I was alerted by a tweet from my pal (and quondam Head Girl) Dr Sophie Hay to an exhibition at the Fondazione Prada in Milan called Recycling Beauty which then still had a week to run. The tweet in question referred to the reconstruction of the Colossus of Constantine which once stood in the Basilica of Maxentius in the Roman Forum.
That was fabulous, thank you Agnes! There are some very cool Brown Boveri turbines at Montemartini, a special treat for fans of industrial machinery like me.
On my way back home from New Zealand where the main attractions were a cyclone, followed closely by an earthquake.
That looks like it was an incredible exhibition. Just seen the real fragments of the Colossus of Constantine on Friday. Also Ozymandias is my second favourite poem of all time so loved seeing that referenced in the most fitting article possible!
As an aside - fellow Travel Substacker (and Brit) here 👋🏻. I’m in Rome until the end of March, wondered if I could tempt you for an interview on art history, architecture, and your experience of living in Rome over the past decade?
This sounds an absolutely fascinating exhibition. So glad you got to see and share it with us
The New York Review of Books has just (April 2023) published an essay by Ingrid D. Rowland about this show:
Mysteries of Use and Reuse
For the artists and patrons of medieval and early modern Rome, the repurposing of ancient objects involved a tangle of complex motives.
https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2023/05/11/mysteries-of-use-and-reuse-recycling-beauty-ingrid-rowland/?utm_source=nybooks&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=email-share
That was fabulous, thank you Agnes! There are some very cool Brown Boveri turbines at Montemartini, a special treat for fans of industrial machinery like me.
On my way back home from New Zealand where the main attractions were a cyclone, followed closely by an earthquake.
Such an interesting exhibition Agnes. Thanks for sharing - a beautifully written article.
That looks like it was an incredible exhibition. Just seen the real fragments of the Colossus of Constantine on Friday. Also Ozymandias is my second favourite poem of all time so loved seeing that referenced in the most fitting article possible!
As an aside - fellow Travel Substacker (and Brit) here 👋🏻. I’m in Rome until the end of March, wondered if I could tempt you for an interview on art history, architecture, and your experience of living in Rome over the past decade?
Thanks again Agnes for a lovely and informative mental jaunt to Italia from snowy Chicago.