Sofia Manmana - Amazing Roma Tours

🌲 Do you know why this is called the “Pinecone Courtyard” (Cortile della Pigna)?

In the heart of the Vatican Museums there is a gigantic bronze pinecone, 4 meters high and over 2 meters in diameter!

📜 This extraordinary sculpture was unearthed in the early Middle Ages near the Pantheon, and it still gives its name to this district of Rome (Pigna). It dates to the 1st or 2nd century AD and it still bears the signature of Publius Cincius Savius, the sculptor who made it.

In ancient Rome the pinecone was symbolically associated with the concepts of fertility, productivity and rebirth after physical death.🌱

According to the scholars it was originally made to decorate the Baths of Agrippa, or a fountain in the nearby Temple of Isis, and jets of water would have spurted out of it! 💧

📍 Over the centuries it was relocated several times until finally, in 1608, it was transported from the ancient portico of St. Peter's Basilica and given its present home in this courtyard designed and built by the great architect Bramante.

📖 In his “Divine Comedy” Dante compares this bronze pinecone to the face of a giant in Hell. Perhaps the great medieval poet saw it in person during the Jubilee of 1300!

✨ As you will have realized by now, this strange ancient object is more than just a surreal pop-art sculpture, made by modern artists like Salvador Dali or Claes Oldenburg!

📌 Save this post and share it with those who love the most special and iconic places in Rome!

Hello all you lovers of trivia! 💖

🕵️‍♀️ Today I'm taking you to the original Capitol Hill: 𝗣𝗶𝗮𝘇𝘇𝗮 𝗱𝗲𝗹 𝗖𝗮𝗺𝗽𝗶𝗱𝗼𝗴𝗹𝗶𝗼!

Do you know who designed the layout of this wonderful square?

Yes, it was the great Renaissance genius, Michelangelo!

It is on the northern side of the Capitoline Hill, once a citadel where the temples dedicated to the most important Roman gods stood.

🔎 A legend tells that in 390 BC the geese of the temple of Juno honked to alert the Romans during a surprise night attack by the Gauls who had raided the city.

👀 Just imagine it: the enemy soldiers are silently scaling the slopes of the hill, but the sacred birds start making a terrible noise, waking up the sentries who rushed to defend the citadel!

Who would have thought that the Romans would have a flock of geese to thank for saving the city in its darkest hour?😄

Here’s a curious fact about the magnificent equestrian statue of Marcus Aurelius that stands in the centre of the square: it is actually a replica!

The original gilded bronze statue of the philosopher emperor has been conserved nearby in the Capitoline Museums since 1990, to protect it from the weather. 🏛️✨

Save this post for your next trip to Rome and share it with people like you who love curious facts and stories! 📩✨

Greetings to all mystery lovers! 🤩

Today I'm taking you to an out-of-the-way part of Rome to see something that could have come straight out of a Gothic novel: the Magic Door of Piazza Vittorio! ✨

This is the only surviving entrance to the aristocratic Villa Palombara. It is covered with alchemical symbols and esoteric inscriptions, the true meaning of which is still unknown!🕵️‍♀️👀

🔎 According to legend, a mysterious alchemist spent a night in the villa working on a secret recipe for transforming base metal into gold.

The next morning he had disappeared into thin air!😱

He left behind him a few pieces of gold and a manuscript full of incomprehensible symbols...

The owner of the villa, the Marquis Palombara, convinced that these cryptic formulas contained the alchemist’s secret, had them carved in stone around a doorway, in the hope that one day someone would be able to decipher them.

👀Fun fact: standing next to the Magic Door is a statue of Bes, the Egyptian god of magic and of exorcisms.

Is he trying to send us a hidden message?

What do you think? 🤔 Let me know in the comment section! 🤩