During day 14, class finally resumed after a public transportation strike caused our class to be cancelled. For class today, we visited a museum that was really beautiful and contained many of the statues and paintings from Ancient Rome.
First statue that we visited is a statue of a boxer in the old day. When created, it was a very glossy and perfect bronze statue that has obviously faded a little. We know this guy is a boxer because he has lacerations on his face and has gloves on his hand. Gloves back then had metal around the edges, and were literally deadly weapons instead of cushioning the punch. This man is believed to have just heard that he was defeated and is meant to motivate Ancient Romans to appreciate that while someone wins, someone must be defeated and that happens to everyone.
I just liked this picture because it has a kitty capturing a bird in it. Reminds me of my boy Ashes!
This is a spectacularly preserved statue of a man playing a sport in ancient Rome, discus. When the Roman empire was finally defeated and sacked, many statues were destroyed or beheaded, so it is believed these were buried to preserve it. Literally flawless, every muscle, vein and strand of hair is perfectly crafted and extremely impressive.
So these were on the head of ships in ancient Rome. Looking incredibly intimidating, it is not difficult to come to the conclusion that these were on the heads of warships. That would be completely wrong. Apparently the Romans had party boats where they would go to get drunk and throw lavish parties. These were on the heads of those. Good 'ol Romans.
This was extremely impressive in my view. This is an exquisitely crafted coffin for a war general. If you click and zoom in on the coffin, you can notice that a war is literally taking place on the coffin. The general is front and center striking some barbarian that the Romans are defeating while people and horses from both sides are being trampled at the bottom. Very impressive. The face of the general was left blank which signifies that this was made before his death and was intended to be filled in later. None are sure why, but no one ever finished the face of who lays in the coffin.
These next two pictures are the things that awed me the absolute most in all of the museum. This is a small portion of an entire dining room that belonged to a villa of Julius Caesars wife. The whole dining room walls were decorated with a painting that is intended to simulate a different season while looking outside of someone's back yard. Incredibly intact, it was striking to me. I love nature, and cannot believe that someone hasn't tried to do this in their own dining room nowadays. Everything from the blades of grass, birds and even the pinecones on trees are perfectly hand painted. Modern lights were put in that change colors to simulate the seasons, and added even more awe to the picture. The next shot is a panorama, and adds a little bit more to how big and far this painting stretched.
So that is it for today, tomorrow will be the start of my trip to Naples. As always, thanks for reading!
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