For a rapid survey of the summit of Venetian painting in its golden age, your first stop after the Accademia should be the constellation of buildings a few alleys west of San Polo – the Frari , the Scuola Grande di San Rocco and San Rocco church. The genesis of Ruskin’s preoccupation with Venice was a visit to the Scuola, where a pictorial interpretation of the life of Christ by Tintoretto flows through the entire building; and if you can take yet more after the intensity of the Scuola’s cycle, the church next door contains further works by him. A trio of magnificent altarpieces by Bellini and Titian are the principal treasures of the Frari, but even if these don’t strike a chord, there’s bound to be something among the church’s assembly of paintings, sculptures and monuments that’ll get it onto your list of Venetian highlights.
Entries with Age tag
History of Rome
No one knows precisely when Rome was founded. Excavations on the Palatine Hill have revealed the traces of an Iron Age village, which date back to the ninth or eighth century BC, but the legends relating to Rome’s early history tell it slightly differently. Rea Silvia, a vestal virgin and daughter of a local king, Numitor, had twin sons – the product, she alleged, of a rape by Mars. They were supposed to be sacrificed to the god but the ritual wasn’t carried out, and the two boys were forsaken and found by a wolf, who nursed them until their adoption by a shepherd, who titled them Romulus and Remus . Later they ordered out the boundaries of the city on the Palatine Hill, but it soon became apparent that there was only room for one ruler, and, unable to agree on the signs given to them by the gods, they quarrelled, Romulus killing Remus and becoming in 753 BC the city’s first monarch , to be followed by six further kings. Whatever the truth of this, there’s no doubt that Rome was an obvious spot to build a city: the Palatine and Capitoline hills provided security, and there was, of course, the river Tiber, which could be easily crossed here by way of the Isola Tiberina, making this a key location on the trade routes between Etruria and Campania.
About Chieti
Just twenty minutes by train from Pescara, CHIETI is a more pleasant place to stop over between trains. It holds Abruzzo’s best museum by far, with an extensive collection of finds from the region, and the town itself has a relaxed and appealing rustic air. Coming by train you arrive at Chieti Scalo, from where it’s a short journey on bus #1 up the hill to Chieti proper, 5km away, which spreads over a curving ridge and has great views of the Maiella and Gran Sasso – and, when it’s clear, out to sea. Buses arrive at Piazza Vittorio Emanuele alongside the chunky and much-reconstructed cathedral, from where the main Corso Marrucini cuts through the town centre to Largo Trento e Trieste . Behind the post office, off Via Spaventa, are the remains of three little Roman temples. However, it’s the Museo Nazionale Archeologico di Antichitá (June-Sept Mon-Fri & Sun 9am-8pm, Sat 9am-11pm; Oct-May regular 9am-7pm; L8000/4.13) which is of most interest, ordered out in a dignified villa encircled by a park beyond Piazza Trento e Trieste. It holds finds from Abruzzo’s major sites: there’s a Roman portrait-bust of an old man, in which the stone appears as soft, wrinkled and flaccid as real skin; a massive and muscly white-marble Hercules from the temple at Alba Fucens ; a bronze Hercules from the sanctuary outside Sulmona , and an elegant, bone funeral bed from a tomb at Amiternum . If you’ve seen Amiternum, look also at the frieze showing how its amphitheatre would have been in the first century, packed with bloodthirsty spectators at the gladiatorial games. Upstairs, don’t miss the Capestrano Warrior , a statue of a Bronze Age warrior prince. It dates back to the time (sixth century BC) when a deified, hero-worshipped warrior leader was key to Bronze Age society. Statues like these in characteristic pose with the arms crossways the torso were set on the top of burial mounds to mark territory throughout the Adriatic and Central Europe and must have prefabricated an awesome feature of the landscape.
Remains of the occupants of Bronze Age tombs are ordered out in the adjacent rooms – the men buried with armour and weapons, the women with jewellery, kitchen utensils, spindles, and in one case even a nail-brush. For more insight into prehistoric hygiene, head for the extraordinary exhibition about Paleolithic dental health, conclusions about diet being drawn from the state of the Paleolithic teeth.
Further digs in Chieti have uncovered the core of Teate, the main town of the Marrucini (an Italic tribe) which became a Roman colony in the first century BC. The site lies on the edge of central Chieti at the Civitella archeological park and includes the remains of temples, theatre, amphitheatre, thermal baths and a new museum. At the time of writing opening hours hadn’t been set; for details call 0871.331.668.
Early times
A smattering of remains exist from the Neanderthals who occupied the Italian peninsula half a million years ago, but the main period of colonization began after the last Ice Age. Evidence of Paleolithic settlements dates from this time, around 20,000 BC, the next development being the spread of Neolithic tribes crossways the peninsula, between 5000 and 6000 years ago. More sophisticated tribes developed towards the end of the prehistoric period, between 2400 and 1800 BC; those who left the most visible traces were the Ligurians (who inhabited a much greater area than modern Liguria), the Siculi of southern Italy and Latium, and the Sards , who farmed and raised livestock on Sardinia. More advanced still were migrant groups from the orient Mediterranean, who introduced the techniques of working copper. Later, various Bronze Age societies (1600-1000 BC) built a network of farms and villages in the Apennines, and on the Sicilian and southern coasts, the latter population trading with Mycenaeans in Greece.Other tribes brought Indo-European languages into Italy. The Veneti, Latins and Umbrii moved down the peninsula from the north, whilst the Piceni and the Messapians in Puglia crossed the Adriatic from what is now Croatia. The artificial line between prehistory and history is drawn around the eighth century BC, with the arrival of the Phoenician alphabet and writing system. Sailing west along the African coast, the Phoenicians established colonies in Sicily and Sardinia, going on to build trade links between Carthage and southern Italy. These soon encouraged the arrival of the Carthaginians , who set themselves up on Sicily, Sardinia and the Latium coast, at the same time as both Greeks and Etruscans were gaining influence.
