The #Simonetti marble corrected centuries of misunderstanding caused by this recarved #Berlin version. Beyond changing a bloody dagger into a branch, an unknown C16 restorer deepened the drapery folds. What the Berlin relief monumentalises, the Simonetti relief humanises.

For #ReliefWednesday, we examine this C2 CE #Roman copy of a C5 BCE #Greek #relief of #Medea and the Peliades. Discovered in 1814 at palazzo De Carolis on via del Corso, its wear pattern suggests it was used upside down as a paver. Now in the #VaticanMuseums. #AncientBluesky 🏺

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 🏺

The C2 CE Varese #Athena, now in palazzo #Torlonia on via della Conciliazione. Sold in 1876 by then-owners of palazzo #Varese, it represents the only traceable piece from the original collection.

A #watercolour sketch from 1821 by the visiting #French artist Augustin-Théophile Quantinet shows us what the courtyard of palazzo #Varese looked like before. The #fountain in the #garden looks delightful, and two ancient statues in niches flanked the portal leading to it.