Sunday, May 6, 2012

Bronze Spheres

Bronze sphere of the obelisk in piazza Mazzini, LivornoOne of the four bronze spheres of the obelisk of “Piazza Mazzini”. As you can easily see from the cracks and the erosion, the main problem with this stele is that it was made of friable sandstone.Bronze spheres of the obelisk in piazza Mazzini, LivornoMany ancient obelisks are still around in quite good shape after thousands of years, but they were usually carved from a single block of red granite, a much harder and durable stone.Vintage postcard of piazza Mazzini, 1911, LivornoThis could reinforce the speculation that it was built with recycled stones from the other steles.

(1911 postcard digitized from the collection of Antonio Cantelli)

See also: The Two Towers - Fonte Guglia?
Search labels: postcard

11 comments:

Anonymous said...

Wonderful detail. Thank you for teaching me about this metal. Please have a good Sunday.

Randy said...

These are great. Love the old postcard too.

RIZALENIO said...

Awesome! My first to see/read about it.

Happy Sunday! :)

Dina said...

From the thumbnail I thought it might be yesterday's "super moon." :)

It is wonderful to see such detail of the stone and to consider what it has gone through.
The second picture is amazing. Kind of scarey.

Babzy.B said...

great details :)

Cezar and Léia said...

It does look like the stone piece is about to fall apart... But the bronze spheres are sturdy as ever!
God bless you!
Cezar

Traveling Hawk said...

Interesting post! I've never seen a monumnet put on bronze spheres!

Lois Evensen said...

Very interesting to see the old post card with current pictures. Fascinating.

Luis Gomez said...

Great VP. Thanks.

Chrissy Brand said...

Fascinating info and I like the postcard too.

PerthDailyPhoto said...

Yup I think the bronze sphere are designed forever VP not so much the sandstone obelisk! Loooove the old postcard, I always find scenes from hundreds of years ago so fascinating.