Reading the latest edition of @itatti in which @robclines.bsky.social has an incredible essay on Panormita’s Hermaphroditus and the poem’s reception by Italian humanist Antonio da Rho. To my surprise I found one of my articles cited in his essay! Truly honored!
Enjoyed this piece on the role of small liberal arts colleges.
www.theatlantic.com/technology/2...
Happy Holidays to all 🎄❤️☃️
Crash #oilpainting #art
ANTEFIX OF TYPHON, C6 CE. BATHS OF DIOCLETIAN This spectacular painted terracotta antefix comes from an archaic temple in Gabii, a site 18 km east along the via Prenestina which had been an independent Latial town until it was conquered by the Romans under the last legendary king, Tarquinius Superbus. This antefix was found in a destruction level more or less contemporary with the foundation of the Roman Republic in 509 BCE, so it may be slightly older than the temple of Jupiter Capitolinus. It represents the ur-monster Typhon, child of Gaia and Tartarus, utterly terrifying, born to punish the gods for the destruction of the Giants. His numerous progeny included the Sphinx and Cerberus. Here he looks very humanoid, with a black-bearded face, huge bat ears, a hairy torso, and wings.
#ReliefWednesday takes us to the town of #Gabii, 18 km east of #Rome, where this splendid #antefix was found. This is #Typhon, vengeful son of Mother Earth and enemy of the #Olympian gods, done in a #Latial style identical to work found from the same period in Rome. #AncientBluesky 🏺
CHILD'S SARCOPHAGUS A LENOS WITH TRIUMPH OF DIONYSUS, C. 200 CE. PALAZZO MATTEI DI GIOVE This a sarcophagus front, one of many decorating the two entrance passages (androni) from the street to the courtyard of palazzo Mattei di Giove. They were in place by 1606 when their stucco frames, enriched with garlands and the eagle emblem of Asdrubale Mattei's mother, the Habsburg-related Costanza Gonzaga, were made by the master stuccoist Donato Mazzi. This is a small sarcophagus meant for a child, but nonetheless lavishly carved. The setting is a lenos or tub, with curved ends and rather stylised lion heads with rings on their mouths at both ends, implying a tub for crushing grapes to make wine. The scene is one of triumph. At left, Dionysus, having conquered the Indians, is on his way back west, in his chariot pulled by panthers. In the background are two Maenads, one blowing a horn, the other listening ecstatically. At centre is a nude boy, possibly the deceased, on whom a drunken Silenus is leaning as his rides a donkey, aided by another male figure on the side. At right an Eros is talking to a satyr who is holding something and has a comic mask at his feet.
For #SarcophagusSaturday, let's have a look at one of the terrific examples of #sarcophagus decoration lining the ground floor of the elaborate palazzo #Mattei di #Giove, reused as #spolia and enclosed in splendid #stucco #frames. #AncientBluesky 🏺
You’re welcome!!
Check out my latest podcast interview with @authorgabegarcia.bsky.social
Thanks for the great interview Gabriel!!
My interviews with @timfacciola.bsky.social and @dramaltempi.bsky.social are up on YouTube
Check out my podcast interview from a few weeks ago on Sicilian History #sicily
Had a wonderful RSA 2025 #Boston #phdlife #confrencing
Book launch: Humans a monstrous history with Leah Redmond Chang, Surekha Davies, Ricardo Padron, Caroline Dodds Pennock, and Tamara J. Walker
Are you signed up yet?
We're celebrating @drsurekhadavies.bsky.social's Humans: A Monstrous History, with comment & insight from @leahredmondchang.bsky.social @carolinepennock.bsky.social @tamaraw.bsky.social @fatricky.bsky.social
19 Feb, 5:30 (UK): www.crowdcast.io/c/monsters-h... #SkyStorians
Detail of an archival document indicating the painter Caravaggio was arrested, including a drawing of a sword and a dagger in the margins
Police report, Rome, May 1605: Caravaggio arrested for carrying a sword and dagger without a permit on Via del Corso, Rome 🗃️ #earlymodern #arthistory
Em dashes are my go-to writing crutch, thank you very much.
PROJECTILE MADE OF ANCIENT MARBLE, C5-C16. CASTEL S. ANGELO This medium-sized chunk of Luni marble has notable chisel marks shaping it into a spherical projectile, a crude and unfinished sphere that was found in in late C19 excavations around the Mausoleum of Hadrian, which had already become a fortified bridgehead protecting the pons Aelius during the invasions of the C5. In the Gothic war of 537, Procopius tells us that the statues atop the Mausoleum were broken up and thrown down on the Goth invaders, who used the porticoed street leading from today's piazza Pia westward to Old St Peter's as a cover. This projectile is too rough and irregular to be usable in a cannon, but would work in a ballista or catapult. All sorts of magnificent statuary were found in the C17 when the moat was expanded, including the monumental head of Hadrian now in the Round Hall of the Vatican Museums and the famous Barberini Faun now in Munich.
For #SpoliaSunday, a possible relic of the siege of the #mausoleum of #Hadrian in #Rome by the #Goths in 537, a good-sized chunk of #marble crudely shaped into a projectile, and probably in origin part of a piece of the mausoleum's lavish exterior decoration. #ClassicsBluesky 🏺
Teaching history divorced from the concerns of the present is actually doing a bad job at teaching history.
New issue of the Journal of Semitic Studies Vol. 70, No. 1 (2025) academic.oup.com/jss/issue/70/1 @herbert-haberl.bsky.social
So, uh, this is my face. Apparently one should mark one’s calendar.
If you were coming to this, what would you want to hear about my book? (I’ll be writing the talk this weekend).
Congratulations 👏🏼
I'm pleased to announce that Colonial Vocabularies: Teaching and Learning Arabic, 1870-1970, edited by Karène Sanchez-Summerer, @rachelmairs.bsky.social, Lucia Admiraal and me, published by @amsterdamupress.bsky.social, is now available open access from www.aup.nl/en/book/9789...
Looking back at my first academic publication…I think this is still one of the pieces I had the most fun writing. I can’t believe it has already been four years #Sicily #writing #mediterranean #academicwriting
2025 will go down as the year when all the subtext became text
È l’unica soluzione 😅
I completely relate!
This looks fascinating!!
With all the insanity happening in the world, how have I become this engrossed in the Blake Lively vs. Justin Baldoni drama? #distractions #drama #shouldbewriting
At over 1,000 pages, Ole Benedictow builds upon his acclaimed study of 2004, drawing upon new scholarship and research to present a comprehensive, definitive account of the Black Death and its impact on #EuropeanHistory. Pay £80/$90 with code BB041 until 28 Feb 25. https://buff.ly/40TabMq
Thanks so much 😊!
