Ombrone

  Qui la versione italiana Molise does not exist. This is the running joke, and if you cross the whole region in one go on the motorway, it may seem almost mtrue, but the Samnite Museum in Campobasso alone is enough to prove that Molise exists now and certainly existed in the past. Finding myself in town, I returned to visit it after an absence of a few years due to the pandemic, on one of those autumn mornings as sweet as spring. I crossed the sunny Corso and stopped for a coffee in Piazza Pepe, which had been transformed into an open-air salon. I passed a small shop on Via Cannavina, which always gives me an overwhelming urge to buy something superfluous and fancy, said hello to the statue of Fred Buongusto and climbed the steps to Palazzo Lanzarotta, where the museum is located. The Samnite Museum has recently been renovated and has a modern and well kept exhibition, with detailed explanations of each piece, the history of the finds and the overall picture. It is not hug...

  Qui la versione italiana Today I would like to write about a subject that make me sad, a part of the Roman world, which has essentially vanished into thin air after a slow silent agony that has lasted centuries. A world ignored by most. A while ago, wandering hyperlink after hypelink, I found the story of a 12th-century Arab traveler, Muhammad al-Idrisi, one of those spectacular individuals that Islam gave to the world in the centuries of its splendor: cartographer, geographer, archaeologist ante litteram, he crossed the world from the British Isles to Egypt.   I was particularly impressed by a quote from him: crossing the Maghreb, Al Idrisi writes about the languages spoken in those lands, Arabic, of course, the Berber dialects and what he calls al-lisān al-lātīnī al-'ifrīqī. The Latin language of Africa.   It seems obvious if you think about it, in the Roman Province of Africa people spoke Latin, Berber and the Punic, and later the Vandal of the conquerors. St. ...

  Here the English version Oggi vi voglio parlare un argomento a suo modo malinconico, un pezzo del mondo romano, svanito sostanzialmente nel nulla dopo una lenta silenziosa agonia durata secoli. Un mondo ignorato dai più. Un po’ di tempo fa, vagando hyperlink dopo hyperlink, ho trovato la storia di un viaggiatore arabo del XII° secolo, Muhammad al-Idrisi, uno di quegli spettacolari personaggi che l’Islam ha dato al mondo nei secoli del suo splendore: cartografo, geografo, archeologo ante litteram, attraversò il mondo dalle Isole Britanniche fino all’Egitto. Sono stato particolarmente colpito da una sua citazione: attraversando il Maghreb, Al Idrisi parla delle lingue parlate in quelle terre, l’arabo, ovviamente, i dialetti berberi e quella che lui chiama al-lisān al-lātīnī al-ʾifrīqī. La lingua latina d’Africa. Sembra ovvio a pensarci, nella Provincia Romana d’Africa si parlava Latino, affiancato dal Berbero e dal Punico, e successivamente dal Vandalo dei conquistatori. S.Agos...

The image of this post is the Triade Capitolina dell’Inviolata a precious roman sculpture showing the three main protectors of the city of Rome Jupiter, Juno (in the likeness of Iuno Regina) and  Minerva. They were worshipped traditionally on a temple on the Capitolium, the so called aedes Iovis Optimi Maximi Capitolini. This sculpture was discovered in private villa, and it’s believed to be a copy the original sculpture located in that temple, so you can easily understand its importance. I will not go on details, there is a lot material you can find on the triad and on this particular sculpture, I will tell you more about its discovery. Unfortunately, the discovery of this masterpiece was done, in 1992, during an illegal dig near Rome in an area ironically called “inviolata” (Untouched), that was a well known playground for illegal diggers. The sculpture was sold to a Swiss art merchant for a sum equivalent to 2 millions euros, and was ready to be resold to an American collector (...