Saturday, May 26, 2018

More Palermo Street Scenes

The centro storico is a great walking area, with items of historic, contemporary, and every other interest...

Great old kiosk outside

The Teatro Massimo



A great, famous fountain, near the Four Corners

Self-examination

Not sure what this creature is, but infibulated, nonetheless 

You like my church, yes?

Can't pick your neighbors

Teatro Bellini...Sicily's great composer

Art Nuvo entry to...a police station

A hat-maker's shop I really would have liked to see; but closed

Maybe on the internet

The horse is a sculpture

Miniature guitar store...wait of second...who needs miniature guitars?!


Purveyor of puff sandwiches

Palermo's National Archaeological Museum, 2

Continuing our afternoon at Palermo's national archaeological museum...
Standard mseasure

A central courtyard has been converted to a representation of Selinunte's Temple C;
here are some of the down-spouts; pre-Christian gargoyles...

Painted, in classical times

Temple C re-imagination; 5th century BC

Representation, in situ

Actual Gorgon shards


The usual togas

But now, something completely different: a "slipper" bath-tub

Instructions

Even as western Mediterranean colonists, the Greeks were great partyers

Colossal statues

Ancient Ratatouille

Super-sized sarcophohus

And, lastly, a foot from the Elgin Marbles; stealthfully acquired

Thus

Palermo's National Archaeological Museum, 1

It was closed when we were there in 2011. Renovations. The renovations have progressed so far by 2018 that the ground floor is now open. It is a great educational museum, particularly devoted to the 5th century BC Greek temples at Selinunte, which we would visit shortly. It is so incredible that the Greeks' colonization of the Mediterranean antedated so much of classical Greece...
All of it in an old religious complex

Turtle love at a great fountain at the entrance

Our founder: anybody who creates a museum deserves a bust

Painted sarcophogus; slowly, we are realizing that everything was painted, in
classical times, and in medieval times too

An educational museum...


The Palermo museum's signature holdings are the metopes from Temple C at
Selinunte; very much like the Elgin Marbles of the Parthenon; except Selinunte
is older...

Perseus giving Medusa a trim

More 

Hercules battling an Amazon; not a Prime Amazon, however

Helpful model #204857

To us, the most amazing feature here was the gigantic representation of the
Gorgon, at the head of the pediment

Another metope: Actaeon being ripped apart by the dogs: never, ever, look upon
nekked goddesses in the woods

Where Legos got its start

Click to enlarge

The Gorgon at Temple C

Before they started writing on lines 
The usual collections of pots, pans, Bed, Bath & Beyond items

Museum guard hard at work