explore | Grilled Cheese

@anthonymajanlahti.bsky.social Oct 11, 2026, 7:50 PM

"In the stillness of remembering / What you had and what you lost." The courtyard of Carlo #Maderno's 1616-1618 palazzo #Varese looks convincingly #Baroque and full of #spolia. This #SpoliaSunday we're looking for the lost Varese collection. #AncientBluesky 🏺🧵

COURTYARD OF PALAZZO VARESE, 1930

A night-time view looking down into the courtyard of palazzo Varese on via Giulia, where spotlights illuminate potted plants, modern concrete paving, and walls adorned with sarcophagus fountains and busts. The inscription over the doorway on the faux-Baroque tabula reads "BUILT 1495" and "RESTORED 1930". The palazzo was not built in 1495. The cellars, however, might have been, as they sit on a different alignment from that of via Giulia, which was cut through this neighbourhood in 1508. The construction of the lungotevere behind the palazzo entailed the loss of its garden and prompted its owners to construct an irregular new wing at the back of the courtyard. To conceal the mess, the last family to own the building, the Mancini Jacobini, built up the portal with a Maderno-esque overdoor, and created the courtyard as we see it today.

@observethedate.bsky.social Oct 11, 2026, 8:12 AM

Sunday

#AncientSiteSunday
#CeilingsonSunday
#FolkloreSunday
#SaxonSunday
#SevenOnSunday
#ShakespeareSunday
#ShieldSunday
#SignsOnSunday or #SundaySigns
#SilentSunday
#skysunday
#SpoliaSunday
#StainedGlassSunday
#StandingStoneSunday

@anthonymajanlahti.bsky.social Oct 4, 2026, 11:38 AM

Necessity is spolia's iron law. For #SpoliaSunday we examine a C4-C2 BCE Etruscan nenfro sarcophagus in Viterbo. Likely unearthed during C13 works, it was reused for a papal potentate, much like Pope Alexander IV, then ruthlessly reused again until its identity was lost. #AncientBluesky 🏺

ETRUSCAN SARCOPHAGUS, C4-C2 BCE, REUSED IN THE C12-C13 CE. MUSEI DEL COLLE DEL DUOMO, VITERBO

In an excavated corridor in a building beside the Duomo of Viterbo, an ancient Etruscan sarcophagus lies in situ. Roughly carved from nenfro, a local grey volcanic stone, it features a massive gabled lid designed to imitate a pitched roof. In this case the peak of the lid has been abraded away, probably to fit the available space, and the lid itself is broken and partially missing, revealing a human skull and some scattered bones. Originally carved between the C4 and C2 BCE, it was likely unearthed on the cathedral slopes during medieval building works. Since a similar nenfro sarcophagus famously concealed the corpse of Alexander IV in 1261, this box was probably initially repurposed for a mid-C13 papal official. Yet necessity is spolia's iron law. No one dead is important enough to resist the requirements of the living. The tomb was ruthlessly reused, breaking the lid in the process, and the skull inside belongs only to its final, unknown occupant.

@observethedate.bsky.social Oct 4, 2026, 8:13 AM

Sunday

#AncientSiteSunday
#CeilingsonSunday
#FolkloreSunday
#SaxonSunday
#SevenOnSunday
#ShakespeareSunday
#ShieldSunday
#SignsOnSunday or #SundaySigns
#SilentSunday
#skysunday
#SpoliaSunday
#StainedGlassSunday
#StandingStoneSunday

@anthonymajanlahti.bsky.social Sep 27, 2026, 10:42 PM

Everything old is new again. This #SpoliaSunday we're in #Garbatella, built as a working-class suburban quarter of #Rome in the first part of the C20. Atop the Scuola d'Infanzia, the architect Innocenzo Sabbatini set this #sarcophagus. But all is not as it seems. #AncientBluesky 🏺

INNOCENZO SABBATINI.
SARCOPHAGUS OF THE MUSES, 1927-1931, FROM A C2-C3 CE ORIGINAL. CASA DEI BIMBI, GARBATELLA

Here atop a modern building in the working-class district of Garbatella, a surprising sarcophagus looms over the preschool built by the brilliant young architect Innocenzo Sabbatini. It's a sarcophagus of the Muses, a style popular in the C2 and C3, but it's a cast. The school was built around a C16 nucleus, the villa Sergardi, and the two side wings, of Sabbatini's creation, were inventively decorated with classical imagery. The Muses of this sarcophagus weren't chosen by accident: they represent the Fascist regime's desire to give the empire-building spirit back to the Romans, reminding them of the great culture these little children had inherited. The columns on either side and the lintel were meant to evoke the relaxing otium of a Renaissance villa, where the gardens would be full of grape-bearing pergolas. This preschool is a compendium of the only periods the Fascists admired. But it's also beautiful.

@observethedate.bsky.social Sep 27, 2026, 7:47 AM

#AncientSiteSunday
#CeilingsonSunday
#FolkloreSunday
#SaxonSunday
#SevenOnSunday
#ShakespeareSunday
#ShieldSunday
#SignsOnSunday or #SundaySigns
#SilentSunday
#skysunday
#SpoliaSunday
#StainedGlassSunday
#StandingStoneSunday

@observethedate.bsky.social Sep 20, 2026, 7:39 AM

Sunday

#AncientSiteSunday
#CeilingsonSunday
#FolkloreSunday
#SaxonSunday
#SevenOnSunday
#ShakespeareSunday
#ShieldSunday
#SignsOnSunday or #SundaySigns
#SilentSunday
#skysunday
#SpoliaSunday
#StainedGlassSunday
#StandingStoneSunday

@anthonymajanlahti.bsky.social Sep 13, 2026, 12:56 PM

Faccia di bronzo. For #SpoliaSunday, Alexander VII despoiled the church of S. Adriano al Foro, once the #Senate, of its #bronze doors in 1660, to give the #Lateran basilica the prestige of ancient power, but covered in his family symbols. #AncientBluesky 🏺

ANCIENT BRONZE DOOR FROM THE CURIA JULIA REUSED AT ST JOHN LATERAN

A steep upward perspective looking along one open leaf of a massive bronze door with a pale green patina, with a portion of the ceiling visible at the top right. Although this is an ancient Roman door of the Senate, which may date to the time of Domitian based on a semi-melted coin found within the metal, prominent elements of the decoration seen here date to the C17. When Pope Alexander VII transferred the doors to the Lateran basilica, they were too small for the portal. Francesco Borromini cast bronze extensions for the perimeters, incorporating the Chigi della Rovere armorial bearings. The protruding acorns and thick borders refer to the oak tree on his crest, while the bronze stars rising along the flat bands are also from the papal arms. These ornate Baroque additions act as an outer frame around the flat ancient bronze panels, which are themselves bordered by original Roman mouldings featuring a classical Lesbian kymation. This brazen reuse proclaimed the Church as heir to the ancient empire, and the Chigi pope as the bearer of this inherited power.

@observethedate.bsky.social Sep 13, 2026, 7:17 AM

Sunday

#AncientSiteSunday
#CeilingsonSunday
#FolkloreSunday
#SaxonSunday
#SevenOnSunday
#ShakespeareSunday
#ShieldSunday
#SignsOnSunday or #SundaySigns
#SilentSunday
#skysunday
#SpoliaSunday
#StainedGlassSunday
#StandingStoneSunday

@observethedate.bsky.social Sep 6, 2026, 7:16 AM

Sunday

#AncientSiteSunday
#CeilingsonSunday
#FolkloreSunday
#SaxonSunday
#SevenOnSunday
#ShakespeareSunday
#ShieldSunday
#SignsOnSunday or #SundaySigns
#SilentSunday
#skysunday
#SpoliaSunday
#StainedGlassSunday
#StandingStoneSunday