In June of 2008, our favorite street artists, Sten, Lex & Lucamaleonte did up Via Nuoro with some Dante images that still make us smile. Though we haven’t ventured there lately ourselves, the infallible Wooster Collective posted more work by the same artists at Via Nuoro today and we had to share it immediately.
Wingless cherubs or putti seem to be tumbling out of the wall in this latest urban embellishment and it absolutely makes us swoon.
Rome is burning! When it comes to stylish modern evocations of the Great Fire of 64, we thought things were looking good yesterday when we stumbled upon those classical column candles made by Goody Gram! Today, however, we’ve stumbled upon the best Rome fire re-creation that we’ve ever seen.
This fabulous firescreen (perfect for the Compound’s fireplace) was designed by BBM and we saw it first on Core 77. It’s made of asercut cor-ten steel plate and is screen is produced in the image of the present-day skyline of Rome.
Now, of course we know there was no Colosseum, Column of Trajan, St. Peter’s Basilica, or Basilica of Maxentius and Constantine – all represented on the firescreen – when Nero burned down the place (or was accused of doing so) in AD 64. If we can figure out how to buy one of these babies, that’s not going to keep us from playing with matches and fiddling while Rome burns, right in the comfort of our own Compound.
For you Anglophiles, they’ve created a London version too.
A quick scan of ANSA’s website this evening reveals some incredibly interesting art historical news having to do with the Stanza di Heliodorus, one of the rooms painted by Raphael in Pope Julius II’s private suite of apartments. The Stanza of Heliodorus, frescoed between 1511 and 1514, seems to have an exact and roughly contemporaneous twin that was discovered about four years ago in the port city of Civitavecchia, north of Rome. The Vatican room is most famous for the paintings of The Expulsion of Heliodorus, The Deliverance of Saint Peter, and The Mass at Bolsena.
Art historian and Raphael expert Nicole Dacos says that the painted room in Civitavecchia was executed by an artist working in the circle of Raphael who was named Ugo da Carpi. Unlike the walls of the Vatican, however, which are frescoed, the Civitavecchia copy was most likely done in tempera.
Who paid to have the copy made is unclear, however, Dacos suggests that the work may have been done in 1527 when Rome was sacked by the troops of the Holy Roman Emperor and the artist Ugo da Carpi followed Parmigianino. one of his colleagues, out of Rome and to the city of Bologna. (Ugo da Carpi is famous for his woodcuts depicting works by Raphael and Parmigianino).
At the time that it was painted, the room in Civitavecchia was in a tower and was probably used for military purposes. Today the room is the bedroom of a retired carbineiri, signor Tarcisio, and his wife Teresa. It was Tarcisio himself who found the paintings some years ago when he undertook a remodeling job and during his works discovered “a very big angel” on the wall.
There’s much more to the story and you’ll find it here on ANSA.
Readers may remember from last week’s Photo Friday that Susan Sanders is roaming the US in search of Rome (and inventions upon the Eterna) in America. This week she’s sent us something that made the whole compound burst into giggles – it’s a replica of Leonardo da Vinci’s Sforza Horse (surrounded by a tiny tiny white picket fense) that currently standing in front of the High Museum of Art in Atlanta.
The horse heralds the opening of a new exhibit at the High titled “Leonardo da Vinci. Hand of the Genius,” curated by Renaissance scholar Gary Radke. The exhibition features approximately 50 works, including more than 20 sketches and studies by Leonardo, some of which will be on display for the first time in the United States
But back to that horse. In 1481-82, the young Leonardo da Vinci was working in Milan when Duke Ludovico Sforza commissioned him to create a colossal equestrian statue of his father, Francesco. In typical Leonardo-esque fashion, the artist spent nearly two decades studying and sketching horses as well as experimenting with the techniques of bronze casting in preparation for the project. He created a huge clay model, but before he could cast the bronze, war broke out and French soldiers invading northern Italy requisitioned the precious metal set aside for the project and used it for cannons. The invading soldiers also destroyed the great clay horse.
Nonetheless, Leonardo left behind a myriad of plans and sketches. Some of those will be on view in the High exhibition so that visitors can compare the modern recreation of the Sforza horse outside the museum (it’s some 24 feet tall) to Leonardo’s original vision.
For more photos by Susan, visit her blog: Rome With A View.
Readers may be interested to hear that Eternally Cool’s trusty photographer, Susan Sanders, is out roaming the globe in search of manifestations of Rome in the larger world. This week she’s been in San Antonio, Texas, where her clever eye and trusty camera locked upon a fine work of art by Franco Mondini-Ruiz.
Called Que Purdy, the work depicts a copy of the Venus de Milo standing on a stack of pancakes, and embellishes the porch of the Museo Alameda (the only branch of the Smithsonian Museum that’s not in Washington DC) on Market Square in downtown San Antonio.
We’re led to wonder if the goddess really ate pancakes. We’re thinking carefully about whether maple syrup or strawberries would be the appropriate accompaniment. And is that a short stack or a tall one?
For more photos by Susan, visit her website: Rome With A View.
We’re kicking off Monday morning with a final homage to ABOVE and his/her centurion stencil on Via di San Giovanni in Laterano (really near the Colosseum). If you saw yesterday’s post, then you may have watched the video that ABOVE made about the stencil, in which one of the “real live” centurions who poses for photos at the Colosseum makes an appearance.
When ABOVE wrote to alert us about that video, s/he also sent us some snapshots of the “real” centurion standing side-by-side with the sprayed one. So, we show you some of those today and feel pretty confident that they provide just the kind of juxtaposition between past and present (or is this present and present) that e-Coolers adore.
If you missed it yesterday, click here to watch ABOVE’s When in Rome Video. You can find out more about ABOVE at www.goabove.com, where you can see more street art, watch videos, buy prints, and fill out an “application” to buy original art work (ABOVE won’t sell to just anyone, it seems – and that’s OK with us).
A few weeks ago we published a fabulous stencil by ABOVE that we spotted on Via San Giovanni in Laterano. We expressed both our admiration and entertainment for the work and shortly thereafter we heard from its creator, ABOVE, who wrote to let us know about the publication of a When in Rome video on Vimeo.
We knew that eCoolers would love seeing a real live (modern) centurion hamming it up aside this stencil, so we’re linking now to ABOVE’s great video. Click on over and watch!
ABOVE’s When in Rome Video. You can find out more about ABOVE at www.goabove.com, where you can see more street art, watch videos, buy prints, and fill out an “application” to buy original art work (ABOVE won’t sell to just anyone, it seems – and that’s OK with us).
There are members of the eCool Team who have started to call the Compound by another name–sweat lodge. It’s mid-August and it’s just plain hot in Rome. That heat doesn’t keep the eCool team from showing up for work. Oh no! They’re here bright and early, slogging away at their computers, trying to think of clever things write, trying to find amazing things to post, and generally trying to work out the proof that informs the equation (Rome = Eternally Cool).
Each day by about 2pm, however, the eCoolers have had it. Despite our instance that they need to stay and work and despite the fact that we provide them them with an unending supply of cold coffee and other iced beverages, each afternoon there’s a moment when our highly-paid team just deserts us. They say that they’re heading out into the streets to look for eCool material. We know that no one in their right minds would wander the streets of Rome in the middle of the afternoon in August. And we know that they’re really sitting in air-conditioned bookstores reading trashy vampire novels, but we don’t press the point.
Every once in a while, however, our team does return to the Compound with something ultra-awesome. Dripping with sweat, they download their photos onto the eCool computer and then show us something so amazing that we cease to care what they’re doing with their time and lavish praise upon them. That exact series of events happened recently and so today we’re happy to share with you the photo that our badass team brought home late last week.
It’s a stencil that currently embellishes a wall flanking Via di San Giovanni in Laterano, quite near the Colosseum. A Roman centurion–the kind that poses for a picture with you outside the Colosseum and then demands an exorbitant price for the privilege–stands holding a paint roller in his hand. Above him are the words “When in Rome.” Are we meant to read him as the artist of this oh-so-apropos artwork? (The artist, by the way, seems to have claimed their work here in the form of a signature below the figure that reads “Above.”) Or are we meant to see him as representing an antiquated authority figure who will come and erase this bit of stupendous stencil work with another coat of paint. We don’t know the answer but we love this addition to the streetscape.
So Michael Jackson and Augustus walk into a bar….
We’ve not really managed to finish the joke, having only come up with weak punchlines about first century thrillers and imperial moonwalks.
Our inability to figure out what happens in that imagined bar scene probably stems from the fact that Augustus would have hated Michael Jackson and vice versa–we can only imagine that the meeting of their carefully choreographed self-images would have produced an ugly clash.
That hasn’t stopped the city of Rome from celebrating these two historical figures in a single space, however. A recent drive down the (blissfully deserted) Lungotevere alerted us to the fact that someone’s decided to honor Michael Jackson at the new Ara Pacis Museum. There, visible through a massive glass window that faces the Tiber River, stand a sizable boot and glove that sparkle with golden glass mosaic tiles that could commemorate no one else but the King of Pop.
As far as we know, Augustus was never decked out in such a fashion (and would have sternly disapproved of anyone who accessorized their toga this way) but it’s not the first time that the Ara Pacis Museum has been used to display fancy dress, so maybe someone knows something we don’t.
A few weeks ago, Sydney, Australia celebrated the 12th annual Rocks Aroma festival, an event that attracted some 100,000 people and showcased coffee from around the world.
As part of the celebration, 3604 cups of coffee–each filled with different amounts of cream to create differing shades of brown–were used to create a giant image of the Mona Lisa.
