Atlantis Online
March 29, 2024, 09:18:49 am
Welcome, Guest. Please login or register.

Login with username, password and session length
News: FARMING FROM 6,000 YEARS AGO
http://www.thisislincolnshire.co.uk/displayNode.jsp?nodeId=156622&command=displayContent&sourceNode=156618&contentPK=18789712&folderPk=87030
 
  Home Help Arcade Gallery Links Staff List Calendar Login Register  

A River Of Fire For Rome's Solstice Celebrations

Pages: [1]   Go Down
  Print  
Author Topic: A River Of Fire For Rome's Solstice Celebrations  (Read 276 times)
0 Members and 42 Guests are viewing this topic.
Bianca
Superhero Member
******
Posts: 41646



« on: March 25, 2008, 05:23:16 pm »

« Last Edit: March 25, 2008, 05:28:43 pm by Bianca » Report Spam   Logged

Your mind understands what you have been taught; your heart what is true.

Share on Facebook Share on Twitter

Bianca
Superhero Member
******
Posts: 41646



« Reply #1 on: March 25, 2008, 05:28:16 pm »









vv A New "Old" Celebration For The City of Rome
« on: November 18, 2007, 06:17:25 pm » Quote Modify 

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------








                                      A River Of Fire For Rome's Solstice Celebrations






On 22 June the Tiber River in central Rome will glow with the radiance of 3000 candles at the heart of an installation designed by Victoria University lecturer Associate Professor Daniel Brown for the city's Midsummer Solstice Festival.

With co-artist Kristin Jones (New York) and the help of 300 international students, Dr Brown will float a chain of 1000 candles down the centre of the river, and display the remaining 2000 on the river’s banks. Further intensifying the beauty of the installation, the half kilometre of little flames will shift in a serpentine motion as the student volunteers pull the lines of floating candles.

Commissioned by the City of Rome, Tevereterno (The Eternal Tiber) will blaze from sunset to midnight between the Sisto and Mazzini Bridges to the accompaniment of contemporary percussion compositions and electro-acoustic sounds.

Dr Brown says the snaking river of fire has been designed in homage to the Tiber River, often referred to in Italian as “the blonde serpent”.

“Symbolically the project is about extending the light on the longest day of the year until the start of the new day, encouraging the daylight to last forever,” Dr Brown says.

“I am particularly mindful, having just arrived in Rome from Wellington’s winter, that it is the shortest day of the year in Wellington and the longest day of the year in Rome. And so for me, extending the light of day becomes even more poignant! ”

The annual event draws thousands of spectators and visitors to the banks of the Tiber River in the historical centre of Rome on the night of the summer solstice. It was conceived in 2005 by the Tevereterno Association in conjunction with the City of Rome, the Rome Urban Council, and the Rome Historical Ministry to revitalise public engagement with the Tiber River and to bring international artists together with Italian composers.

Dr Brown says the event was established to stimulate dialogue between nature and urban space, the historic and the present, the European and the international.

“The idea is to create a piece of art at an urban scale in the very heart of Rome. It is a unique project for me both in terms of its scale and because it is so temporal, lasting only twelve hours.”

He says the biggest logistical problem lies with the river – at midsummer it is low and particularly fast, creating considerable drag on the half-kilometre chain. Then there’s the logistics of lighting 3000 candles.

“The candles are the same style used two thousand years ago in ancient Rome and made using the same traditional processes. The wicks are quite thick and once they are lit they are virtually impossible to extinguish. Lighting each one with a traditional match or lighter could take up to 15 minutes per candle and for this reason the water police and fire department in Rome have agreed to donate boats and their expertise to help light the candles using special torches. ”

At last year’s Tevereterno, Dr Brown and Victoria design lecturer Erika Kruger projected digital animations onto the 12m high walls of the Tiber River in homage to the She-wolf and the birth of Rome. Five students from the University’s Faculty of Architecture and Design travelled to Italy to assist with the installation.


http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/CU0706/S00222.htm
Report Spam   Logged

Your mind understands what you have been taught; your heart what is true.
Bianca
Superhero Member
******
Posts: 41646



« Reply #2 on: March 25, 2008, 05:30:14 pm »

Report Spam   Logged

Your mind understands what you have been taught; your heart what is true.
Bianca
Superhero Member
******
Posts: 41646



« Reply #3 on: March 25, 2008, 05:34:13 pm »









                                                Pagan and Christian Rome





by Rodolfo Lanciani
published by Houghton, Mifflin and Company
Boston and New York, 1892
 
 

Pagan and Christian Rome:
A Case Study in Late Antiquity
by a Master Topographer


Rodolfo Lanciani was an archaeologist who for many years towards the close of the 19c was in charge of all the excavations within the city of Rome, and personally responsible for a number of major discoveries which we now take for granted; for example, the House of the Vestals in the Roman Forum.

It would be presumptuous of me to offer any technical evaluation of Lanciani's work: having neither the knowledge required to critique him, nor even to praise him, I can offer only a personal appreciation hedged with references to the assessments of others, and these are unanimous in considering him one of the seminal figures in the modern scientific study of topography.

For a quick expert view of Lanciani's importance as a topographer, written by one of his best-known successors in this discipline, see Richardson's preface to his own New Topographical Dictionary of Ancient Rome.

Lanciani's recognized magnum opus is the Forma Urbis Romae, a set of 46 very detailed maps of ancient Rome issued in 1893‑1901, which remains unsurpassed to this day, even if of course there have been many new discoveries since. It has recently been reissued in hardcopy; for a few years, some idea could be got of it online from a website that presented it, although the site was never complete — but now, with the continuing shrinkage of the Web, the site has vanished.

The great archaeologist had another special gift, however, that we can all appreciate; here too, it would be presumptuous of me to offer anything other than a personal appreciation — this time, since each of you may easily form your own.

He writes clearly and seductively, and is not afraid to flesh out the dry facts from an excavation with a full story, often a very interesting one: Rodolfo Lanciani is thus a perfect author for the Web, accessible to all of us at our different levels.

I cannot resist pointing out that there are many entertaining writers in this world, but here you have someone who is technically and temperamentally qualified to tell us the truth as much as anyone can: he should serve as a corrective for much of the nonsense that one reads on the Web, frankly. (If you are writing a high-school term paper, take note: with the increasing availability of good sources online, it's going to get harder and harder to get away with poor research.)

It is a tough juggling act, because above all Lanciani writes as a man impassioned: he is a Roman, in the line of nearly three millennia of citizens of Rome, and conscious of it; so that he will occasionally fall into one principal vice, the worship of power in its typically Roman forms: empire and papacy. But this inside look at Roman triumphalism — interesting in itself — is a small price to pay for the depth and breadth of knowledge he has to share.

Here then is Pagan and Christian Rome. The table of contents below (followed by a few technical notes on proofreading and the like) merely points out the salient points of interest; there are many others. Enjoy. 
Report Spam   Logged

Your mind understands what you have been taught; your heart what is true.
Bianca
Superhero Member
******
Posts: 41646



« Reply #4 on: March 25, 2008, 05:36:40 pm »









                                                    Table of Contents





Chapter  Title • Salient Contents 

Frontispiece and List of Illustrations 





I  The Transformation of Rome from a Pagan into a Christian City

The very earliest Christian tombs known
Positive attitude of certain early emperors to Christianity
So just how Christian was Constantine? (Lanciani's view, anyway)
Labyrinths in churches
Christian churches and bathing facilities
Standards for weights and measures
The agape-banquets of the early Christians
Christian food welfare schemes
Public rental storage facilities (and an actual set of regulations for one)
 


II  Pagan Shrines and Temples

Laymen could buy the right to perform temple sacrifices (an actual fee schedule)
Favissae: the official storage of ex‑votos in temples
6 temples of Rome, some very early:
Ara Maxima Herculis
Roma Quadrata
Ara of Aius Locutius
Ara of Dis and Proserpine
Ara Pacis Augustae
Ara Incendii Neroniani (the Altar of Nero's Fire)
The Temple of Jupiter Capitolinus, with map of the Capitoline Hill
Roman military discharge "papers"
The Egyptian Temple of Isis and Serapis in Rome
Caligula romps on rooftops: how this helped archaeologists find the Temple of Augustus
Report Spam   Logged

Your mind understands what you have been taught; your heart what is true.
Bianca
Superhero Member
******
Posts: 41646



« Reply #5 on: March 25, 2008, 05:38:18 pm »









III  Christian Churches



Home churches from the time of the Apostles
Scholae (burial associations)
The origin of the great basilicas of Rome
Old St. Peter's (with map of the area in Antiquity, including the Circus of Nero)
St. Paul's (and Johannipolis, a papal fortress of the 9c)
 




IV  Imperial Tombs



Description of an imperial funeral (that of Augustus)
The Mausoleum of Augustus
The Res Gestae
The so‑called House of Pilate, in Rome
A wonderful illustrated retelling of the death of Nero (with a map, too)
The Mausoleum of Helena, mother of Constantine
The Imperial Mausoleum at St. Peter's, and the find of the intact tomb of an empress
Report Spam   Logged

Your mind understands what you have been taught; your heart what is true.
Bianca
Superhero Member
******
Posts: 41646



« Reply #6 on: March 25, 2008, 05:40:18 pm »









V  Papal Tombs



Do we know what the Apostles Peter and Paul actually looked like?
The Tomb of Pope Cornelius
Parallel burial sites of the pagan and Christian branches of the same family
The crypt of the Popes in the Catacombs of Callixtus
A brief life of Gregory the Great
Gregory the Great's house, now a church
The tomb of the Anglo-Saxon king Caedwalla, found and destroyed (?) in the 16c
In St. John Lateran, the rattling bones of Pope Sylvester II. . .
12c sculptors and architects who collected and studied ancient classical statues
 




VI  Pagan Cemeteries



The mechanics of ancient funerals:
cremations and ustrina
columbaria and how the spaces were allotted
The Tomb of Platorinus
Tombs of shoemakers (especially that of C. Julius Helius)
The tomb of a child prodigy
What happened to the earth dug up and carted off when Trajan's Forum was built?
Herodes Atticus: how he got his money, how he buried his wife
The grotto and springs of King Numa's nymph Egeria
The extraordinary discovery in 1485 of the incorrupt body of a Roman noblewoman
The tomb of a young bride, buried with her doll
Report Spam   Logged

Your mind understands what you have been taught; your heart what is true.
Bianca
Superhero Member
******
Posts: 41646



« Reply #7 on: March 25, 2008, 05:42:21 pm »









VII  Christian Cemeteries



The Catacombs of the Christian members of the imperial family of the Flavians
The Catacombs: how big are they, and did people really live in them?
The destruction of a large part of the Catacombs since the sixteenth century
The Catacombs of Generosa (and the origin of the name Beatrix)
The Catacombs of Domitilla, and the story of SS. Nereus and Achilleus
The Tomb of Ampliatus: is this the man mentioned in the Epistle to the Romans?
Representations of Jesus in Antiquity
Tombs of dentists and surgeons
Frescoes in the Catacombs
Neopagan scholars of the Renaissance hold secret meetings in the Catacombs
 


 Ludi Saeculares, Inscription edited by Mommsen 

Report Spam   Logged

Your mind understands what you have been taught; your heart what is true.
Bianca
Superhero Member
******
Posts: 41646



« Reply #8 on: March 25, 2008, 05:44:15 pm »









                                                      Technical Details





Pagination
For citation purposes, the pagination of the original is indicated in the sourcecode as local links.

Proofing
The Web edition has been carefully proofed: please report the inevitable oversights!

The rare typos in the printed work have been corrected, silently for the most part, except where there was some conceivable doubt. Worth noting briefly:

Lanciani or his printer seems to have had particular trouble with French: I've removed superfluous accents and cedillas, but have not added missing ones.

Baldassare Peruzzi's first name appears incorrectly almost thruout, with two r's, but I have corrected it. (Oddly, the name is properly spelled in his book Ancient Rome in the Light of Recent Discoveries, which will soon be coming to this site as well.)

Under the influence presumably of the Latin adjectival form Einsiedlensis, the placename Einsiedeln is misspelled about half the time as Einsiedlen: I made no corrections.

Further Annotation, Links, Conversions
Most of my annotation is perforce confined to relatively minor notes or links. I occasionally comment the text in a footnote, or when I manage to express myself succinctly, as Javascript annotations that you can read by placing your cursor over the little bullets,º or sometimes over the images. (You don't need to click.)
Report Spam   Logged

Your mind understands what you have been taught; your heart what is true.
Bianca
Superhero Member
******
Posts: 41646



« Reply #9 on: March 25, 2008, 05:46:10 pm »









If you do click on those bullets:

Blue: relax. Blue bullets stay on the page (notes, unit conversions, etc.).

Green: go. Green bullets go somewhere, in another window. Lanciani's text will stay open in its own window.

Red: stop and think! Red bullets open another page in the same window. If you don't want to lose your page and have to reload it later, you should do a "New Window with this Link".

Conversions have been supplied for all non-metric measurements. There is some inaccuracy in doing this, since Lanciani had converted them from metric in the first place; and sometimes some ambiguity as well, since the text gives no clue whether feet are Roman or English, for example. Usually, this doesn't matter much; where it does, I've provided both conversions.

You should also bear in mind that "feet", "pounds" and so forth are not necessarily modern English units or even ancient Roman units: they may be mediaeval or 18c Italian, for example.

Images
Lanciani's 103 engravings, 11 maps and plans, and 16 photos are all black & white. This being the Web, I've colorized almost all of them, usually a gentle pastel touch-up which makes them easier on the eye; sometimes the colorization is functional. I'm putting my colorized images in the public domain.

All images have been compressed to save loading time: many are surprisingly small. Some few images were either inadequate by modern standards, or are very useful (like Lanciani's map of St. Peter's overlying the Circus of Nero) and best seen at greater magnification: they're represented by a placeholder with a link to another page in another window, for those who need to get a closer look.


http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Gazetteer/Places/Europe/Italy/Lazio/Roma/Rome/_Texts/Lanciani/LANPAC/home.html
Report Spam   Logged

Your mind understands what you have been taught; your heart what is true.
Pages: [1]   Go Up
  Print  
 
Jump to:  

Powered by EzPortal
Bookmark this site! | Upgrade This Forum
SMF For Free - Create your own Forum
Powered by SMF | SMF © 2016, Simple Machines
Privacy Policy