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Anthony Majanlahti @anthonymajanlahti.bsky.social

A 🧵for #SpoliaSunday in #Rome, but all over the place, looking for the reuse of some very specific #columns with #foliate rings. They're splendid pieces of work and must have come from the #Augustan monumental area near the base of the #Capitoline hill. #AncientBluesky 🏺

FOLIATE COLUMNS, C. 27 BCE. S. PRASSEDE A magnificent set of six Augustan-era fluted columns ringed with four acanthus-leaf columns were found and reused in Paschal I's construction of the presbytery of S. Prassede in 817 CE. The capitals are C9, though they're not without their own grace and inventiveness. Here we see two of them, holding up the lintel of one of the two cantorie on either side of the presbytery. This part of the church was restructured in the C16 and again, in its present form, in the C18. They may well have come from the vanished original church near but not on the site of Paschal's church. This type of column is quite rare and may have originally come from a shrine or victory monument. The lowest ring or crown of acanthus leaves sits on a C9 base imitating the ancient leaves; the fluting springs from the irregular border of the leaves and finishes, with its curved tops, just below the next ring of acanthus. The pattern repeats itself up the column three more times.
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