The last one is amazing and unbelievably awesome, like the Pantheon. So often we see drawings of ancient Roman buildings, but to see the actual building with almost all its glitter and color and original glamour right in front of out faces, brings home exactly how truly great (even by today's standards) these buildings were and continue to be, thousands of years after their construction. Those monuments of beauty, truly were built for the ages!!
@@toldinstone Hi Gareth, I'd like to ask how much is from the roman period inside Santa Maria? Is it just the columns or the red marble panels as well?
No, 200 years old buildings aren't considered new, they are considered prestige buildings, considering how architecture went to shit from the 1960's onward.
My grandmother is from Formia, just north of Naples, and lived down the street from a Roman amphitheater that was transformed into apartments throughout the centuries; there are also ancient stone walls and arches that she’d hide under with her family during the German and Allied raids during WWII. The apartments are still there and still inhabited, too! It’s called Teatro Romano di Formia a Castellone.
@@toldinstone Can you please kindly do a video on the "Temple of Manly Virtue" AKA Portunus (formerly known as Fortuna Virilis)?? This is one that holds many significant secrets. www.atlasobscura.com/places/temple-of-portunus
Please do a video of the Roman ruins in Trier, Germany. This is where I fell in LOVE with Roman history as a young child. I lived near Trier between the ages of 4 and 8 because my father was US Air Force. We always went there.
@Frank Thinnes Same with me!!!! My father would tell me stories of the Imperial Roman Armies and the fights and "throwing" Christians to the lions in the Roman amphitheater. I wanted to become an archeologist but I never did. BUT I did study history in college. I focused on early modern English and Colonial USA history, Roman and Greek architecture. I LOVED history so much that I became a history teacher in a Chicago high school. I can remember living in Germany but I was young and I lived there from 1952 to 1956. I also have very fond memories of Germany.
@@jilledmondson6894 Wow you must have a vast knowledge of history, being in Germany just after ww2, studying the birth of the USA, and now ancient Rome and Greece. That's incredible, I hope to gain as much experience and knowledge as you have. I am drawn to both ww2 history and ancient roman/greek/persian stories/ruins as well!
There is lots to explore in Trier (Augusta Treverorum)! Churches are impressive, e.g. underground tours in St. Maximin, Trier Cathedral. In St. Matthias is the grave of Apostle Matthew. A guided tour in Germanys oldest wine cellar with wine tasting at "Stiftungsweingut Vereinigte Hospitien" is very interesting and tasty! Cheers!
@@toldinstone have archaeologists done any excavation between the modern floor and the roman one? and do you know if it's a hollow space (supported by columns maybe?) or if it's totally filled in? Always been fascinated by thid building, and eagerly looking forwars to a full tour :)
@@rblossey The Roman floor (which was apparently prone to flooding) was simply covered with dirt. To the best of my knowledge, the floor of the Renaissance church has never been taken up for excavation. Glad to hear it - I look forward to making that video!
@@toldinstone The original Egyptian granite collumns in the interior still seem to be sitting atop their original column bases, which appears at the modern ground level. How do they work with the original Roman floors of the bath beneath?
Grazie mille. One of my favorite memories of Roma is walking the Appian Way at twilight with all the ghosts. Personal note: Your voice is calming and easy to listen to.
I've always wanted to walk the section beyond the Tomb of Caecilia Metella at dusk. The closest I managed was a long walk in the rain a few years ago. Glad you enjoyed the narration !
@@kayharker712 I'm from Montreal and in the 50's (or maybe the 40's) the mayor had two little round Roman temples built in Atwater Square - urinals they were - but in Roman lettering around the domes of each it read VESPANIENNE - after Vespasian, a great builder of public comfort stations I gather.
When you hear from a PHD there are literally thousands I immediately think there's 10,000+ partially completed buildings being used. Love your work keep it up
There's a complete Saxon church where I live (Bradford on Avon, Wiltshire, UK ) that was unknown as such, and was used for various purposes for many hundreds of years. It's origins were only realised in the 20th century. It had been subsumed by additions over the years. It's now returned to pretty much it's original condition. It's very Roman in appearance. There must be many more bits of architectural history that we pass unknowingly every day. Thanks.
These videos are really interesting. Roman buildings that are still in use are is a fascinating subject, but it's quite hard to search for (if you google you usually just get a bunch of generic lists with same structures such as the Pantheon, tower of hercules, some bridges etc). So it's great that someone like you can shine a light on the more obscure stuff.
Great video, thanks! It's worth noting that the modern floor level of Santa Maria degli Angeli, which you noted is higher than the ancient level, required that the Egyptian granite columns have artificial bases "collared" around them to make them look like they stop at the modern floor level; but they actually go below it... which explains that visibly disproportionate "fatness" of those columns. Looking forward to your video on that church!
Your videos make me want to visit Italy again. I've only been once, about 14 years ago, but those were among the most memorable two weeks of my life. I want to see Rome again, and Venice. I want to go to the Amalfi Coast, Capri, Pompeii. I want to visit Cinque Terre. I've become a fan of the UK's most famous gardener, Monty Don, and he has whole 1-hour videos on the Gardens of Italy. According to his professional experience, the most beautiful garden in the world is in Italy, between Naples and Rome. It's called the garden at Ninfa. I want to see all of these beautiful gardens. You, sir, are biting me with the travel bug again...
I visited Santa Maria de la Angeli on the one occasion that I visited Rome. As described, from the outside it looks like nothing, a rather insignificant old ruin, walking inside it is magnificent. In one of the photos shown here... my son was marveling at the beautiful bluish/green columns thinking they were actual columns, I said "Brian, that's a painting"...his eyes went wide. Really this is true and inescapable of all of Italy, the architecture and artwork is simply magnificent.
Thank you so much, Garrett! These videos are basically like crack to me. Currently writing a book featuring Domitian and so I have taken a few lengthy visits of Rome and environs in the past few years, having had the pleasure of visiting some of the sites. For those going to Napoli, I highly recommend a tour of the underground (Napoli Sottorenea). At the conclusion of that tour, they take you inside the neighboring above ground buildings that include vestiges of the great theatre featured in this video. A visit into Santa Maria degli Angeli, within a portion of the Baths of Diocletian was revelatory. You really do get that sense of lost grandeur and there are many extraordinary details worth the visit alone. The coolest thing is a Renaissance era meridian line inlaid in the marble floor. A pin prick hole in the high corner of the church channels a thin shaft of sunlight that crosses the meridian at noon. Noon at the time was not fixed to GMT but to the midpoint of sunrise and sunset. Thus we were able to calculate the midpoint for that particular day and, lo and behold, to the minute, the beam crossed in the appropriate place. Amazing.
You're very welcome! I did one of the tours during my very first visit to Naples, and proceeded to lose all of the pictures I took during a hard drive crash.
I love how you often use the etching prints of Giovanni Battista Piranesi for the descriptions of the ancient status of the monuments. I use to collect original Piranesi prints from 1700, he was a genius in graphics and one of the first "modern" archeologist.
OMG, I passed the Baths of Diocletian all the time when I was in Rome--they're really closed to the train station and my hotel was near the train station. Damn. I should've gone INSIDE the entrance. I saw the entrance of Santa Maria degli Angeli all the time. I just figured it was some weird, modern church with a modern interior I did not come to Rome to see (i.e. they kept the plain brick interiors for the church, like at the Baths of Caracalla and some such). I was not aware that it still had the interiors of an actual Roman bath. Damn...
Picked these videos out to try to fall asleep to, ended up finding them way too enjoyable to fall asleep to and staying up until 4am watching them. Well done professor!
My wife and I did a driving tour of the UK a few years back and walked along Hadrian's Wall, a fantastic experience. But a little bonus was waiting for us at the tiny hotel we stayed at, in the countryside outside the nearby town of Carlisle. The owner had marked off an odd little section of hallway near the entrance, with a little iron fence surrounding a hole in the floor, lit by a small spotlight. The owner said it was a well dating back to the Romans and whomever had built the house had built right over it, probably to use it as an "indoor" water source. At some point it was covered over and forgotten, and the most recent owner had discovered it during a renovation and turned it into his own in-house tourist attraction.
My family and I recently visited Rome and we spent a few hours one day exploring the Appian Way on rented bikes. It was such a lovely afternoon riding in out in the peaceful countryside visiting the Catacombs di San Sebastiano and many roadside tombs and monuments. Highly recommended!
If you haven't seen it, you might be interested in my video on "The 5 Greatest Roman Buildings Demolished during the Renaissance," which uses quite a few old drawings.
These revealing videos are fantastic. It's refreshing to know there is a scholar highlighting these ancient structures nestled within the modern city expanse. More please.
10:11 thank’s for talking about Santa Costanza, it’s in front of my house and I love to look at it from my window. There are even some catacombs under the church
Hi, very interesting videos. I'm originally from South Italy. Two towns you should visit is Capua and Santa Maria Capua Vetere, which are very close to each other and not far from Naples. Full of Roman ruins. Also another city in the area is Caserta, regional capital, which hots the biggest Royal Palace in the world.
Santa Maria degli Angeli is definitely one of the coolest unappreciated structures in Rome. I was making my way towards the National Museum at the Baths of Diocletian and decided to take a quick detour inside what seemed like a relatively unassuming entrance. Wow, what a spectacular sight to see. I didn't quite realize what I was looking at until I tried to leave out one of the back entrances and saw the massive ruins of the baths were actually part of the same wall to the space I was just inside of. Of course, I had to go back in to take another look at that point. Rome is such a wonderful city with many layers of history.
I lived close to Bearsden (near Glasgow Scotland) and used to enjoy walking in Roman Road because I knew it led to the remains of the Antonine Wall. What I really wanted was to visit Hadrian's Wall in North Tyneside because I saw pictures of it, knew it ran for 80 miles, and it looked beautiful.
Never thought I would be so interested in ancient buildings and civilizations but your videos are all so interesting and wonderful. It’s really mind-boggling how these ancient people could design and construct these magnificent places.
Thanks for the video. I stumbled on sant'urbano while casually walking inside the Caffarella Park in Rome. It just looked like another church in Rome in a state of decay, with a rusty collapsed fence around it a old steel gate blocked by a tree stump. Understanding it's history really made me look at it in a different way.
Thank-you for these videos, having been a visitor to Rome for the past 35years, my favourite Roman building since my very first visit has always been the Basilica of Santa Maria degli Angeli e Martiri and I look forward to seeing your video on this when released. Many thanks.
If at all possible, if this topic could be a regular segment, perhaps once a month (or even more frequent 😬) I would have so much to do and see when in Italy next. Thanks for the great information!
Looking forward to seeing whatever can be published as well as seeing the in depth item on Santa Maria degli angeli. I’m wondering how the floor today is significantly higher than the original building, while the columns supporting the roof are fully visible. Perhaps they stood on high pedestals originally.
@@rickb3078 The floor was filled in because it was prone to flooding (not surprising, since the level of the surrounding streets had risen considerably). The real column bases are buried; the ones visible now were added during the Renaissance conversion.
The passion of people to build on that scale. No cost cutting. Everything is about the dollar today. When you walk into one of those Roman buildings and look up, its so humbling. You have to stand in the middle and just look around you --and blow your mind.
I lived in Rome for over three years and most living there have no idea of the history they walk in every day. It truly is wonderful. I also was able to experience Greece’s treasures and Petra. In Canada our cement isn’t even cured.
He doesn’t look Roman at all, most Romans spoke fast because of the fewer syllables in Latin. This guy on the other hand sounds like a Natural English speaker, I hope he has the Vowels and Syllables right of either French, Spanish, or Italian or he might just sound incredibly funny to Ancient Roman or Modern Latin Speaker when speaking Latin.
Excellent commentary...per usual. 🌿🏛🌿 just fascinating, the pull of the ancient world is laughing and living right along with us. A true reconstituted Memory
it is so sad to see only shadows of some of the greatest works of architecture of Ancient Rome. I hope you can do a video of Palestrina and how it would have looked at its best. I saw sketchings of that and Pergamum that were made during the late 19th and early 20th century and they looked magnificent
Great sequel. When the book is ready, I'll buy it for sure, as I plan to travel to Italy again as soon as pandemic requirements settle. Though I'm not too fond of Rome, I like visiting Naples, Florence, Venice or Sesto Calente near the French border, and anything in between.
I know very well most of those places you have mentioned! That church you mentioned that is in Via Appia but it was closed the last time I visited but somehow it is typical of Rome to let many of the precious temples and monuments closed and badly kept by sheer indifference and sloppiness. But you have have barely mentioned Terracina because it is a very interesting town where the Roman forum was and still has Bizantine walls which you can still walk on it, a late Roman gate and a suspected Longobard "Palace" among other things! I think it is one of the most underrated town together with Fondi going to Formia..
Yes, there is so much more to say about Terracina (I've only been there once, but I was very impressed). Every time I make one of these videos, time constraints force me to pass by many wonderful places. Hopefully, I'll be able to say more in future videos.
Thanks for your guiding and showing also vVia Appia and Constantins mosaics and ending your tour in ancient Rome with Santa Maria Angelis chathedrale as I remeber having seen.
So interesting; thanks for sharing. And thanks for not accompanying your video with music and for not talking non-stop so we can absorb fully all the great information you have included.
I absolutely love your videos. I’m going to go through your books as I am Sure they are as interesting As your videos are. Great job. Lots of information for people who love the Roman culture. Thank you for what you do. You’re 🤩
Thanks for these videos. Had to watch them again as I plan my week in Rome in May. It will be my third trip to Rome and I want to see some of the less visited sites.
It's just remarkable how these things survive so long, and in constant use. It's hard to put in to words how it makes me feel but I would say awe is pretty close. The baths of Diocletian must have been spectacular when intact. The Las Vegas of the ancient world!
Thank you for making these videos, I am really enjoying them. I see absolutely no reason why your channel can't get as big as Mark Felton. He does similarly styled videos on WW2. I have liked, subscribed, and I am really looking forward to future segments. Keep up the great work!
Man... The "cool and placid lakes of Nemi and Albano" are... volcanos! 😉 They're no more active, but the deep and dark lakes remaining in the "calderas" are something scaring, I can assure you...😉 It's not so sure to swim or navigate there, cause the streams can tear you down.
Lovely video. I got married in Santa Costanza, it's a perfect church for small marriages because the bride and bridegroom can see all the guests around them while the altar is in the center.
Thank you for this great tour. When one visits Rome it is so difficult to see it ‘all’. These I missed, so I’m very appreciative of your knowledge and guidance.👍
If I were ever to visit these places, I'd be standing there staring yet. Roman architecture, even at its most utilitarian, is the most fascinating the world has ever known. :)
I've never lived in Italy but I did for a while in Malta and those super narrow streets - as in the ones you've shown here - at first fascinated me. I took a flat in Mdina - the ancient city in the middle of the island - and I thought, how enchanting this 11th century alley is! No room for cars to roar by below much less park. Well, after a month I moved to a high rise in Sliema. Hearing everything your neighbours are doing, including things you wish you didn't know they were doing, smelling everything they were cooking and (something that didn't trouble the Romans I imagine) those evenings sitting watching TV in your living room and suddenly having the channels start changing as a neighbour across the four foot way begins channel surfing.
I always think of the complaints we read in authors like Seneca and Martial about the inconveniences of high-rise living in ancient Rome, whose streets seem to have looked more than a little like those in old Naples. When I was an undergraduate, I spent a semester in Rome's Trastevere neighborhood, on another canyon-like street. The quaintness wore off pretty quickly...
@@toldinstone I can't remember whether it was Seneca or someone else who lived above a bath house and was driven to distraction by the shrieks of men having their bodies depilated! So much for Roman stoicism. Jacques Cousteau once referred to our 'shrill human rookeries' and that stuck in my mind.
@@cerberus6654 That was Seneca - it's one of those passages that every teacher of Roman social history loves to use in class. I like that - "shrill human rookeries" (and now I'm hearing the phrase in Cousteau's accent).
@@toldinstone I was pretty sure it was Seneca. I never studied history per se - just my own reading. I have a BFA, so a few History of Art classes, yes, but not much more. Although they stopped teaching Latin before I hit high school as I speak French and Spanish and can read Italian I can more or less read Latin, up to a point. In my third year History of Art class I remember the professor putting up a slide of some crude fresco of Satan that's in an early Romanesque church somewhere and the superscription included the word 'penis'. He made a coy joke about it that set everyone off in gales of laughter but I put up my hand and said, "Well, in Latin it means 'tail' - 'member virilis' is the male organ." My marks from him suffered for that!
KUDOS! I'm Italian and a Roman, born and bred... it's the first time I find such an accurate descriptions of those monuments. THANK YOU ❤
You’re very welcome!
The last one is amazing and unbelievably awesome, like the Pantheon. So often we see drawings of ancient Roman buildings, but to see the actual building with almost all its glitter and color and original glamour right in front of out faces, brings home exactly how truly great (even by today's standards) these buildings were and continue to be, thousands of years after their construction. Those monuments of beauty, truly were built for the ages!!
Santa Maria degli Angeli deserves to be as well known as the Pantheon and the Baths of Caracalla.
@@toldinstone Hi Gareth, I'd like to ask how much is from the roman period inside Santa Maria? Is it just the columns or the red marble panels as well?
In the states, something two hundred years old is ancient, but in Rome, two hundred years is new! Amazing architecture!
No, 200 years old buildings aren't considered new, they are considered prestige buildings, considering how architecture went to shit from the 1960's onward.
In Europe, something that is 2000 years old is considered ancient. Something that is 1000 years old is considered old
my hometown of ~3000 people in Finland turned 450 years old a couple of years back...
@@viggo1149 a little older than my town but not much. New York turned 400 years old in 2009 or 2013 depending on which story you go with.
I've never seen anyone claiming something two hundred years old being ancient in the states.
What's your source for this ?
The previous video was fascinating and this one continues the same excellent theme
My grandmother is from Formia, just north of Naples, and lived down the street from a Roman amphitheater that was transformed into apartments throughout the centuries; there are also ancient stone walls and arches that she’d hide under with her family during the German and Allied raids during WWII. The apartments are still there and still inhabited, too! It’s called Teatro Romano di Formia a Castellone.
Thank you. I've never visited Formia, but I just did some quick Googling on the theater. Those are some impressive ruins.
Thanks for the info!
@@toldinstone Can you please kindly do a video on the "Temple of Manly Virtue" AKA Portunus (formerly known as Fortuna Virilis)?? This is one that holds many significant secrets. www.atlasobscura.com/places/temple-of-portunus
@@victoriamarie35 Thank you! I have some good pictures of that temple from my last trip to Rome. I'll put it on the list.
@@toldinstone Thank you Sir! I will def look forward.
Please do a video of the Roman ruins in Trier, Germany. This is where I fell in LOVE with Roman history as a young child. I lived near Trier between the ages of 4 and 8 because my father was US Air Force. We always went there.
I hope to do a video on Trier...stay tuned!
@@toldinstone IWILL!!!!!! I can not wait.
@Frank Thinnes Same with me!!!! My father would tell me stories of the Imperial Roman Armies and the fights and "throwing" Christians to the lions in the Roman amphitheater. I wanted to become an archeologist but I never did. BUT I did study history in college. I focused on early modern English and Colonial USA history, Roman and Greek architecture. I LOVED history so much that I became a history teacher in a Chicago high school. I can remember living in Germany but I was young and I lived there from 1952 to 1956. I also have very fond memories of Germany.
@@jilledmondson6894 Wow you must have a vast knowledge of history, being in Germany just after ww2, studying the birth of the USA, and now ancient Rome and Greece. That's incredible, I hope to gain as much experience and knowledge as you have. I am drawn to both ww2 history and ancient roman/greek/persian stories/ruins as well!
There is lots to explore in Trier (Augusta Treverorum)!
Churches are impressive, e.g. underground tours in St. Maximin, Trier Cathedral. In St. Matthias is the grave of Apostle Matthew.
A guided tour in Germanys oldest wine cellar with wine tasting at "Stiftungsweingut Vereinigte Hospitien" is very interesting and tasty!
Cheers!
The last one is simply spectacular.
No other words needed.
It's one of my favorite buildings anywhere
@@toldinstone have archaeologists done any excavation between the modern floor and the roman one? and do you know if it's a hollow space (supported by columns maybe?) or if it's totally filled in?
Always been fascinated by thid building, and eagerly looking forwars to a full tour :)
@@rblossey The Roman floor (which was apparently prone to flooding) was simply covered with dirt. To the best of my knowledge, the floor of the Renaissance church has never been taken up for excavation.
Glad to hear it - I look forward to making that video!
@@toldinstone The original Egyptian granite collumns in the interior still seem to be sitting atop their original column bases, which appears at the modern ground level. How do they work with the original Roman floors of the bath beneath?
@@My-nl6sg Those bases are Renaissance copies. The real bases are on the original floor, two meters or so underground.
Grazie mille. One of my favorite memories of Roma is walking the Appian Way at twilight with all the ghosts. Personal note: Your voice is calming and easy to listen to.
I've always wanted to walk the section beyond the Tomb of Caecilia Metella at dusk. The closest I managed was a long walk in the rain a few years ago.
Glad you enjoyed the narration !
Imagine going out for a hike in the woods and coming across an almost intact roman ruin
Welcome to southern europe and france.
And england
@@Neilos-sd6ti can't relate, I live in the americas. Most of the buildings you come across aren't that old.
@@kayharker712 I'm from Montreal and in the 50's (or maybe the 40's) the mayor had two little round Roman temples built in Atwater Square - urinals they were - but in Roman lettering around the domes of each it read VESPANIENNE - after Vespasian, a great builder of public comfort stations I gather.
@@kayharker712 The temples at Stowe are not Roman, though, except in style. They were built in the 18th century.
When you hear from a PHD there are literally thousands I immediately think there's 10,000+ partially completed buildings being used. Love your work keep it up
There's a complete Saxon church where I live (Bradford on Avon, Wiltshire, UK ) that was unknown as such, and was used for various purposes for many hundreds of years. It's origins were only realised in the 20th century. It had been subsumed by additions over the years. It's now returned to pretty much it's original condition. It's very Roman in appearance.
There must be many more bits of architectural history that we pass unknowingly every day.
Thanks.
You're very welcome. History really is hidden everywhere.
I'm roman, and I find your videos very interesting and informative. Grazie but better still: Gratias maximas!
I'm very glad to hear it. Prego, et libenter
12:55 When I saw the grandeur of the baths of Diocletian I had goosebumps ! It would be great to visit them when they were intact.
My jaw dropped when I saw it, if I could go back in time and visit just one place that would be it
These videos are really interesting. Roman buildings that are still in use are is a fascinating subject, but it's quite hard to search for (if you google you usually just get a bunch of generic lists with same structures such as the Pantheon, tower of hercules, some bridges etc). So it's great that someone like you can shine a light on the more obscure stuff.
Thank you! I try to focus on topics that aren't often covered (especially on UA-cam).
Great video, thanks! It's worth noting that the modern floor level of Santa Maria degli Angeli, which you noted is higher than the ancient level, required that the Egyptian granite columns have artificial bases "collared" around them to make them look like they stop at the modern floor level; but they actually go below it... which explains that visibly disproportionate "fatness" of those columns. Looking forward to your video on that church!
You're very welcome! (And you're right, of course, about those columns.) Hopefully, you won't have to wait long for that full-length video...
@@toldinstone What type of ship was used to transport the Egyptian granite?
@@RinoRemover a big one
Your videos make me want to visit Italy again. I've only been once, about 14 years ago, but those were among the most memorable two weeks of my life. I want to see Rome again, and Venice. I want to go to the Amalfi Coast, Capri, Pompeii. I want to visit Cinque Terre. I've become a fan of the UK's most famous gardener, Monty Don, and he has whole 1-hour videos on the Gardens of Italy. According to his professional experience, the most beautiful garden in the world is in Italy, between Naples and Rome. It's called the garden at Ninfa. I want to see all of these beautiful gardens. You, sir, are biting me with the travel bug again...
Making these videos has me wanting to return myself...
I visited Santa Maria de la Angeli on the one occasion that I visited Rome. As described, from the outside it looks like nothing, a rather insignificant old ruin, walking inside it is magnificent. In one of the photos shown here... my son was marveling at the beautiful bluish/green columns thinking they were actual columns, I said "Brian, that's a painting"...his eyes went wide.
Really this is true and inescapable of all of Italy, the architecture and artwork is simply magnificent.
Thank you so much, Garrett! These videos are basically like crack to me. Currently writing a book featuring Domitian and so I have taken a few lengthy visits of Rome and environs in the past few years, having had the pleasure of visiting some of the sites.
For those going to Napoli, I highly recommend a tour of the underground (Napoli Sottorenea). At the conclusion of that tour, they take you inside the neighboring above ground buildings that include vestiges of the great theatre featured in this video.
A visit into Santa Maria degli Angeli, within a portion of the Baths of Diocletian was revelatory. You really do get that sense of lost grandeur and there are many extraordinary details worth the visit alone. The coolest thing is a Renaissance era meridian line inlaid in the marble floor. A pin prick hole in the high corner of the church channels a thin shaft of sunlight that crosses the meridian at noon. Noon at the time was not fixed to GMT but to the midpoint of sunrise and sunset. Thus we were able to calculate the midpoint for that particular day and, lo and behold, to the minute, the beam crossed in the appropriate place. Amazing.
You're very welcome! I did one of the tours during my very first visit to Naples, and proceeded to lose all of the pictures I took during a hard drive crash.
@@toldinstone backups
I love how you often use the etching prints of Giovanni Battista Piranesi for the descriptions of the ancient status of the monuments. I use to collect original Piranesi prints from 1700, he was a genius in graphics and one of the first "modern" archeologist.
I’ve always been a fan of Piranesi’s prints. No artist has better captured the grandeur and mystery of Roman ruins.
OMG, I passed the Baths of Diocletian all the time when I was in Rome--they're really closed to the train station and my hotel was near the train station. Damn. I should've gone INSIDE the entrance. I saw the entrance of Santa Maria degli Angeli all the time. I just figured it was some weird, modern church with a modern interior I did not come to Rome to see (i.e. they kept the plain brick interiors for the church, like at the Baths of Caracalla and some such). I was not aware that it still had the interiors of an actual Roman bath. Damn...
Picked these videos out to try to fall asleep to, ended up finding them way too enjoyable to fall asleep to and staying up until 4am watching them. Well done professor!
My wife and I did a driving tour of the UK a few years back and walked along Hadrian's Wall, a fantastic experience. But a little bonus was waiting for us at the tiny hotel we stayed at, in the countryside outside the nearby town of Carlisle. The owner had marked off an odd little section of hallway near the entrance, with a little iron fence surrounding a hole in the floor, lit by a small spotlight. The owner said it was a well dating back to the Romans and whomever had built the house had built right over it, probably to use it as an "indoor" water source. At some point it was covered over and forgotten, and the most recent owner had discovered it during a renovation and turned it into his own in-house tourist attraction.
Every time you post one of these vids I just want to pack my suitcase and go. Been to Rome just 3 times, feel like I've barely scratched the surface.
I learn something new about the city every time I make one of these videos.
@@OKuusava Exactly what I said when I was there. Hope to return there soon....
My family and I recently visited Rome and we spent a few hours one day exploring the Appian Way on rented bikes. It was such a lovely afternoon riding in out in the peaceful countryside visiting the Catacombs di San Sebastiano and many roadside tombs and monuments. Highly recommended!
I like to see these old drawings from the renaissance period of how the ruins looked like then. Would be cool a video on these drawings
If you haven't seen it, you might be interested in my video on "The 5 Greatest Roman Buildings Demolished during the Renaissance," which uses quite a few old drawings.
@@toldinstone i loved that video
These revealing videos are fantastic. It's refreshing to know there is a scholar highlighting these ancient structures nestled within the modern city expanse. More please.
Very glad you enjoyed the videos! I plan to make more.
10:11 thank’s for talking about Santa Costanza, it’s in front of my house and I love to look at it from my window.
There are even some catacombs under the church
You're very welcome
Very neat
Ooooh sppooooooky!
Ill be in Rome and Naples in October 2021. Cant wait. Want to try to find some of these. Thanks
You're very welcome!
So amazing!
Hi, very interesting videos. I'm originally from South Italy. Two towns you should visit is Capua and Santa Maria Capua Vetere, which are very close to each other and not far from Naples. Full of Roman ruins. Also another city in the area is Caserta, regional capital, which hots the biggest Royal Palace in the world.
Thank you!
I love these videos! Keep up the amazing work!
Thank you!
Santa Maria degli Angeli is definitely one of the coolest unappreciated structures in Rome. I was making my way towards the National Museum at the Baths of Diocletian and decided to take a quick detour inside what seemed like a relatively unassuming entrance. Wow, what a spectacular sight to see. I didn't quite realize what I was looking at until I tried to leave out one of the back entrances and saw the massive ruins of the baths were actually part of the same wall to the space I was just inside of. Of course, I had to go back in to take another look at that point. Rome is such a wonderful city with many layers of history.
This channel needs to go viral so that you have the funds to visit all these sites and make your fabulous videos I’m sharing this
I couldn't agree more...
Thank you!
I lived close to Bearsden (near Glasgow Scotland) and used to enjoy walking in Roman Road because I knew it led to the remains of the Antonine Wall.
What I really wanted was to visit Hadrian's Wall in North Tyneside because I saw pictures of it, knew it ran for 80 miles, and it looked beautiful.
Your videos are a nice reprieve from studying for finals, I’m studying nursing but I love ancient civilizations too
Delighted to hear it! Don't let me distract you from your finals, though...
Thanks! Just a slight distraction from anatomy is all I need 😂
Never thought I would be so interested in ancient buildings and civilizations but your videos are all so interesting and wonderful. It’s really mind-boggling how these ancient people could design and construct these magnificent places.
Thank you! It never ceases to amaze me
Thanks for the video. I stumbled on sant'urbano while casually walking inside the Caffarella Park in Rome. It just looked like another church in Rome in a state of decay, with a rusty collapsed fence around it a old steel gate blocked by a tree stump. Understanding it's history really made me look at it in a different way.
My pleasure. Yes, until you see those columns embedded in the façade, it just looks like another medieval building.
Thank-you for these videos, having been a visitor to Rome for the past 35years, my favourite Roman building since my very first visit has always been the Basilica of Santa Maria degli Angeli e Martiri and I look forward to seeing your video on this when released. Many thanks.
You’re very welcome
Just received your book. Looking forward to reading it.
Thank you for the “Armchair Travelogues of Ancient Rome” so good.
😊
If at all possible, if this topic could be a regular segment, perhaps once a month (or even more frequent 😬) I would have so much to do and see when in Italy next. Thanks for the great information!
You're very welcome!
I do hope to do more of these, though I worry about burning through my stock of "hidden buildings" too quickly.
Looking forward to seeing whatever can be published as well as seeing the in depth item on Santa Maria degli angeli. I’m wondering how the floor today is significantly higher than the original building, while the columns supporting the roof are fully visible. Perhaps they stood on high pedestals originally.
@@rickb3078 The floor was filled in because it was prone to flooding (not surprising, since the level of the surrounding streets had risen considerably). The real column bases are buried; the ones visible now were added during the Renaissance conversion.
@@rickb3078 k
Clear. That makes a lot of sense.
The passion of people to build on that scale. No cost cutting. Everything is about the dollar today. When you walk into one of those Roman buildings and look up, its so humbling. You have to stand in the middle and just look around you --and blow your mind.
Woohoo, another hidden buildings video already! I wish all my wishes came true this quickly.
Well, I do what I can...
while you're on your good luck streak, could you also wish for a full, swift excavation of the Villa Of The Papyri? ;)
@@rblossey tell me moreeeee
I hope in due course you will be able to add Roman theatres, aqueducts and surviving Roman baths. Thoroughly enjoyed what I have seen so far.
I think you'll enjoy my next video. Stay tuned!
Santa Maria degli Angelo ….. I Remember this very vividly. Thank you for this amazing program!
The Santa Casanta looks exactly like the "Basilika" in my home town Trier in Germany. Same building style/window size etc
A glimpse into a grand world. Nice work!
Glad you enjoyed it!
“Hi, I’m the told in stone guy” - best intro thus far, you should keep it
stone cold truth
Told In Stone Guy is his legal name from birth; it's just a coincidence for his occupation.
(joke)
I can’t wait for you to do an actual virtual tour where you find other hidden gems in Rome! Awesome video!
Glad you enjoyed it! I can't wait either.
Not a virtual tour but a real tour that would be really cool
@@adornjewellers I hope to visit Rome this summer and do a few "on location" videos.
I lived in Rome for over three years and most living there have no idea of the history they walk in every day. It truly is wonderful. I also was able to experience Greece’s treasures and Petra. In Canada our cement isn’t even cured.
Lovely video and I'm in love with your laid back way of teaching and informing us about history. Never stop making content pleaseeee
Keep up the great work. 🤙🏻
Thank you!
I found your channel, within 48 hours I'd watched everything you've made. Fascinating stuff, won't miss a video.
I wish I had more viewers with your dedication. Thank you very much!
He looks roman :) and very well-spoken. Love his articulate voice - most people talk too fast and don’t enunciate clearly.
He doesn’t look Roman at all, most Romans spoke fast because of the fewer syllables in Latin. This guy on the other hand sounds like a Natural English speaker, I hope he has the Vowels and Syllables right of either French, Spanish, or Italian or he might just sound incredibly funny to Ancient Roman or Modern Latin Speaker when speaking Latin.
@@spacemanapeinc7202 I was just trying to be nice 😂
@@feywerfolevado6286 I guess I sounded to aggressive 😆
@@spacemanapeinc7202 Hahaha no worries xD
Excellent commentary...per usual. 🌿🏛🌿 just fascinating, the pull of the ancient world is laughing and living right along with us. A true reconstituted Memory
Thank you. I like that..."laughing and living right along with us"
Fantastic... I had no idea so many things remained hidden everywhere... Thank you for these wonderful videos!
You're very welcome!
it is so sad to see only shadows of some of the greatest works of architecture of Ancient Rome. I hope you can do a video of Palestrina and how it would have looked at its best. I saw sketchings of that and Pergamum that were made during the late 19th and early 20th century and they looked magnificent
Thank you for exposing me to the bathes of Diocletian - that was impressive. Those columns of Egyptian marble. A step back in time.
Thank you for the always informative videos.
Thank you for the tour!
Great sequel. When the book is ready, I'll buy it for sure, as I plan to travel to Italy again as soon as pandemic requirements settle. Though I'm not too fond of Rome, I like visiting Naples, Florence, Venice or Sesto Calente near the French border, and anything in between.
Thank you!
Wow, just wow. It makes me wonder what other architectural wonders from the ancient world BEFORE Rome are lost forever to time.
I am so excited to have found this channel! You are such an incredible teacher:)
I'm very glad to hear it! Thank you
I find your videos fascinating, I can’t wait to see more... and to visit Italy again!
Thank you - I can't wait to get back to Italy myself!
I know very well most of those places you have mentioned! That church you mentioned that is in Via Appia but it was closed the last time I visited but somehow it is typical of Rome to let many of the precious temples and monuments closed and badly kept by sheer indifference and sloppiness. But you have have barely mentioned Terracina because it is a very interesting town where the Roman forum was and still has Bizantine walls which you can still walk on it, a late Roman gate and a suspected Longobard "Palace" among other things! I think it is one of the most underrated town together with Fondi going to Formia..
Yes, there is so much more to say about Terracina (I've only been there once, but I was very impressed). Every time I make one of these videos, time constraints force me to pass by many wonderful places. Hopefully, I'll be able to say more in future videos.
Thank you for posting this video very enjoyable I am a big fan
Thanks for your guiding and showing also vVia Appia and Constantins mosaics and ending your tour in ancient Rome with Santa Maria Angelis chathedrale as I remeber having seen.
You're welcome
So interesting; thanks for sharing. And thanks for not accompanying your video with music and for not talking non-stop so we can absorb fully all the great information you have included.
You're very welcome
I absolutely love your videos. I’m going to go through your books as I am Sure they are as interesting As your videos are. Great job. Lots of information for people who love the Roman culture. Thank you for what you do. You’re 🤩
Thank you! That's very kind of you to say.
You Garrett Ryan are a rare gem! As is your channel toldinstone. Thank you for this fascinating video. I am subscribed
Thank you, and welcome aboard!
Found your channel about a week ago and haven't stopped watching. Great content, thank you!
You're very welcome!
Thanks for these videos. Had to watch them again as I plan my week in Rome in May. It will be my third trip to Rome and I want to see some of the less visited sites.
Always enjoy your videos. Thanks.
I was in the Via Appia many years ago, hope to go back soon and visit some beautiful parks/ villa. TY for your videos!
You’re very welcome!
It's just remarkable how these things survive so long, and in constant use. It's hard to put in to words how it makes me feel but I would say awe is pretty close. The baths of Diocletian must have been spectacular when intact. The Las Vegas of the ancient world!
New to your channel,love your username. Beautiful work!
Marvellous. Thank you. Today I was in a second hand bookshop and acquired 'Roman Italy' by T.W. Potter.
You're very welcome. I think you'll enjoy that book.
Wonderful video. Your descriptive narrative is first rate. Thank you!
You’re very welcome!
Bravo, this was really well done. I love these old building and Rome is a fabulous place.
Very glad you enjoyed the video!
THANKS FOR YOUR EFFORT .
MUCH APPRECIATED .
STAY WELL
:)
You're very welcome!
Brilliant video, sir. Many many thanks! 😎👍🏻😎👍🏻
Thank you for making these videos, I am really enjoying them. I see absolutely no reason why your channel can't get as big as Mark Felton. He does similarly styled videos on WW2. I have liked, subscribed, and I am really looking forward to future segments. Keep up the great work!
You're very welcome. Thanks for liking and subscribing - and I'll cross my fingers about the channel's future!
Lovely tour !! Nice narration.
Man... The "cool and placid lakes of Nemi and Albano" are... volcanos! 😉
They're no more active, but the deep and dark lakes remaining in the "calderas" are something scaring, I can assure you...😉 It's not so sure to swim or navigate there, cause the streams can tear you down.
Your work is impressive. I have followed it closely, and appreciate it a lot.
Swam in that lake once. It's beautifully clear and feels soooo deep. It acts like a big lens, so the fish in the depths look impossibly huge.
Excellent video! I have been to Rome twice. There is so much to see there.
Lovely video. I got married in Santa Costanza, it's a perfect church for small marriages because the bride and bridegroom can see all the guests around them while the altar is in the center.
Glad you enjoyed it! I imagine Santa Costanza would be a lovely church for a wedding.
Thank you for this great tour. When one visits Rome it is so difficult to see it ‘all’. These I missed, so I’m very appreciative of your knowledge and guidance.👍
You're very welcome
You have such a pleasant voice! I would listen to any audiobook featuring you- regardless of topic
Delighted to hear it! Unfortunately, however, someone else is narrating the audio version of my book.
Seeing the majesty of some of these ruins, I can understand why the Romans felt that they were superior to their Celtic and Germanic neighbours
Everyone feels superior to the people next door lol. But I think these kinds of buildings would have been somewhat rare.
this is an awesome channel
Glad to hear it!
This is very high quality content, thanks for making it available.
My pleasure!
Thanks for uploading.
Enjoyed very much.🥀
I'm very glad to hear it
If I were ever to visit these places, I'd be standing there staring yet. Roman architecture, even at its most utilitarian, is the most fascinating the world has ever known. :)
The 2 best hidden Roman buildings are the Aula Palatina and Porta Nigra. Both are huge and in excellent shape....
Those are both wonderful buildings. I hope to do a video on Trier someday.
What a most interesting topic, I would have never thought to do a report on that
I've never lived in Italy but I did for a while in Malta and those super narrow streets - as in the ones you've shown here - at first fascinated me. I took a flat in Mdina - the ancient city in the middle of the island - and I thought, how enchanting this 11th century alley is! No room for cars to roar by below much less park. Well, after a month I moved to a high rise in Sliema. Hearing everything your neighbours are doing, including things you wish you didn't know they were doing, smelling everything they were cooking and (something that didn't trouble the Romans I imagine) those evenings sitting watching TV in your living room and suddenly having the channels start changing as a neighbour across the four foot way begins channel surfing.
I always think of the complaints we read in authors like Seneca and Martial about the inconveniences of high-rise living in ancient Rome, whose streets seem to have looked more than a little like those in old Naples. When I was an undergraduate, I spent a semester in Rome's Trastevere neighborhood, on another canyon-like street. The quaintness wore off pretty quickly...
@@toldinstone I can't remember whether it was Seneca or someone else who lived above a bath house and was driven to distraction by the shrieks of men having their bodies depilated! So much for Roman stoicism. Jacques Cousteau once referred to our 'shrill human rookeries' and that stuck in my mind.
@@cerberus6654 That was Seneca - it's one of those passages that every teacher of Roman social history loves to use in class.
I like that - "shrill human rookeries" (and now I'm hearing the phrase in Cousteau's accent).
@@toldinstone I was pretty sure it was Seneca. I never studied history per se - just my own reading. I have a BFA, so a few History of Art classes, yes, but not much more. Although they stopped teaching Latin before I hit high school as I speak French and Spanish and can read Italian I can more or less read Latin, up to a point. In my third year History of Art class I remember the professor putting up a slide of some crude fresco of Satan that's in an early Romanesque church somewhere and the superscription included the word 'penis'. He made a coy joke about it that set everyone off in gales of laughter but I put up my hand and said, "Well, in Latin it means 'tail' - 'member virilis' is the male organ." My marks from him suffered for that!
Thanks again for a great tour.
Interesting buildings .. And today we can see Roman architectural influences everywhere ...
Wonderful videos !! Ty!🍎