cloudsoup

In St Peter's

The large structure in the middle under the dome is called a baldacchin and this one's by Bernini

In the Vatican Museum

Bernini, Fontana dei Quattro Fiumi (Fountain of the Four Rivers)
Piazza Navona, Rome

http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?hl=en&ll=41.898947,12.473179&spn=0.002735,0.006539&t=m&z=18&vpsrc=6

From 1651, representing the four major rivers of four continents – the Nile (Africa), the Danube (Europe), the Ganges (Asia), and the Plate (the Americas).

This gentleman is the Ganges, I believe, and holds an oar to represent the river's navigability.

An outstanding example of Baroque sculpture…and slightly overwrought.

St Peter's
Rome

St Peter's
Rome

Temple of Saturn
The Forum, Rome

Not much remains now – this is a side view looking up at the front portico – and it dates from somewhere around the 3rd century AD, although the original dedication of the Altar goes back to 497 BC.

Saturn (identified with the Greek Cronos) consumed his own children because of a prophecy that he would be deposed by one of them – hence Goya's famous painting – but Jupiter escaped that fate, caused his father to vomit up his 5 siblings ( Vesta, Ceres, Juno, Pluto and Neptune) and then, in some versions, castrated him.

In Roman mythology, distinct from the Greek tradition, Saturn fled to Rome and there established the Golden Age and it was in commemoration of this time that the Roman feast of Saturnalia was held each year at the winter solstice.

For a time the temple held the state archives and treasury.

Constantine's foot

From the remnants of the colossal statue of Constantine in the Capitoline Museum

Watching Battleship Potemkin for the first time. Should I be embarrassed that I've got to my age without seeing it? I know it well enough to get the references in other films: the shot in the eye, the pram bouncing down the Odessa Steps.

Looks rather didactic and a bit unsubtle so far. Maggots on rotting meat carcass, eh? Wonder what that might signify….

Interesting shots, angles and lighting, though. It's all slightly wobbly, with focus occasionally drifting, so I'm note sure if Eisenstein deliberately kept close-ups in shadow and so on or if he simply didn't have technical mastery of his equipment.

Ebert says it suffers apart from its context, and Kael called it a 'cartoon'. I can see that.

Arch of Constantine

Rome, viewed from the Colosseum looking towards the Palatine.

Erected to commemorate Constantine's win over Maxentius at the Battle of Milvian Bridge which consolidated his position as unchallenged emperor. Constantine went on to divide the empire between East and West, established a new capital in Constantinople (Byzantium) and finally converted to Christianity.

Raphael, The School Of Athens (detail)
Vatican Museum

The two central figures are Plato (on the left) and Aristotle (right). Plato points to the sky and Aristotle to the ground, as Plato was thought to be more concerned with the world of Forms and Aristotle with the natural world. Plato's holding a copy of the Timaeus, a dialogue about the nature of the world and the 'world soul' while Aristotle holds a copy of his Nicomachean Ethics.

Sprawled on the steps is Diogenes the Cynic. Socrates is the figure in green on the left, immediately identifiable with his domed head and pug nose. The character leaning on his arm in the left foreground is Michaelangelo.