RELIEF OF A CITYSCAPE, C2 СЕ. CELANO, CASTELLO PICCOLOMINI Alessandro Torlonia, in 1862-1878, succeded in doing what ancients Romans from Julius Caesar to the emperor Claudius could not. Through the work of an international group of engineers, he managed to drain the Fucine Lake, in western Abruzzo. It started as a basin of water of about 140 sq.km, Claudius reduced it to about 90 sq.km, and Hadrian's work deepening the drainage tunnels brought it down to about 57 sq.km. However, after the fall of the empire, earthquakes and landslides blocked the tunnels and the lake gradually returned to its original size. When Prince Torlonia drained the lake for good, his excavators discovered a number of ancient sculptures, including a long relief in five sections of limestone, of which this piece, showing a cityscape and its environs, is perhaps the most important. The cityscape at left shows a fortified town with a huge gate and a street leading back from it, with a densely built-up city vividly evoked, with city blocks of buildings carved in amazing detail. At right, the countryside is full of forests, with a farm/villa at bottom and a few buildings, probably temples, on the heights.

#ReliefWednesday leads us to the #CastelloPiccolomini in #Celano in western #Abruzzo, where the enormous #Torlonia fiefdom of #Fucino occupies the drained bed of the Fucine Lake. One of the finds from the draining is this amazing C2 #relief of a city and its surrounding land. #AncientBluesky 🏺