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Torlonia Collection
The Torlonia Collection (Italian: ''Collezione Torlonia'') is a private art collection of 620 Ancient Greek and Roman art works assembled by the noble Torlonia family of Rome, Italy. It has been called "the greatest private collection of ancient Roman antiquity" by archaeologist Darius Arya. Around 180 pieces are busts, one of the largest collections of Roman portraiture in the world. History Referred to as a "collection of collections" by the archaeologist Salvatore Settis, much of the Torlonia Collection consists of older collections acquired either whole or in part by Prince Giovanni (1754-1829) and his son Prince Alessandro (1800-1886). Acquisitions of individual works and groups of classical art were also made on the art market, and the family conducted extensive excavations on its own properties in and around Rome to unearth further antiquities for the collection. Acquisitions In 1800, Prince Giovanni acquired the contents of the studio of the 18th century sculptor-restorer B ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Italian Language
Italian (''italiano'' or ) is a Romance language of the Indo-European language family that evolved from the Vulgar Latin of the Roman Empire. Together with Sardinian, Italian is the least divergent language from Latin. Spoken by about 85 million people (2022), Italian is an official language in Italy, Switzerland (Ticino and the Grisons), San Marino, and Vatican City. It has an official minority status in western Istria (Croatia and Slovenia). Italian is also spoken by large immigrant and expatriate communities in the Americas and Australia.Ethnologue report for language code:ita (Italy) – Gordon, Raymond G., Jr. (ed.), 2005. Ethnologue: Languages of the World, Fifteenth edition. Dallas, Tex.: SIL International. Online version Itali ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Krater
A krater or crater ( grc-gre, , ''kratēr'', literally "mixing vessel") was a large two-handled shape of vase in Ancient Greek pottery and metalwork, mostly used for the mixing of wine with water. Form and function At a Greek symposium, kraters were placed in the center of the room. They were quite large, so they were not easily portable when filled. Thus, the wine-water mixture would be withdrawn from the krater with other vessels, such as a ''kyathos'' (pl. ''kyathoi''), an ''amphora'' (pl. ''amphorai''), or a ''kylix'' (pl. ''kylikes''). In fact, Homer's ''Odyssey'' describes a steward drawing wine from a krater at a banquet and then running to and fro pouring the wine into guests' drinking cups. The modern Greek word now used for undiluted wine, ''krasi'' ( κρασί), originates from the ''krasis'' (''κράσις'', i.e., mixing) of wine and water in kraters. Pottery kraters were glazed on the interior to make the surface of the clay more impervious for holding wate ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Appian Way
The Appian Way (Latin and Italian language, Italian: ''Via Appia'') is one of the earliest and strategically most important Roman roads of the ancient Roman Republic, republic. It connected Rome to Brindisi, in southeast Italy. Its importance is indicated by its common name, recorded by Statius, of ("the Appian Way, the queen of the long roads"). The road is named after Appius Claudius Caecus, the Roman censor who began and completed the first section as a military road to the south in 312 BC"Appian Way" in ''Chambers's Encyclopædia''. London: George Newnes Ltd, George Newnes, 1961, Vol. 1, p. 490. during the Samnite Wars. Origins The need for roads The Appian Way was a Roman road used as a main route for military supplies for its conquest of southern Italy in 312 BC and for improvements in communication. The Appian Way was the first long road built specifically to transport troops outside the smaller region of greater Rome (this was essential to the Romans). The few ro ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Villa Of The Quintilii
The Villa of the Quintilii (Italian: Villa dei Quintili) is an ancient Roman villa beyond the fifth milestone along the Via Appia Antica just outside the traditional boundaries of Rome, Italy. It was built by the rich and cultured brothers Sextus Quintilius Valerius Maximus and Sextus Quintilius Condianus (consuls in 151 AD). The ruins of this ''villa suburbana'' are of such an extent that when they were first excavated, the site was called Roma Vecchia ("Old Rome") by the locals, as they occupied too great a ground, it seemed, to have been anything less than a town. The nucleus of the villa was constructed in the time of Hadrian. The villa included extensive ''thermae'' fed by its own aqueduct, and, what was even more unusual, a hippodrome, which dates to the fourth century, when the villa was Imperial property: the emperor Commodus coveted the villa strongly enough to put to death its owners in 182 and confiscate it for himself. In 1776 Gavin Hamilton, the entrepreneurial p ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Villa Quintili
A villa is a type of house that was originally an ancient Roman upper class country house. Since its origins in the Roman villa, the idea and function of a villa have evolved considerably. After the fall of the Roman Republic, villas became small farming compounds, which were increasingly fortified in Late Antiquity, sometimes transferred to the Church for reuse as a monastery. Then they gradually re-evolved through the Middle Ages into elegant upper-class country homes. In the Early Modern period, any comfortable detached house with a garden near a city or town was likely to be described as a villa; most survivals have now been engulfed by suburbia. In modern parlance, "villa" can refer to various types and sizes of residences, ranging from the suburban semi-detached double villa to, in some countries, especially around the Mediterranean, residences of above average size in the countryside. Roman Roman villas included: * the ''villa urbana'', a suburban or country seat th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Praxiteles
Praxiteles (; el, Πραξιτέλης) of Athens, the son of Cephisodotus the Elder, was the most renowned of the Attica sculptors of the 4th century BC. He was the first to sculpt the nude female form in a life-size statue. While no indubitably attributable sculpture by Praxiteles is extant, numerous copies of his works have survived; several authors, including Pliny the Elder, wrote of his works; and coins engraved with silhouettes of his various famous statuary types from the period still exist. A supposed relationship between Praxiteles and his beautiful model, the Thespian courtesan Phryne, has inspired speculation and interpretation in works of art ranging from painting ( Gérôme) to comic opera ( Saint-Saëns) to shadow play ( Donnay). Some writers have maintained that there were two sculptors of the name Praxiteles. One was a contemporary of Pheidias, and the other his more celebrated grandson. Though the repetition of the same name in every other generation is commo ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Apollo Sauroctonos
''Apollo Sauroktonos'' (Apollo Lizard-killer) is the title of several 1st - 2nd century AD Roman marble copies of an original by the ancient Greek sculptor Praxiteles. The statues depict a nude adolescent Apollo about to catch a lizard climbing up a tree. Copies are included in the collections of the Louvre Museum, the Vatican Museums, and the National Museums Liverpool. Original The bronze original of this sculpture is attributed by Pliny (XXXIV, 69-70) to the Athenian sculptor Praxiteles and is usually dated to c.350-340 BC. Martial wrote an epigram about the statue (14, 172): "Spare the lizard, treacherous boy, creeping toward you; it desires to perish by your hands." The Cleveland Museum of Art claims to own a bronze original (or part-original) of this work. The work is currently being analyzed to verify this claim by scholars and archaeologists. Greece has raised questions about ownership and title. Copies About forty copies of the Apollo Sauroctonos are known to exist. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hadrian's Villa
Hadrian's Villa ( it, Villa Adriana) is a UNESCO World Heritage Site comprising the ruins and archaeological remains of a large villa complex built c. AD 120 by Roman Emperor Hadrian at Tivoli outside Rome. The site is owned by the Republic of Italy and has been managed since 2014 by the Polo Museale del Lazio. History The villa was constructed at Tibur (modern-day Tivoli) as a retreat from Rome for Emperor Hadrian during the second and third decades of the 2nd century AD. Hadrian is said to have disliked the palace on the Palatine Hill in Rome, leading to the construction of the retreat. It was traditional for the Roman emperor to have constructed a villa as a place to relax from everyday life. Previous emperors and Romans with wealth, such as Trajan, had also constructed villas. Many villas were also self-sustaining with small farms and did not need to import food.. Though emperors’ villas were supposed to be a place of rest and leisure, there is some evidence of Had ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Antinous
Antinous, also called Antinoös, (; grc-gre, Ἀντίνοος; 27 November – before 30 October 130) was a Greek youth from Bithynia and a favourite and probable lover of the Roman emperor Hadrian. Following his premature death before his twentieth birthday, Antinous was deified on Hadrian's orders, being worshipped in both the Greek East and Latin West, sometimes as a god () and sometimes merely as a hero (). Little is known of Antinous's life, although it is known that he was born in Claudiopolis (present day Bolu, Turkey), in the Roman province of Bithynia et Pontus. He was probably introduced to Hadrian in 123, before being taken to Italy for a higher education. He had become the favourite of Hadrian by 128, when he was taken on a tour of the Roman Empire as part of Hadrian's personal retinue. Antinous accompanied Hadrian during his attendance of the annual Eleusinian Mysteries in Athens, and was with him when he killed the Marousian lion in Libya, an event highly publ ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ager Vaticanus
In Ancient Rome, the ''Ager Vaticanus'' (, "Vatican Field") was the alluvial plain An alluvial plain is a largely flat landform created by the deposition of sediment over a long period of time by one or more rivers coming from highland regions, from which alluvial soil forms. A floodplain is part of the process, being the sma ... on the right (west) bank of the Tiber. It was also called ''Ripa Veii, Veientana'' or ''Ripa Etrusca'', indicating the Etruscans, Etruscan dominion during the archaic period. It was located between the Janiculum, the Vatican Hill, and Monte Mario, down to the Aventine Hill and up to the confluence of the Cremera creek.Liverani (2016) p. 21 Origin of the name About the etymology of ''Vātī̆cānus'' there are several hypotheses: according to Barthold Georg Niebuhr, the toponym perhaps refers to an archaic Etruscan settlement called ''Vaticum'';Gigli (1990) p. 7 Varro derives the name from a childbirth deity named ''Vaticanus'' or ''Vagitanus'', the g ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Janiculum Hill
The Janiculum (; it, Gianicolo ), occasionally the Janiculan Hill, is a hill in western Rome, Italy. Although it is the second-tallest hill (the tallest being Monte Mario) in the contemporary city of Rome, the Janiculum does not figure among the proverbial Seven Hills of Rome, being west of the Tiber and outside the boundaries of the ancient city. Sights The Janiculum is one of the best locations in Rome for a scenic view of central Rome with its domes and bell towers. Other sights on the Janiculum include the church of San Pietro in Montorio, on what was formerly thought to be the site of St Peter's crucifixion; a small shrine known as the Tempietto, designed by Donato Bramante, marks the supposed site of Peter's death. The Janiculum also houses a Baroque fountain built by Pope Paul V in the late 17th century, the Fontana dell'Acqua Paola, and several foreign research institutions, including the American Academy in Rome and the Spanish Academy in Rome. The Hill is also the loc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Agrippina The Elder
Agrippina "the Elder" (also, in Latin, , "Germanicus's Agrippina"; – AD 33) was a prominent member of the Julio-Claudian dynasty. She was the daughter of Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa (a close supporter of the first Roman emperor, Augustus) and Augustus' daughter, Julia the Elder. Her brothers Lucius and Gaius Caesar were the adoptive sons of Augustus, and were his heirs until their deaths in AD 2 and 4, respectively. Following their deaths, her second cousin Germanicus was made the adoptive son of Tiberius, Augustus' stepson, as part of Augustus' succession scheme in the adoptions of AD 4 (in which Tiberius was adopted by Augustus). As a result of the adoption, Agrippina was wed to Germanicus in order to bring him closer to the Julian family. Agrippina the Elder is known to have traveled with Germanicus throughout his career, taking her children wherever they went. In AD 14, Germanicus was deployed in Gaul as a governor and general, and, while there, the late Augustus sent her ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
