Grilled Cheese

ExploreLog inSign up
Terms of UsePrivacy PolicyCommunity StandardsHelpGet the app

Grilled Cheese is a product of Village Compute

Version devBuilt at: 2026-10-13 09:58:44 EDT

Explore

PostsPeople
LatestRanked
@anthonymajanlahti.bsky.socialOct 12, 2026, 3:57 PM

Before 1777, Falerio Picenus was a nearly perfectly-preserved #Roman town. Then Pius VI’s diggers arrived. For #MosaicMonday, we examine this Antonine-era leopard #emblema, stripped from a private #domus and treated as #spolia in the Vatican's Scala Simonetti. #AncientBluesky 🏺

ROMAN MOSAIC EMBLEMA OF A LEOPARD FROM FALERIO PICENUS, MID-LATE C2 CE. VATICAN MUSEUMS A Roman mosaic panel featuring a leopard walking left, depicted with brown and ochre tesserae, framed by a guilloche border. Falerio Picenus was a pristine Roman town until 1777, when Pope Pius VI's excavators arrived to furnish the Museo Pio-Clementino. Stripped from a private domus and cemented into the Scala Simonetti as spolia, this emblema invites reflection. Devoid of Dionysian symbols, the leopard is pure physical threat. Yet, frozen in mosaic, it is utterly tamed. For the Roman diners reclining above it, this apex predator was a conversational set-piece about empire, bringing the wild safely into the domestic sphere. Ultimately, the true predator was not the leopard, but the papal excavators. The homeowners were safe from the beast beneath their feet, but Falerio Picenus had no protection from the C18 diggers who tore the town apart to feed the Vatican collections.
@anthonymajanlahti.bsky.socialSep 7, 2026, 6:56 PM

For #MosaicMonday, a sacro-idyllic #emblema from Hadrian's Villa. Notice the famously priapic goat seeking an anatomy lesson from a phallic votive tablet, alongside an unusually androgynous #Dionysus in female dress. A bit of rustic irony for an imperial dining room. #AncientBluesky 🏺

MOSAIC EMBLEMA WITH GOATS IN A LANDSCAPE, FROM VILLA ADRIANA, C. 130 CE. VATICAN MUSEUMS This polychrome mosaic emblema depicts a rocky landscape with a flock of goats. In the background stands a statue of Dionysus holding a thyrsus and grapes. The god is depicted in an unusual androgynous manner, clean-shaven and wearing a long female chiton, reflecting his liminal nature. Resting beneath the statue is a pinax, a painted votive tablet resembling a modern book. Its blue surface displays a stylised human phallus, an apotropaic ward and symbol of fertility. One goat stares intently at the tablet, a deliberate piece of rustic comedy contrasting the animal's natural priapic reputation with the painted symbol. Discovered in 1779 by Count Marefoschi, the mosaic was found in the Sala a Tre Navate at Hadrian's Villa. This hall functioned as a summer dining room where reclining banqueters could admire the minute opus vermiculatum. It was unearthed alongside a matching pendant mosaic to anchor the imperial cœnatio.