Category: Roman

I was standing in the humid heat of a site near Benevento last summer, my fingers tracing the uneven grit of a weathered travertine block, when it hit me how much we get wrong. Most guidebooks will give you a…

I was standing on a scaffold in a dusty courtyard near the Forum last autumn, tracing the underside of a weathered capital with my flashlight, when it hit me how much we misinterpret these stones. Most guidebooks treat the corinthian…

I was standing in a dusty courtyard near Paestum last autumn, tracing the edge of a weathered column with my thumb, when I realized how much we get wrong in the textbooks. People love to talk about the seamless transition…

I was standing in the heat of a Sicilian afternoon last July, tracing the edge of a weathered Doric capital with my fingernails, when I realized how much we get wrong. Most guidebooks treat temples and their orders like a…

I was kneeling in the salt-crusted silt of a Roman pier near Ravenna last autumn, my fingers tracing the jagged edge of a broken travertine block, when it hit me how much we misunderstand the sheer defiance of these structures….

I was crouched in the damp shadow of a medieval stone arch near Ravenna last autumn, my fingers tracing the uneven grit of a lime-mortar joint that had been weeping for decades. Most people walk over a crossing and see…

I remember standing on a muddy ridge in the Marches, staring at a series of excavated post-holes that refused to align with the textbook diagrams I’d spent years memorizing in university. The academics will tell you that military camps and…

I was standing in a dusty courtyard in Syracuse last summer, squinting at a limestone threshold where a Roman paving stone met a much later medieval repair, when it hit me how much we misunderstand the concept of order. Most…

Last summer, while I was tucked into a corner of a crumbling villa near Syracuse, I found myself tracing the faint, weathered grooves in a limestone slab. Most people walk past these sites looking for grand columns or marble gods,…

I was kneeling in the damp dust of a villa near Ostia last Tuesday, my knees aching in that familiar way, when I realized I had spent twenty minutes photographing nothing but a single, misplaced corner of a tuff block….