The Palazzo dei Conservatori consists of 2 small palaces in Rome.  It was the seat of the city's magistrates during the late Middle Ages.  Outside the palace, the 'She Wolf' with Romulus and Remus can be found.

One of the most famous animals in the history of world art, the She-wolf of the capital (Lupus Romana) owes her fame not simply to antiquity and magnificence as a work of art , but for centuries she has been the totem of the city of Rome. Ancient legend tells us that the founding heroes of Rome, Romulus and Remus, abandoned as infants, were suckled by a she-wolf. The cult of Romulus and Remus was as old as the 4th century BC and we know that a statue of the wolf was dedicated on the Capitoline Hill in Rome in 296 BC. The present statue may not be the original.

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The vitality of Etruscan art is concentrated in the tense, watchful animal body, with its spare flanks, gaunt ribs and powerful legs. The lowering neck and head, the alert ears, glaring eyes and ferocious muzzle render the psychic vibrations of the fierce and simultaneously protective beast; the incised lines along the neck of the bronze produce raising heckles as it watches danger approach. This bronze surpasses the great Assyrian reliefs in it's profound reading of animal temper.

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In 2008 a Carbon 14 dating of the dirt and clay pieces from the statue indicated that the statue was cast in the 11-12th century A.D and is a copy of an Etruscan bronze!

This study has itself been criticized by both experts in Etruscan and Roman history but also by experts from the carbon-14 dating. The age of the Lupa Capitolina statue is therefore still under discussion.
Romulus and Remus were added in the 1400s.

 

The Tarquinians adorned the walls of their subterranean tomb chambers with colorful and lively murals. This small chamber tomb is decorated in the manner favored in Tarquinia during the 5th century BC: a banquet scene on the wall opposite the entrance and groups of dancers and musicians on the side walls. These wonderfully vital pictures express especially well the peculiarly life-affirming exuberance that fills Etruscan art as it must has filled Etruscan existence.

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Three young men, one clad only in a light scarf, the other two in elegant cloaks seem to be hurrying through a grove of graceful laurel trees. The leader carries a cup of wine and is beckoning the others who play the double flute and seven-stringed lyre. The seem to already be dancing, facing rhythmically in opposite directions as if performing some circling step. The gestures have a kind of choreographic exaggeration, especially those of the enlarges hands and fingers of the flautist, which hold and touch the instrument with sureness and delicacy.

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It is rare in a painting of the ancient world that spirited movement is portrayed so convincingly, and it would be difficult to find from that time so fitting a monument to the beauty of youth, springtime, music and dance. The picture is a kind of fresco painting on a thin slip applied to the rock wall or on a stucco paste made from the rock. The colors - blacks, blues, blue-greens and ochre reds - still retain much of their original freshness and harmonize easily and naturally with the creamy yellow ground.

In the 4th century BCE, the first nude image of Aphrodite was sculpted, breaking a long tradition of depicting Greek goddesses clothed. It was fitting, however, that the goddess of love and beauty was the first to be portrayed in this new way. The motif became so popular that hundreds of such images of Aphrodite survive from ancient Greece and Rome, where they adorned homes, gardens, and sanctuaries.

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The bronze original was inspired by the "Knidia" by Praxiteles the first nude goddess of love in Greek art. An interesting feature is the sculptor's use of a real gold earring with a tiny pearl added to it. In spite of it's small scale, the piece shows the true monumentality of classical art.

These are very individualistic portraits, displaying more fidelity to their subject than the stylized examples produced by previous cultures.

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The Romans are famous for their mosaics.  What is a mosaic?  A mosaic is a picture or pattern made with small pieces of ceramic tile.  The Romans and other ancient people made very elaborate mosaics.  They might make a counter top or a wall or even the whole floor of a room might be a mosaic. Mosaics were practical because they were easy to wash and helped to keep the house cool. They were also beautiful. The Romans loved to combine a practical purpose with wonderful art. 

This detail is of Silenus on a camel with bacchante and panther. As the god of wine and the grape, the Greek Dionysius had a strong appeal for the wine-loving Romans., who knew him as Bacchus. Silenus was the tutor of Bacchus (Dionysius) and is always depicted as fat and drunk. A bacchante is a priestess. Alongside paces a panther, and animal sacred to Bacchus.

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During the festival of Dionysius, Jews were compelled to walk in the procession under the eye of Syrian guards and Hellenizers. Amid the beating of drums and gongs, trumpet blasts and wild shouts honoring the wine god, they marched along, wearing wreaths of ivy (a symbol of Dionysius) their heads bowed in shame and humiliation.

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While the Greeks used colored stones to create mosaic designs, the Romans excelled in this art. Small pieces of marble were cut polished and fitted together to make an image. Floor mosaics were made of pieces one to two centimeters across. Wall mosaics were made with more care and used much smaller stones, many less than a millimeter in diameter. When completed, the entire surface was polished to feel like a smooth sheet of glass. the grading of colors and values to create rounded forms is difficult when the colors and values must be found in nature.

Antefixes were ornamental tiles used on classical buildings to conceal the ends of the joint tiles of the roof and to prevent birds from nesting inside.

The definition of a coliseum is any large sports stadium.  The Colosseum was the name of the coliseum in city center ancient Rome.  The Colosseum is also known as the Flavian Amphitheatre.  A large, oval amphitheatre built in Rome between 70 and 80 AD.

The Colosseum had seats for about 45,000 people, but if you were not lucky enough to get a seat there was also a standing section.  When full, and it often was, it would hold 70,000 people. Tarpaulins were erected for protection of the audience from the sun.

The Colosseum was the site of most of the gladiatorial contests.  For 285 days of the year, gladiators slaves and animals fought here. The arena could be flooded to form an artificial lake for reenactment of sea battles. Animals and gladiators were brought up from underground areas by elevator. In these contests men fought other men or wild animals.  The Romans eagerly went to the Colosseum to watch bloody battles.  To the Romans seeing someone killed in the Colosseum was entertaining. Plus, admission was free and anyone could attend.

The Colosseum was built of concrete and stone and is still fairly intact even today.  This structure displays all three levels of classical columns - Doric, Ionic and Corinthian.

Triumphal Arch is an honorific arch.  Located in Rome near the Forum, the Arch of Titus dates to 1st C AD.  It was constructed in c. A.D. 81 by the Emperor Domitian shortly after the death of his older brother Titus to commemorate Titus's victories, including the Siege of Jerusalem (AD 70). The arch has provided the general model for many triumphal arches erected since the 16th century—perhaps most famously it is the inspiration for the Arc de Triomphe in Paris, France.

This archway relief shows soldiers of the Roman army carrying spoils from the temple in Jerusalem, including the 7 branched candelabrum from the Holy of Holies. The panel is severely damaged. The marching files press forward from the left background into the center foreground and disappear through the obliquely paced arch in the right background. The energy and swing of the column suggest a rapid marching cadence. the the chant of  triumph. The carving is extremely deep. The heads of the forward figures have been broken off., probably because they stood vulnerably free from the block, emphasizing their different placement in space from the heads in low relief, which are intact.

This is an example of the many aqueducts built by the Romans throughout their conquered European provinces. It reaches 160 feet high and carries water from over 25 miles away.

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The Romans constructed numerous aqueducts in order to bring water from often distant sources into cities and towns, supplying public baths, latrines, fountains and private households.

The Greeks created exteriors of exquisite harmony, but it was the Romans that gave the Western world a grandly conceived interior. The Pantheon of Rome, one of the most famous buildings in the world, was commissioned by the Emperor Hadrian in 118 AD. it was the world's largest dome for more than 18 centuries. Originally built as a temple to the Roman gods, it is now a Christian church and mausoleum. (Raphael is buried there).

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Almost two thousand years after it was built, the Pantheon's dome is still the world's largest unreinforced concrete dome. The height to the oculus and the diameter of the interior circle are the same, 43.3 metres (142 ft).