COLLAPSED MOSAIC FLOOR, C3-C4. PALAZZO SPADA The beautiful C16 palazzo Capodiferro Spada today houses the Consiglio di Stato. The councillors of State, among the most shadowy and powerful figures in Italian politics, aren't constrained by the conservation rules that rein in lesser persons and in fact built a parking garage under the Baroque garden in 2014. A previous attempt to built an underground garage in 1994-2000 uncovered, to their dismay, a large ancient insula of the C3-C4 CE under the wing of the palazzo along vicolo del Polverone. Here we can see the well-conserved remains of the collapsed ancient apartment building, evidently of wealthy tenants, with broken black and white mosaics showing geometric and floral designs, one floor fallen onto the one below in a violent earthquake, possibly one of the two devastating tremors of the C9. Naturally this excavation is not ever open to the public: the official reason is that the metal walkways are "unstable". It would take a bureaucratic earthquake of massive proportions to shake the doors open.

For #MosaicMonday I'm forced to use a 📸 by #MassimoOsanna to show a spectacular site inaccessible to the public, a collapsed deluxe #insula with splendid #mosaic floors under the #Renaissance #palazzoSpada in central #Rome. Open for about 5 minutes in 2000, closed ever since.