Continuing my collection of the world’s best equestrian bronzes, I visited the horse of Vicolo delle Palme in the Capitoline Museums in Rome.

Continuing my collection of the world’s best equestrian bronzes, I visited the horse of Vicolo delle Palme in the Capitoline Museums in Rome.
After spending a few hours here, I feel a kindred sympathy for its creator, the prince Pier Francesco (“Vicino”) Orsini. I too have felt inexplicable urges to move rocks and construct walls and fountains, “sol per sfogare il core”.
Continue reading “Slow Museums: December 11, 2021 – Bomarzo – il Sacro Bosco / Parco dei Mostri”On November 18, 2019, I stumbled upon a magnificent bronze equine hidden in the deepest labyrinth of the MANN’s collection of Pompeiian paintings. Set up on a rough wooden pallet in Sala LXXVIII, the installation seemed temporary, incomplete – there was no information anywhere in the room about its provenance.
My last Slow Museums post was in December 2019, which means I haven’t been to a museum in over a year.
Continue reading “Slow Museums: January 21, 2021 – Firenze – Gallerie degli Uffizi”In December 1998, a bulldozer working on the expansion of the San Rossore train station in Pisa brought up several scoopfuls of wood and ceramics, and work was immediately stopped. Archeologists were called in, and what they found were the remains of thirty remarkably preserved shipwrecks in what was once an Etruscan, then Roman port of the city. The Museo delle Navi Antiche di Pisa is not yet open to the public, but tours of the museum-in-the-making can be pre-arranged on two days of every month. We were lucky that this semester, the UGA Cortona Studies Abroad program’s excursion to Pisa happened to fall on one of those two days, so a group of students and instructors were able to view this incredible archeological discovery.
Continue reading “Slow Museums: February 24, 2018 – Museo delle Navi Antiche di Pisa”