#italian roman

[city-of-ladies]

"Here’s what we know about Julia Felix: she lived in Pompeii from at least 62 CE. She was possibly illegitimate but was definitely not a member of the social and cultural elite. She worked for a living setting up and running a very interesting business and, by 79 CE, she had planned to shift her focus from managing a business to owning property. We know all these things because twentieth-century excavations at her business uncovered an advert, carved in stone and attached to the external wall of her huge building. It reads:

"To rent for the period of five years from the thirteenth day of next August to the thirteenth day of the sixth August, the Venus Bath fitted for the nogentium, shops with living quarters over the shops, apartments on the second floor located in the building of Julia Felix, daughter of Spurius. At the end of five years, the agreement is terminated."

This find illuminated the building it was attached to, bringing what otherwise looked like a very large anonymous domestic house into dazzling focus. With this description of the purpose of each room written by the owner herself, archaeologists and historians could see the site through a whole new lens and they realised that they had discovered a Roman entertainment space for the working middle classes. It is, so far, a completely unique find and it is magnificent. It offers us, as modern viewers, two amazing things: a little glimpse into the lives of the commercial classes of the Roman Empire who are so often completely and utterly invisible, and a brutal reminder that so much of what we ‘know’ about Roman women in the Roman world comes from rules concerning only the most elite.

We’ll do that second part first, because it’s the least fun. Roman written and legal sources are pretty universal in their agreement that although women could own property, they could not control it; they had no legal rights, could not make contracts and were to be treated as minors by the legal system for their entire lives. In order to buy or sell property women required a male guardian to oversee and sign off on any transactions. This is a basic truism of women in the Roman Empire, repeated ad nauseum by sources both ancient and modern including me, and it is undermined by Julia Felix’s rental notice. 

The rental ad makes it pretty clear that Julia Felix is the owner-operator of a business complex including public baths, shops and apartments (there’s more too, as we’ll see), and she doesn’t seem to require anyone else to help her rent it out. She names her father – sort of; ‘Spurius’ might just mean that she is illegitimate – but this is effectively a surname, a personal identifier to differentiate her from other Julia Felixes in the area. It doesn’t mean her father was involved. Furthermore, the use of her father’s name as an identifier suggests that Julia didn’t have a husband and was either unmarried or widowed in 79 CE. The strong implication of her advert is that Julia Felix was an independent lady, a honey making money and a momma profiting dollars who could truthfully throw her hands up to Destiny’s Child.

We will never know if Julia escaped the flames and choking ash of 79 CE, fleeing as it swallowed her business and her home, but one discovery, made on 28 January 1952, suggests that she didn’t. The archaeologists, led by Amedeo Maiuri, uncovered on that day the skeleton of a woman who had fallen while running across the garden during the disaster. It’s clear this fallen woman was well off, because she was wearing a lot of gold jewellery. She carried four gold half-hoop earrings and wore four gold rings. Two of these rings were particularly expensive; both contained a red carnelian gem, one carved with a figure of Mercury, the other with an eagle. Around her neck she wore a necklace of gold filigree, dotted with ten pearls and hung with a green pendant. Someone stole both the necklace and earrings from the Pompeii Antiquarium in 1975 and no one, somehow, had ever bothered to photograph them so all we have are descriptions but the rings that survive are fine and expensive. The woman who wore them – was wearing them when she died – had real money to buy these objects and the woman who wore them did'nt leave Pompei in time.

 Moreover, when she was found it was clear that at the moment of her death she was heading not towards the street or towards safety, but towards the shrine to Isis in the garden where all the most valuable possessions were kept. The valuable possessions that Julia Felix grafted for and maybe couldn’t bear to leave behind. There’s no way to tell whether this skeleton is Julia Felix, whether these bones once stood and looked at the plots of land Julia bought and made plans, or whether they belong to a looter or a chancer or someone just caught out. But it’s nice to pretend that Julia Felix, who shaped the city’s roads around her dream and offered respite and luxury to workers and made a tonne of money doing it, died and was buried with the place that still bears her name."

A Rome of One's Own: The Forgotten Women of the Roman Empire, Emma Southon

[theancientwayoflife]

~ Pair of Architectural Reliefs with Elephants.

Date: A.D. 80–100

Culture: Roman

Place of origin: Western Roman Empire

Medium: Italian marble

[tragediambulante]

The abduction of Proserpina, Gian Lorenzo Bernini, 1621-22

[constanzarte]

Gustav Wertheimer, Der Schiffbruch der Agrippina

[the-evil-clergyman]

The Toilette of Venus by Benedetto Gennari II (1674-84)

[thesixthduke]

[sforzesco]

giulia farnese, lucrezia borgia, caterina gonzaga

we are. figuring out looks. slowly but surely, we're figuring out looks.

⭐ places I’m at! bsky / pixiv / pillowfort /cohost / cara.app / insta / tip jar!

[artthatgivesmefeelings]

Giovanni Antonio Pellegrini (Italian, 1675-1741) Apollo, 1718 Mauritshuis, Den Haag

[classic-art-favourites]

Isabella of Portugal by Titian, 1548.

[n3bismel]

Italy pt.2

(cr. me)

[romatito]

So sorry if I asked you this already but how would you interpret Romano’s relationship with Lithuania?? Part of me thinks they may have had a friends with benefits situation or something like that when living in America, but then lost touch after Lithuania was under Soviet rule only to reconnect after the end of the cold war. I feel like today they’re probably pretty good friends, and they are pretty close with America as well and go to visit New York City to check out all the areas they used to hang out at during the roaring 20’s.

HI hello i have been sitting on this for a bit because ive literally been thinking about the relationship between these two recently and i wanted to answer it when i could actually get this sketchy art out lmao. i pretty much agree with everything you said lol, i think they do have a bond that developed during their time living together before the depression hit, and i love seeing other people explore that!

(more of my thoughts under the readmore lol)

i think that initially, it was awkward between them just because they are in two Very different places when they make it to america lol. lithuania may have been poor but he's finally getting space away from the russian empire, able to enjoy being himself again after the assembly of vilnius put an end to russification policies. romano, on the other hand, is suffering the ill-effects of the unification, and poverty is so terrible in his half of italy that tons of his people are emigrating in order to escape it -- once again the lesser italy brother. all of that, coupled with romano's standoffish personality and lithuania's tendency to make himself sick with worry, made interactions... difficult. i think america's blunt, unapologetic nature kind of forced them to interact more than they would have and without him, it would have taken a lot more time for them to settle around each other lmfao.

ofc once they're both more comfortable around each other, i think they keep a close friendship that others don't really expect! like they don't talk too much but they're both glad to see when the other is doing well -- and they'll stand up for one another if the situation ever calls for it.

[theancientwayoflife]

~ Apollo of the Cassel type.

Date: A.D. 125-150

Period: Imperial Roman

Medium: Marble (Paros marble)

[tragediambulante]

Details from the room of Cupid and Psyche in Palazzo Te, Giulio Romano, 1526-28

[constanzarte]

Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema, The Meeting of Antony and Cleopatra

[the-evil-clergyman]

Venus and Mars by Sandro Botticelli (1485)

[65eatonplace]

Sharon Tate photographed by Peirluigi Praturlon in Cortina d’Ampezzo italy 1966.

Cast & crew of "The Fearless Vampire Killers" were billeted at every available hotel of this ski resort while filming exterior scenes for the movie.