45. Augustus: The Man and His Mausoleum
Today we discuss the Mausoleum of Augustus, the huge and once-beautiful funeral monument Augustus built for himself and his family. As the Altar of Peace was an apt symbol of Augustus's claim to have ...
16 Mar 202122min
44. Mazzini and the Power of Ideas Mini Pod
We saw that Mazzini believed that the spread of ideas was the first and most important step in starting the revolution he wanted to transform Italy. It is attractive to think that history moves by ide...
11 Mar 20218min
43. Giuseppe Mazzini: The Man and His Monument
Giuseppe Mazzini prepared the soil for the unification and eventual democratization of Italy by forty years of high-level writing urging Italians and other Europeans to support these goals. Since he a...
9 Mar 202124min
42. Bernini, the Baroque, and the Borghese
Our subject is the Villa Borghese, a sprawling park on the north side of Rome and home to Rome's most wonderful museum, the Galleria Borghese. Unscrupulously assembled by Scipione Borghese, nephew to ...
2 Mar 202119min
41. Augustus and His Altar of Peace
The Altar of the Peace of Augustus lay buried in the muck of Rome for over a thousand years, but it is now recognized as one of the best examples of classical relief sculpture. It is also important ev...
23 Feb 202121min
40. A Marriage, an Affair, and the Making of Italy Mini Pod
A glow surrounds leaders remembered by monuments, as it generally should, but it is still instructive to look closely at the hard choices they had to make to achieve what they did. Here is another pee...
18 Feb 20219min
36. The Count of Cavour: The Man and His Monument
The Count of Cavour was one of the Four Fathers of Modern Italy, but this fact becomes interesting only if we know what he did and how he did it. The first part of an answer is that he got the help of...
16 Feb 202124min
35. The Triumph of the Church in St. Peter's Basilica
We return today to St. Peter's Basilica and do an inventory of the contents of its nave, aisles, and transept. Do its many chapels, altars, statues, and funeral monuments have a unifying theme? I thin...
9 Feb 202123min
