Walk on the Capitol

We continue to roam in Rome. Today we walk through the Capitol Hill, or simply the Capitol, - one of the seven hills on which ancient Rome arose.

Generally, these hills - it is not what many can imagine. Everyone can go about ten minutes, and another ten to get to the next one. But Capitol, moreover, the least of them. But it was the Capitoline Temple, which is also called the Capitol, where the Senate meeting place and public meetings.

rise to the top of the Capitol from the main square in Rome - Piazza Venezia. Up there are palaces, which house complex Capitoline museums - it is the oldest public museum in the world.

The museum buildings were built or rebuilt under the project Michelangelo. Start museums put Pope Sixtus IV in 1471, donated to the "people Rima" collection of ancient bronzes. In the photo: the equestrian statue of Marcus Aurelius on the Capitol Square. This is a copy, the original is next to the walls of one of the museums.

The remnants of former greatness. Courtyard of the museum.

The head of the statue of Emperor Constantine the Great. The statue was huge. Even though it is portrayed seated emperor, its height is about 12 meters. Colossus stood in the Basilica of Maxentius and Constantine - the largest structure of the Roman Forum.

The remains of a marble colossus of Constantine, created during his lifetime. It is believed that the statue was broken in late antiquity. We assume, of course, can be anything you want, especially when you consider that these fragments were found only after the millennium - in the 15th century.

A general right of the emperor came Hochma hand. They were two, almost identical. Historians do not do anything but assume that the hand holding the scepter was replaced by a hand holding some Christian symbol. And you see that the hand had something?

Inside the museum crammed with antique sculpture.

magnificent Renaissance frescoes, but forbidden to take pictures in them are preserved in some rooms on the walls. All the statues, from the point of view of skills, also excellent.

As you visit the Vatican Museums, here again the question arises: why people have forgotten how to sculpt such a statue, losing not only skills, but also the desire to do all this beauty on a thousand years?

Perfection, what else to say. To do so, we need long-term evolution of art, special needs schools.

It should be a lot of schools, so that they produced a lot of good artists. Where all of these schools, as well as willing to learn from them disappeared for many centuries? Just do not tales of savage barbarians.

Among the exhibits, you forget that you were asked to hand over the bag to the storage chamber, which is paid out of your wallet. 1, 5 euros, it seems, in addition to the ticket price. A trifle, but somehow unpleasant.

The original bronze statue of Marcus Aurelius, created in the 2nd century. This is the only equestrian statue that survived from antiquity, as in the Middle Ages it was believed that it depicts the Emperor Constantine the Great. But it was not to be touched, since the Christian Church canonized him as "St. Equal to the Apostles." In the 15th century alone Vatican librarian compared images on coins and recognizes the identity of the rider. That's the story ...

Someone destroyed the image on the statue in the abdomen, knocking the cross.

The famous statue of the emperor Commodus in the form Heracles. Actually, in the Capitoline Museums collected many masterpieces of ancient art.

Part of another giant statue of Constantine. Bronze 4th century.

There are many different beautiful bas-reliefs, including the whole richly decorated sarcophagi.

The famous Lupa Capitolina, which, according to legend, nursed Romulus and Remus - the founders of Rome. For a long time it was thought that it was made already in the 5th century BC. e. However, a few years ago, a specialist in metallurgy, to restore the wolf, returned a verdict: a statue made in 13th century. But about it wrote antiques - Pliny, Cicero ... Infants same at all were made in the 15th century.

This is not a picture, and skilfully made of very fine glazes antique mosaic. 2nd century. Discovered in the 18th century.

Orestes and Iphigenia. There's a story that Shakespeare rests. Floor mosaics, found in the 19th century. It dates back to around 1-3 centuries. An interesting point: the ancient art works depict people much worse than sculptural. Although to find the right pieces of glazes is much easier than hew monolith chisel without a right to make mistakes. Why is that?

Statue of Faun - deity with goat legs and horns.

on the Palatine Hill View. A large white building - Vittoriano, a monument in honor of the first king of united Italy, Victor Emmanuel II, built in the early 20th century.

near the Vittoriano. Many Romans did not like how to fit a modern building, erected on the slope of the Palatine, in the urban landscape, especially next to the antiquities. Therefore, the townspeople scornfully call it "the typewriter" and "false teeth."