to the 1st century BCE as the point when glass blowing was invented.

In the empire, glassmaking was raised to a real art. Here are photos I took at various German museums.

The Romans also knew how to make sliding glass windows, as these photos show, from a villa rustica in Ahrweiler, Germany.

[In April, we talked about wine making]