“A delightful and immersive guide to the city of Rome and the philosophical tradition it embodies concerning the good life, or as we would say today, the meaning of life. Travelers seeking ancient wisdom among the city’s famous buildings and works of art could ask for no better companion.”
—Donald Robertson, author of
How to Think Like a Roman Emperor
a rotating gallery of images and insights related to Rome as a Guide to the Good Life
Raphael and Workshop, Wedding Banquet (1518), Loggia of Cupid and Psyche, Villa Farnesina. The text on which this image is based comes from Apuleius’s Golden Ass, describing the celebration of the marriage of Love (Cupid) and the Soul (Psyche): “In no time, a lavish wedding banquet was on display. On the head couch, the bridegroom lay holding Psyche in his bosom. Jupiter likewise shared a couch with Juno, and so on down through the whole range of deities according to their rank . . . The Hours empurpled everything with roses and other flowers, the Graces sprinkled balsam, the Muses filled the room with their harmonies.”
Tellus Panel (9 BC), Museum of the Ara Pacis. In his poem “Song of the Ages,” Horace says, “Now Faith and Peace and Honor dare to return—also ancient Restraint and ignored Virtue; and Abundance makes an appearance with her cornucopia.” The scholar Michael Putnam argues that this poem of Horace influences the imagery: “The panel’s central figure has been variously interpreted as Terra Mater, Italia, and Pax as well as Ceres and Tellus, and no doubt aspects of all five would be discerned by the ancient viewer. Horace’s words give particular voice to art’s intimations not only of earth’s generative ability but of the health that accompanies the Augustan peace.
Figure 34: Apse Mosaic, Basilica of Saints Cosmas and Damian (c. AD 500s). Cosmas and Damian were twin Arab Christian physicians who provided free health care and were martyred under Diocletian. Thomas Merton writes in The Labyrinth (an unpublished manuscript) of his first seeing this mosaic, “I glanced at it, I looked back, and I could not go away from it for a long time, it held me there, fascinated by its design and its mystery and its tremendous seriousness and its simplicity . . . I didn’t know what it was: it was not a material thing, it was an intellectual and spiritual quality these ancient artists had given to their works. But it was not something that could not be seen, and not something you had to accept blindly: for it was there, you could see it . . . I was looking all the while at a kind of miracle.”
Raphael, Galatea (c. 1514). This image is based on Stanzas for the Tournament, a poem by Angelo Poliziano that contains the lines, “Two shapely dolphins pull a chariot: on it sits Galatea and wields the reins; as they swim, they breath in unison: a more wanton flock circles around them.” The mythological image may well depict the great courtesan Imperia Cognati and the various power-players of the Renaissance who lusted after her and her fellow courtesans.
Central Panel (c. 400s BC), Ludovisi Throne, Palazzo Altemps. In my view, this is the most beautiful object in Rome. The Renaissance poet Torquato Tasso says in his play Aminta, “Perduto è tutto il tempo/ Che in amar non si spende” (Lost is all time/ Not spent in love).
Swift philosophical musings and updates on what I’m fascinated with and working on.
