Your friendly reminder that the 1960 Olympic Graeco-Roman wrestling was held in the Basilica of Maxentius.

On what is clearly the first proper day of the year my (free) monthly newsletter has lots of photos of recently completed projects across the centre of town as Rome’s Jubilee year begins understandingrome.substack.com/p/januarys-pos…

My latest newsletter is about this photo: glancing light, pharoahs, emperors, and a footballer understandingrome.substack.com/p/some-of-my-f…

Twenty-five years ago today I moved to Rome for, perhaps I thought, six months. This is about that (no paywall) understandingrome.substack.com/p/a-quarter-of…

A putto waterskiing on a crab features in my latest (free) newsletter. It’s about two houses at Pompeii, old money discretion versus new money bling. You can guess which is the more fun. understandingrome.substack.com/p/februarys-po…

Five years ago, and for one week only, the tapestries Raphael designed for the Sistine Chapel were hung there for the first time in four centuries. On an after-hours visit I had permission to take photographs. There are lots of them here. understandingrome.substack.com/p/raphaels-tap…

March's (free) monthly newsletter: a couple of thoughts on Neorealist cinema, and info on a Roman Cinema themed jaunt with Rachel Roddy in May understandingrome.substack.com/p/marchs-postc…

Number 2 Gower Street, Bloomsbury, is now graced with 2 Blue Plaques - one for Millicent Fawcett and now one for her sister, Agnes, and cousin, Rhoda. Heroines. womanandhersphere.com/2025/03/11/ano…

English Heritage Delighted to see a Blue Plaque for Agnes and Rhoda Garrett the first women to run a professional interior design business. You can hear about them in our talk last month as part of our current online lecture series: bit.ly/4jHdNsj

I looked at Facebook for the first time in a while, Newsfeed is a very 1984 kind of word isn't it?

Sguardi senza tempo: the extraordinary, moving, immediate, human beauty of glances that pierce four centuries in an instant. I dropped in on the new Caravaggio show at Palazzo Barberini. It is, of course, excellent. Substack post incoming for subscribers in the next few days.

"Stunningly and unexpected," writes the Chicago Sun-Times about this new Chicago exhibition at The Art Institute of Chicago co-organized with Rome-based Torlonia Foundation. It is the first time works from the private holding are being shown in North America.

Some thoughts on the major exhibitions on in Rome this spring. Caravaggio and Dalì just for starters. understandingrome.substack.com/p/spring-exhib…

Here's today's Roman blue sky to say I'm now starting anew at the other place. Come and say hi! bsky.app/profile/unders…