Santa Maria del Priorato

With the help of the ever-effective Giulia Barra, a group of 25 of us made our way on Tuesday morning through to the other side of the infamous keyhole of the Knights of Malta, to visit one of Piranesi's only built works, a major renovation of the church inside the Knights of Malta complex on the Aventine, which he completed between 1764 and 1766.

                          

I couldn't help but drop into one of the most beautiful early churches in Rome, Santa Sabina, which dates to the 5th century and was brought back, in many of its elements, to its early form by Antonio Muñoz in the 1930s.

We were treated to a wonderful tour by Maya Maskarinec, a fellow at the Academy and an expert on this period.   She showed us a painting which had just been uncovered in 2010.  It was unclear the date of the painting...until they pulled away some of the bricks on a later supporting arch to reveal the right side of the painting -- and an 8th century date.

We also stopped by the adjacent park to catch the view to St. Peter's, framed by orange trees -- here are the remains of those picked by passersby.

And as we left, we passed by the ruins of a poster on a nearby wall, which made me think of the work of my old friend Mark Woods, a brilliant photographer in New York.