SARCOPHAGUS WITH A MARRIAGE SCENE, C2 CE. SAN SABA The church of S. Saba on the lesser Aventine has an ancient history. According to legend, it was built on the site of a C6 oratory where St Silvia, mother of pope Gregory the Great, came to pray. Ruins underneath the church have found a C7 oratory and possibly a barracks for the IVth cohort of the ancient fire service, the Vigiles. The oratory was run by Greek monks and by the C9 this was the most important and powerful monastery in Rome. Probably by that time this huge sarcophagus was reused for a prominent member of the community. In origin it was for a married couple who we see twice: the wife at the left corner, the husband at the right, and at the centre, between strigilated panels, is the couple at the moment in their wedding when they take each other's right hand as a symbol of their union. A face between their heads is probably Juno's. Both faces were disfigured, probably for Christian reuse.

This #SarcophagusSaturday we're in the porch of #SanSaba on the #Aventine hill in #Rome to find a magnificent C3 #sarcophagus with a husband and wife joined in marriage by #Juno. #AncientBluesky 🏺

CIBORIUM ARCHES, C8-C9, REUSED IN THE ABBOT'S THRONE, C11. CRYPT OF S. ALESSIO This Aventine church claims a C4 pedigree, but first emerges into written history during the reign of Leo III (795-816) as a diaconia or food distribution centre. The ciborium over the high altar in the upper church could conceivably have been a commission by that pope, who is best known for his coronation of Charlemagne on Christmas Day, 800, in Old St Peter's. The crypt was rebuilt by Cluniac Benedictines in the C11, who had been given the church and its adjoining abbey in c. 1050. Probably this was when the old and rather small ciborium was dismantled and two of its four sides were adapted as the arms of the abbot's throne, as the crypt also functioned as a chapter house. We can clearly see one side of the forner ciborium, with its braided arch and stylised trees, topped by wavy curls.

He's a Cluniac, #Cluniac, on the floor / And he's praying like he's never prayed before! #SpoliaSunday takes us to the #spolia rich #crypt of #SantAlessio on the #Aventine in #Rome, where a reformist community of monks reused a #Romanesque #ciborium to built the abbot's #throne.

LAPIS DIABOLI, C3-C4. S. SABINA In the corner between the counterfaçade and the base of the belltower inside the beautiful early Christian basilica of S. Sabina (425-432) on the Aventine hill stands a reused partial column with spiral fluting. Atop it is a smooth, fairly regular round black stone, flat on top and underneath. This was an ancient Roman counterweight or lapis aequipondus of a determined number of libræ, a standard unit of weight equivalent to 327 grams. Other Roman churches have further examples, possibly because churches were protected places to keep standard measures. However they became reused as relics and their original use forgotten. This one is known as the lapis diaboli or devil's stone, which was meant to have been thrown by the devil himself at the head of St Dominic, who was praying in this church at the time, after failing to tempt him. To me it looks like a stone used in the sport of curling, and with its now-missing metal handle it would have looked even more so.

#SpoliaSunday takes us up the #Aventine hill in #Rome to the splendid though brutally over-restored #palaeochristian basilica of #SantaSabina, where an ancient weight measure does service as a relic of diabolic frustration. #AncientBluesky 🏺

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J. M. W. Turner - 15 January 2025 - Rome: the Baths of Caracalla from the Aventine.
#textoimage #texttoimage #aiart #williamturner #turner #tategallery #rome #bathsofcaracalla #aventine