pumpkinstrokemarrow

This morning, another day for a clockwise stroll around the Horton Lane circuit, standard version without additions or subtractions. Beautiful bright morning with lots of twittering, but with the only tweet being a flock of starlings at the top of a rather knackered oak tree. Just as well I went out early as now rather overcast. The only other item of note on the stroll was the downfall of a bevy of lycra loonies coming around a roundabout. No vehicles in sight, but the third bike must have taken the thing too fast - or perhaps skidded while leaning into the curve on some loose stones - and took a tumble, with the fourth bike taking a tumble when he braked sharply to avoid the third. Third cyclist slightly battered, fourth cyclist OK. But they did not pass me as I went forward, so perhaps either the third cycle or the third cyclist was a bit shaken up. I have been surprised before how much damage a fairly innocent looking tumble can cause a racing bike, although I had not noticed any on this occasion.

Back home, I have been dipping into Visser on Sant'Agnese fuori le Mura in Rome again. It seems that the early Christians were just as much into column envy as the pagans of their day. That is to say they were really keen on their buildings having the best columns that they could afford, which meant, in this case, recycling rather fine columns from some pagan building into a Christian one. The more leisured members of the congregation could then sit about after mass discussing the finer points of their columns: the stone, the finish, the fluting, the capitals. Perhaps even the provenance.

Furthermore, at one point, the prize objects in this church were five marble lamp holders. Elaborate Greek flavoured affairs, with animals frolicking at the base morphing into vegetables climbing up the column which supported a basin for the oil for the lamp at the top. Four of them were pinched by some pope or other for one of his projects at some point and just the fifth remains, reworked to take the sanctuary lamp.

Worse still, one of the very important statues of the saint herself has been built around a fragment of another Greek sculpture.

I have found it a bit odd to find an old church in Rome recycling pagan bits and bobs in this way. Not something which arises so much in our own churches. A few bits of stone and tile maybe, but not furniture and fittings.

A little poking around online revealed the postcard above (reference lost. Apologies to the owner), in which I think the four removed candlesticks can be seen standing in recesses behind the main columns. Whacking great things, maybe 10 feet tall. Closer inspection will have to await our visit; a visit which might, the book having been written and the church popularised, involve creeping around in a crowded crocodile to the dulcet tones of some obnoxious tour guide.