2 1/2, Part The First

After the Amalfi trip and another administrative day in Pompei, we decided our stay on the Bay of Naples was complete for this year. We had already seen Capri twice and didn't need another boat ride. So we drove back to Rome, and, after greeting Alessandro and Giovanni, parked again at the Emerald Meadow, where we would prepare and pack for our upcoming vacation to Malta, to spend eight days there celebrating our 50th wedding anniversary. The packing went so quickly (8kg pp), we decided to spend another day in the Eternal City. Happily, Rome is so filled with things to see and do, we had no trouble picking out a couple more churches to visit. One was Santa Prassede, a ninth century minor basilica known for its Carolingian era mosaics. The other was the Basilica San Clemente, known for various things but attractive to us for its Masolino/Masaccio chapel frescoes and especially its sub-crypt Temple of Mithra. The visit to San Clemente was only half successful--no fotos, a ridiculous admission fee, plus a nasty-looking guard/bouncer prowling the place hoping to nail foto perps like me--so we looked at the nice Masolino.Masaccio, mostly Masolino, and moved on. Fortunately, St. Mary Maggiore was nearby, and we popped in there for a quick re-visit, bringing the total for the day to 2.5. Hopefully, Fellini would approve. Plus we had a very decent lunch at Ristorante Naumachia, near the San Clemente church. [NB: in 2019 we returned to San Clemente and had a great time...recounted here]

Entrance to San Prassede, which is fairly well embedded in
the city-scape

In English, too; click to enlarge

Apse mosaics, 9th century

With Divine Illumination Machine (DIM) on

Now in the Chapel of Zeno, looking up

And around

Shopping bags?

Major relic: the column of the flagellation of Jesus Christ;
really more of a stump than a column

As attested to in the painting; Vicki thinks Christians in Rome got really taken
on this relic and had the painting depicts their prize, rather than all the other
different depictions

Beautiful stuff, the mosaics

Baby J seems to be glowering at me...hmmmm...

The square white halo means (s)he is still living; ask me anything you want to
know about iconographics...

Nice paintings also in this very old 9th century church

Divine Illumination Machine (DIM)