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| Inside Ara Pacis |
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| Ara Pacis Museum |
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| Ara Pacis from the north |
Ara Pacis. One of the things that I did not actually expect to have time to visit, but we did. The altar was commissioned by the senate of Rome and dedicated to the Augustinian peace. It is quite an amazing piece of sculpture and luckily was buried under the silt of the Tiber for centuries. Dug out on Mussolini’s orders in the 1930’s it now has a new museum which I thought was a rather nice airy building. Perfect for seeing the exquisitely worked marble.
The long sides of the altar enclosure have an incomparable array of imperial portraits. While gods and goddesses frolic on the front and back, oh and people sacrifice pigs.
A scale model shows the the altar in its original location near the sundial that had the obelisk nomen that is now in front of the Palazzo Montecitorio. I mentioned that in an
earlier post.
There was also an exhibit on the photography of war, a rather depressing subject at the best of times. Extremely moving, extremely morbid and horrifically striking. Though I suppose that was supposed to be the point.
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| Some dude outside the Ara Pacis listening to the audio guide |
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