Paul CooperVarmennettu tili

The mystery perplexed Deakin, until eventually he came up with a seemingly unlikely solution. Deakin proposed that the plants had been brought as seeds on the fur of animals like lions & giraffes, brought from Africa to perform & fight in the arena.pic.twitter.com/uuddnmK88y

This incredible piece of conjecture is hard to prove, but it shows how flora growing among ruins can form a key part of their story. Deakin opens his volume by calling the plants growing in the arena ‘a link in the memory’ that ‘flourish in triumph upon the ruins’.pic.twitter.com/ZUG5CsPVt5

By the time artists & painters began to turn their interest to the ruins of ancient Rome, the Colosseum had suffered a lot. It had served as a quarry, a fortress, a bull ring & a place of worship. It had been struck by earthquakes 5 times.pic.twitter.com/PhJrgzYF8O

Due to the Christian martyrs once fed to the lions in the arena, it had also been a popular pilgrimage spot for centuries. At the beginning of C18th, the Colosseum was officially consecrated & a hermitage was built on the stands, with stations of the cross around the outside.pic.twitter.com/vG6Ijx5iuC

When the Italian scholar Bracciolini visited in 1430, he mourned over the site of the ruins: “This spectacle of the world, how it is fallen! How changed! How defaced! The path of victory is obliterated by vines”pic.twitter.com/px86n3pSb1

Charles Dickens, in his 1848 Letters From Italy, talks about his impressions on first seeing the Colosseum, & mentions the plantlife there in particular detail, as a natural force reclaiming the site of past glory:pic.twitter.com/7lVDGKAicZ

In 1833, then-unknown Edgar Allen Poe (although he had never visited Italy) published a poem called The Coliseum, with the lines: Here, where the dames of Rome their yellow hair Wav’d to the wind, now wave the reed and thistle Full poem: https://www.eapoe.org/works/poems/colisema.htm …pic.twitter.com/3K6bX1rcKN

All this is to show that the ruins of the Colosseum were once verdant & overflowing with greenery. Plantlife was so abundant there that at certain times, peasants had to pay for permission to collect the hay & herbs that grew among the ruins.pic.twitter.com/VqQhNuJr8z

Deakin observed that the Colosseum formed a perfect microclimate for biodiversity: dry & warm on its south side, cool & damp in the north. Pink dianthus grew down in the galleries, while white anemones grew in the stands during Spring.pic.twitter.com/mmP9w6Vj6l

French painters Francois-Marius Granet (left) & Jean-Antoine Constantin (right), who worked in Rome between 1777 and 1830, painted many pictures of the amphitheatre covered with greenery.pic.twitter.com/nBn5gJ5G4D

François-Marius Granet, Interior View of the Colosseum in Rome (1804) #RuinsInArtpic.twitter.com/gG2Y2Ko33t

William Leighton Leitch (1804 – l 1883) painted the Colosseum as a hanging garden reminiscent of Babylon. Meanwhile Turner’s The Colosseum, Rome, by Moonlight (1819) shows an almost tropical garden growing in the arena’s shadows. #RuinsInArtpic.twitter.com/K8Mvbvxt7v

My favourite paintings of the overgrown Colosseum are by Danish painter Christoffer Wilhelm Eckersberg (1783-1853). He beautifully captures the abundant greenery growing in the Colosseum’s stands, as well as its lost history as a place of Christian worship. #RuinsInArtpic.twitter.com/nhUOsZex33

Christoffer Wilhelm Eckersberg, “View of the Interior of the Colosseum” (1816) #RuinsInArtpic.twitter.com/LtZJHeNtOB

Christoffer Wilhelm Eckersberg, “View of the Interior of the Colosseum” (1815/16) #RuinsInArtpic.twitter.com/V6CkBK3wcw

All of this came to an end when, in 1871, Rome became the capital of the unified Kingdom of Italy. The new nation was to be modern, democratic & secular. The clean-but-classical design of the The Altare della Patria or "wedding cake" monument in Rome shows their desired look.pic.twitter.com/rA1VMQnmy5

The new Italian government soon handed control of the Colosseum over to archaeologists, who set about removing the religious icons & clearing it of its greenery (this photo 1890). The Colosseum's days as a wild & overgrown place came to a close.pic.twitter.com/CxiUZb7jOu

Botanist & Countess Elisabetta Fiorini Mazzanti mourned the loss of the Colosseum’s flora: “Nature liked to dress poetically the venerable walls by mitigating their sternness with the graceful ornament of plants and flowers… now archaeological cupidity has destroyed everything”pic.twitter.com/6NRPCKwGGf

Despite these early losses, the Colosseum is still a haven for plants. A study between 1990-2000 found 243 distinct species still growing there, although this number is scarcely half what Deakin observed in the C19th.pic.twitter.com/FJADOJuOsj

Plants growing in the Colosseum include very rare species like Asphodelus Fistulosus (L) & Sedum Dasyphyllum (R), which are sheltered by the arena, a sanctuary from the urban environment outside. But whether these came here on the pelts of lions, we may never know for sure.pic.twitter.com/sXIugsQx57

This is another example of a ruin being used to construct & reinforce an identity. Certain parts of the ruin, the ancient stones & arches, are deemed “proper”. Other parts, like the plantlife & the later historical stages of the ruin, are deemed “improper”, & are removed.pic.twitter.com/ZBdpzAMS6f

As a researcher I'm divided. The ruin must be preserved, but on an emotional level I still feel this loss. Can we undertake valuable conservation work & also keep the romance of old ruins, their use as inspiration for artists & the stories hidden in the layers of their history?pic.twitter.com/q0r5KoudS9

If you want to read more on the subject of the Colosseum's lost history & plantlife, you might start with this further reading: Christopher Woodward, In Ruins: https://books.google.co.uk/books/about/In_Ruins.html?id=mZd-jFjTu1UC … Richard Deakin, Flora of the Colosseum: https://archive.org/details/floracolosseumr00deakgoog …pic.twitter.com/o5QnvS2FIv

Thanks for listening! As a bonus, here’s a picture someone took of a rebellious caper plant still growing on the Colosseum wall, in defiance of security…pic.twitter.com/JhB0Xe7KIV