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And I did get up yesterday at 4 — to move the alarm to 6 then ditto at 6, and finally woke up at 7:45; so chose instead of Rome to have a large breakfast and go to Spoleto to see some of the things I missed last year.
12:33 train, brief wait at Foligno, and Spoleto at 13:21 on time. Weather close to perfect.
Stopped at the Ponte Sanguinario since it was on the way, but my two goals were the amphitheatre and S. Pietro; the first was a failure: the amphitheatre — or what's left of it (the 12c church of S. Gregorio Minore or "de Griptis" and a 14c monastery occupy the cavea & arena), viz. about 2 or 3 cunei of the ambulacrum, are firmly locked up inside a military barracks. Ring the bell and a woman's voice will tell you it's in restauro, but of course this is nonsense; noone's restoring anything — I did my usual inquiries — and it's been closed for many, many years. (At the Piazza della Torre dell' Olioº it took some doing to convince three old ladies denizens of a 17c building ex-barracks also, that there was an amphitheater — so that's alive and well here too. . .)
Anyway, up the hill to the said old ladies, at the gate just after the Torre and before the piazza in fact — curious inscription in which Spoleto takes credit for staving off Hannibal fresh from his victory at Tuoro; little church of S. Giovanni e Paolo — frescoes inside, key during normal business hours at the Museum of Modern Art in the via Mazzini, vicolo III°; pleasant church façade of S. Nicolò da Bari, early 14c: bits of cloister, hexagonal or octagonal pillars of alternating pink and white stone slices, with a large crane and construction or wrecking going on right next to it, everything very closed.
Theatre open this time, did a thorough visit. Much of the supporting arches on the E side are still in place; lots of lapidary débris piled around outside the outer wall; was able to get good pictures of the orchestra pavement, and some slight bits of colored marble (paonazzetto? I never get them straight) remain of the facing of the•balteus.
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The "B" inscription, CIL I2.2872, found in 1913. It is very similar to the "A" inscription, CIL I2.366 = XI.4766, found earlier, and it may well be a fake. (If you need a completely readable large scan of this, just let me know.) |
Otherwise, the sparse museum — two rooms of maybe 20 inscriptions and a coupla heads; upstairs, one room with mostly potsherds — attractively and informatively presented. ₤4000 for the theatre and the museum together is priced about right for the casual tourist.
From there to S. Pietro: a cluttered façade of very good Romanesque sculpture, something of the effect of ND‑la‑Grande in Poitiers but not as old and three times the size; over and next to the arched entrance to some attached buildings, now pleasant houses (cats, canaries, geraniums), bits and pieces of Roman stone, including 2 inscriptions, one easy, one not (and fragmentary). Inside the church, completely redone in 1699, the walls and pillars covered in purple hangings: rather pleasant if of no interest. I stayed maybe an hour, shooting about a roll and a half of film and finished just as the sky moved to overcast and 5:30 P.M.
Train at 6:08, walked quickly from S. Pietro to the station, quite prepared — I don't have a watch — to miss the train and sit around the station for the next; got there with 45 seconds to spare, train just pulling in. . . Home at 7:55, rather heavy dinner of spaghetti, some fresh tomatoes — seem to have lost the garlic during the move — and to bed and to sleep before 10.
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Page updated: 7 Dec 20