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The attractive monumental inscription above is actually rather straightforward: someone did something for Spello with his own money. Who did what is all we're missing:
Transcribed:
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Translated:
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Assuming this inscription has not moved too far from its ancient location (a big if); and dating it 1c A.D. from the style of the lettering, so that the nearby amphitheatre was not yet in need of restoration (unlike for example the 5c inscriptions we find on entering the Colosseum in Rome); my gut — a not altogether worthless commodity in epigraphy — gives this incautious reading: |
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The item on the right is much more problematic. It's tempting to think it was a milestone, but it almost certainly isn't: see a real milestone which looks nothing like this; and conversely a stone which does look very much like this, but is clearly not a milestone.
The only thing that can be clearly made out is RIV. At the end of a word, it could be anything: ‑rium is a common ending. Here, though, it looks like a beginning, and is therefore either a proper noun, or something like rivum, a channel or stream. Boundary stone?
On the other hand, maybe the close-up shows PRIM and I just might have my milestone after all: the first one (primum) out from Spello.
I have no idea.
Do you?
Such are the meager vestiges of the Roman presence to be found in this church — or are they?
Images with borders lead to more information.
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Page updated: 11 Apr 02