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mail: Bill Thayer 
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Splendidissima Colonia Iulia Hispellum


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The Porta Venere and a stretch of Roman wall.


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Spello still boasts six Roman gates in various states of repair, from splendid to nearly mythical. Not all of them are online yet, but we're on our way. . .
[ 4 pages, 7 images ]


[image ALT: A grassy depression scattered with ruins.]

A guidebook out there gives the amphitheatre of Spello a star, which is a bit puzzling: it's not in the best shape. On the other hand, it's a good place to study Roman masonry — and then there's a mystery connected with it: exactly where did the stone go?
[ 2 pages, 15 images ]


[image ALT: The word 'HISPELLUM' highlighted in the middle of the dense text of a long Roman inscription.]

Spello is also a mine of inscriptions, including the famous rescript of Constantine. As usual, I'm starting by the back door as it were: a beautiful funerary altar in the church of S. Maria Maggiore, where photography is strictly forbidden; some intriguing fragments in the church of S. Claudio, this tombstone of an ordinary man who died young with two small children, and a fragment containing just barely enough information to identify it too as a tombstone. [ 4 pages, 5 photos + 3 close-ups ]


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Site updated: 2 Apr 16