MUSE IN ARCHITECTURAL SETTING, 64-105 CE. MUSÆUM UNDER THE BATHS OF TRAJAN In 2011, explorations behind the "Painted City" fresco in a cryptoporticus under the Baths of Trajan discovered a gigantic mosaic, 16 metres long by 6 metres tall, which showed female figures in an architectural setting rather like a scenæ frons, with one heroically nude male figure, Apollo. The fragmentary mosaic, the largest mural mosaic ever found in the Roman world, must have belonged to an important public building which archaeologists have hypothesised as a Musæum, a place for concerts, poetry readings, and other events. The area pictured shows one of the Muses, nude but for a blue drapery over one knee, standing against a background of columns, including one decorated with a male comic mask. This is a tiny part of the mosaic. The rest, very damaged but still impressive, stretches across the whole exterior wall, and, given that it's facing an already-excavated nymphaeum, it extends for another 6-10 metres under the earth. We will have to wait for this marvel to be open to the public, but it will be stunning.

#MosaicMonday brings us (📸 CSR Restauro Beni Culturali) back under the #BathsofTrajan in #Rome to see a marvel discovered in 2011, a detail of a huge wall #mosaic, probably #Flavian, from the exterior of a large public building buried by order of #Trajan.