Archive for 'History'

If you’re a tourist with a passion for history then a visit to Palatine hill, one of the seven ancient hills of Rome is a must see attraction!

From the summit of Palatine hill, you can look down upon a rectangular plaza framed by ancient government buildings which once made up the original city centre. It’s called Forum Romanum and was a busy marketplace and venue for speeches, criminal trials and even gladiator fights!

Book a villa in Latium where you and your family can stay after days of exploring Rome and all its ancient gems!

Andrea Palladio was born in 1508 in Padua, then was part of the island filled lagoon of Venice. Stay in a lovely holiday villa in Veneto where you can easily visit the birthplace of this genius!

From a young age he worked as a stonecutter’s apprentice and then an assistant of a stonecutting workshop in Vicenza until he was thirty years old. This early experience with understanding how stone can be wielded and shaped played a major role in Palladio’s later career.

His life changed dramatically when he was employed by a poet and scholar called Gian Giorgio Trissino to help redesign and reconstruct the Villa Cricoli.

Born in 1678 in Venice, Antonio Lucio Vivaldi went on to become one of the world’s greatest Baroque composers. Before his classical music career he was actually a priest, ordained in 1703!

Vivaldi left the priesthood several years later because of physical ailments according to him. Stay in a beautiful villa rental in Veneto where you can easily explore where Vivaldi was born and raised.

Some speculate that he only pursued the life of a priest to obtain a free education which was the only option for poor families at the time.

Continuing on from our introductory article on the gods of ancient Rome, here are some more familiar faces that you may already know a little about!

Pluto was god of the underworld and another brother of Jupiter’s. He was a gloomy fellow, jealous of his siblings who had a better life of it high up in the clouds!

Mars was a son of Jupiter and god of war. He wasn’t that popular with the other gods as he was extremely vain and quite cruel. The only other deity that liked him was Venus, goddess wife of Vulcan.

The civilisation of ancient Rome was a major believer in higher powers. They had gods and goddesses for almost anything imaginable! There were gods of war, sea, love, and wisdom for example and each one would be specifically prayed to for a corresponding crisis or wish in that area.

There were hundreds of Roman gods, many of which transcended into being through influences of Greek and Latin civilisations. In many cases, each of these cultures had equivalent gods for different purposes.

For example the Greek god, Zeus was the god of gods and was the equivalent of the Roman god Jupiter. Hades was the Greek ruler of the underworld, very similar to Pluto the Roman version.