Blog Six - The Fourth Century

The Basilica San Clemente was really amazing to go into, especially with the lecture from the guest professor who was awesome enough to walk us through under the church and its foundations as well as the upper church. Unfortunately, we couldn't take pictures of the inside, but the frescos were absolutely gorgeous. It was really interesting especially to learn about Saint Alexius and his story, being able to trace it through the frescos- especially the inclusion of his wife in the window in the condensed version of his story- was really amazing. I also really enjoyed the area from the Mithraic cult that had been the basis of the church before it was used by the Christians. I also really thought that the renaissance fresco on the main level of the church today was especially beautiful, the recovered base sketch was really cool to see. I loved that the change of posture from the sketch to the actual fresco showed like these decisions of art were still being made as things were being worked on.

Personally, despite spending so little time there, I most enjoyed seeing the Ludus Magnus. The only visual I'd had of a ludus previously was from Spartacus- which, I'm pretty sure isn't a very good source of information. Despite the presence of Lucy Lawless. BUT, regardless, to actully see a ludus and see that layout was very cool. Especially knowing that it was connected to the Colosseum- I only wish that we could've seen the armory! It's neat to know that some of these ruins are still not fully excavated, that there's still more left to discover despite how much has been discovered previously.

The Arch of Constantine was also really neat to see, though the "recycled" aspect of it was more entertaining than anything else. I loved that you could  always tell which was Constantine- the lack of beard was a dead giveaway with that. The different shades of marble, where you could tell his face had been carved on separately and added on later was neat but sad, in some ways. While I appreciate that the Romans tend to reuse a lot of materials, it's also sad that so much had been altered from its original state and removed from forums or other arches to create something new.