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This one is peculiar precisely because it does not feature a cross, just a capital with an inscription, four gargoyles? And a single baluster on top. Maybe there was a cross some time in the past, but this particular town was abandoned, and probably has been for many years. So it went derelict…

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JJ Merelo @jjmerelo.bsky.social · 8h

So all bets are off in this case. Whatever the name, it is what it looks like: a pillory. It had liturgical uses, also used to post laws and notices, sometimes to mark the town limits, but why would you let a perfectly good execution pole go to waste? After all, it was all a public show

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JJ Merelo @jjmerelo.bsky.social · 8h

Many featured a fountain, a cross of a column roughly in the middle, to mark the center. We can go back to Mircea Eliade and his axis mundi, but this has a more mundane name: “rollo” or “picota”, the subtle difference between them being that the “rollo” is more decorated or terminated with a cross.

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JJ Merelo @jjmerelo.bsky.social · 8h

Talking about urbanism, it’s interesting to check also how small towns were built in the Middle Ages and beyond in Spain. Beyond fortifications, already seen, there was a market square, in this case the Plaza Mayor, or “Major” or “biggest” square, cleared for market stalls and celebrations.

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JJ Merelo @jjmerelo.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

So the area on the other side was a bustling square, with peddlers, patricians and people going around their way, in an era where Rome had almost 1 million inhabitants. And you can see also they hadn’t perfected the engineering techniques they used later during the Empire, a bit later.

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JJ Merelo @jjmerelo.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

It’s conserved in part because it was for a long time a church, thus the structure was kept. And it’s a simple one, no apse-like exedra, no vault, a simple brick-and-mortar structure that housed the Senate. The important thing here is that its main gate faced the forum, and other buildings.

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JJ Merelo @jjmerelo.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

It’s difficult to read the Roman Fora unless you do it on an age-specific map. Besides, there’re lots of rubble strewn around together with churches and this one that, to be honest, looks like an utility hut. But it’s one of the oldest buildings standing there, the Curia Julia as in Caesar

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Katie Mack @astrokatie.com · 06/10/2026

Because of the Nobel Prize, a lot of people will be talking about neutrinos today (including me I’m sure)! I *also* talk a lot about neutrinos in my new book, “How to Build a Universe (Theoretically Speaking),” which is available for preorder now! www.astrokatie.com/book-htbau

astrokatie.com

How to Build a Universe — KATIE MACK, ASTROPHYSICIST

Information about "How to Build a Universe (Theoretically Speaking)" by Katie Mack

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JJ Merelo @jjmerelo.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

Most city walls in Spain were torn down in the 19th century to make room for the growth in the population, and they were substituted by boulevards and avenues. Not here in Ávila, then as now a backwater devoted to farming and agriculture. But back in the XIII century, an outpost in the Reconquista

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JJ Merelo @jjmerelo.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

They needed mobilization and coordination of human and monetary resources, and they also needed manning to avoid attacks as well as maintenance. They were needed to enforce the many excise duties levied on imported goods and so on. Walls created councils which maintained the walls

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JJ Merelo @jjmerelo.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

Reading about the history of urbanism, I have arrived to medieval towns, and this is one of the examples, the city of Ávila, whose historic center is totally surrounded by a (mostly) medieval wall, this one. Chueca Goitia, quoting Prienne, mentions that walls in many cases caused local taxes.

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Dr. Peter Paul Rubens @peterpaulrubens.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

Brancacci Chapel, Sta.Maria del Carmine, Florence. Filled w/ amazing frescoes by Masaccio & Masolino, whose day is today. So much genius in such a small space!

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Darth Putin @darthputinkgb.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

Hundreds of Russians are not in hospital with the plague. It is a "special medical operation". I remain a master strategist.

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JJ Merelo @jjmerelo.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

Of course, if it’s spread widely and treated widely with antibiotics it won’t take long before a resistant strain evolves… or if it’s baked in from the start through research in the lab. At any rate, we should probably hope for the best but assume the worst.

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JJ Merelo @jjmerelo.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

So what’s the big deal? If it’s the neumonic plague, it’s lethal and thus not very contagious. If it’s made more stealthy through gain-of-function it could be a danger, even more so if it’s spread to a week, but still preventive antibiotic shots should be all it takes…

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JJ Merelo @jjmerelo.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

Shouldn’t any bacterial infection be treatable with antibiotics? Even if it spreads very fast.

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JJ Merelo @jjmerelo.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

And which, to be honest, does not make a lot of sense. It’s not a defensive gate, its not a palace façade, I guess it’s basically what Hellenistic art is all about: monumentality for its own sake, without any functional excuse. Why do you have blind dates in the second floor? Why is there even one?

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JJ Merelo @jjmerelo.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

This was one of the thing we studied, the “Market gate” which closed one of the sides of the agora, and which is right now in the Pergamon museum, which is also closed until 2027. Which doesn’t make a lot of sense, right? Studying an architectural piece that’s not even in the city any more.

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JJ Merelo @jjmerelo.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

Today in our History of Urbanism class we were studying Greek regular-grid cities, and Miletus was the highlight. The class was an enumeration of the monuments of the city, an approach I don’t really find sound or, for that matter, interesting; we could have studied what made the city regular.

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JJ Merelo @jjmerelo.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

Faith is actually _over_ the door, not shown in the picture, paired with San Juan de Dios, the founder of the Hospitalarian order.

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JJ Merelo @jjmerelo.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

… First, I was wrong. It’s not faith, it’s hope, “Spes”. I could have tried and go with the relationship between the anchor and faith, keeping you firm in your place. But no, I’m not going to bullshit my way out of my mistake. It’s a symbol of hope because it’s the last hope of sailors…

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JJ Merelo @jjmerelo.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

You might notice that, compared to Gabriel (on the right), Raphael seems to have had his share of buns before posing for the sculpture. That might have an explanation, but I’m not ready to give it now (or ever). Suffice it to say everything in art has its explanation.

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JJ Merelo @jjmerelo.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

Raphael is the patron of travelers and pilgrims, which explains the pilgrim’s gourds on a staff; since he helped heal the father of Tobias, he’s also patron of healers and certainly a patron of the Hospitalarian order. Why the buns? Well, the therapy of the order was simple: feed the sick and poor

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JJ Merelo @jjmerelo.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

The archangel Raphael is paired with charity with the cornucopia (Cornu is obviously horn and copia actually means “abundance” in Greek); the Archangel Raphael represents charity here through his apron (who would have guessed angels carried aprons) filled with bread buns. Not usual, but correct

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JJ Merelo @jjmerelo.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

The façade of San Juan de Dios in Granada followed the same iconographic program as the rest, devoted to the Hospitalarian order and the themes of charity and curation. The archangel Gabriel, to the left, is related to faith, and paired with its allegory over the main door.

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Fernando @fernand0.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

Claude, Codex, and Hermes installed unowned code inside corporate networks

arstechnica.com

Claude, Codex, and Hermes installed unowned code inside corporate networks

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JJ Merelo @jjmerelo.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

The inner light of the semi-naked woman representing truth is slowly fading while she rests on the ground for the last time. The faceless crowds looks on without helping. I think it was George Orwell after his experience in Spain who said “The first victim of war is the truth”. Goya was there first.

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JJ Merelo @jjmerelo.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

These etchings parts of the “Disasters of the war” series are one of the highlights. They are quite gruesome, showing scenes that are mostly horror and allegories, more the former than the latter. The stark single color make them much more powerful, like this one, “The death of truth”

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JJ Merelo @jjmerelo.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

There’s a new exhibition space in town, Fundación Unicaja, and it has started with one on Goya & friends, antecedents and successors, like Villamil or Eugenio Lucas Velázquez (no relation, I think). Although the paintings are great, it’s forbidden to take pictures. I thus sketched and dodged guards

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JJ Merelo @jjmerelo.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

If you walk through the Albayzin, you can really sense the different of temperature: whitewashed walls, cobbled streets with little weeds growing among them, lots of shade… But since Islamic traditionally come from the desert, they give a lot of importance to shade and water.

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JJ Merelo @jjmerelo.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

But you are right, Plaza Mayor in Madrid, Puerta del Sol, some others like that can get very hot. They didn’t belong to the Islamic civilization long enough, I guess. 16th century squares were mostly shade-less, although smaller in scale.

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JJ Merelo @jjmerelo.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

Yea, those are fine, although they were not really intended to provide shade but living space. But I remember Piazza VIII Agosto, which was an oven. If I had to say, I’d go for fascism. Although we had our share, it didn’t really reconfigure cities.

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JJ Merelo @jjmerelo.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

Nothing, open fields and the odd farm en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santa_F...

en.wikipedia.org

Santa Fe, Granada - Wikipedia

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JJ Merelo @jjmerelo.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

That was where the kings’ tent was placed, where the surrender treaty was signed and where Columbus requested a grant to find a shortcut to Cipango or discover a continent, whatever happens first. So lots of history, but this is actually a neoclassical church built in the 18th century

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JJ Merelo @jjmerelo.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

Continuing with urbanism, let’s go to a town that was born from an actual siege, the siege of Granada by the Catholic kings that finished with the conquest of the city in 1492. The encampment where the troops were quartered, a regular grid with two main thoroughfares that crossed in this square.

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JJ Merelo @jjmerelo.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

But it’s a bit the same everywhere… Bolonia has big squares without a bit of shade. And what about any square in Rome: Popolo, Navona… even the Vatican. Might be that many squares in Spain were created from mosque courts, but not all of them were and there are pleasant squares everywhere.

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JJ Merelo @jjmerelo.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

This square, OTOH, would be just impossible in Spain. There’s something about Italy that I don’t really enjoy: these heat islands that become true ovens in summer. This was 3 PM in August and it was unlivable. Not a single tree to mitigate sun. Built for combat, not for living, I guess.

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JJ Merelo @jjmerelo.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

Those arrow-like bastions made every area of the fortress was under fire control of all the other areas, so those crafty Austrians couldn’t end the República Serenissima. It was never put to test, but the city keeps this remarkable urban grid with a big square in the center.

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JJ Merelo @jjmerelo.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

Palmanova is a pleasant little town in Friuli Venezia Giulia which is part of a distributed World Heritage site called “Venetian fortresses in the Mediterranean”. This is rather a city-fortress, having been designed from the scratch following the “traccia italiana” (Venetian, rather).

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Jonathan Slater @jonathanslater.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

Italian photographer Valerio Minato spent 6 years trying to capture one perfect shot near Turin, Italy, where the Basilica of Superga, the Monviso mountain, and the Moon lined up in a single frame. Good Morning Blue Sky

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JJ Merelo @jjmerelo.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

Wonderful! I’d have to make my next visit on one of those days…

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JJ Merelo @jjmerelo.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

And I don’t know what to say about the termination of the façade. Maybe they were off-budget? Anyway, this mirrors the state of the Republic: reliving old glories, but without quite reaching the same beauty. This was probably one of the last churches built by the Republic, also.

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JJ Merelo @jjmerelo.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

But it lacks harmony and balance. Check the difference between the space over the doors and below. There’s no breathing room between the windows and the columns; they seem a bit irregularly spaced. And the cupola is not gracious enough and almost hidden from this vantage POV.

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JJ Merelo @jjmerelo.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

The architect here, Carlo Corbellini, who rebuilt this by the middle of the 18th century, tried to pull a Palladio, but didn’t quite managed it. The big-ass columns, called “colossal order”, and the “termic” windows (as in termae) are used all over Venice, certainly in the three Palladian churches

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JJ Merelo @jjmerelo.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

I don’t think I’ve ever visited this church, San Geremia, in Venice, and certainly not entering through this door that faces the canal. San Geremia is where Santa Lucia, the saint from Syracuse that we saw a few days ago with a lightning rod, is buried (or was buried, maybe she returned)

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JJ Merelo @jjmerelo.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

Well, I’m stumped. Two years ago to the day I mentioned the same iconographic theme of San Juan de Dios as Eneas. This painter was certainly in the know of this identification, or maybe just intuition. Another thread to unravel.

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JJ Merelo @jjmerelo.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

In both cases, it’s Eneas’ ship. But what the book cover shows is how it went from a Pietro da Cortona painting (center, above) to a later etching, and finally to this grisaille. We already saw San Juan de Dios as Eneas. Why that iconographically identification, hard to say. I’ll have to read more

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JJ Merelo @jjmerelo.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

It’s a good piece of scholarly work, exemplified by that image. It looks exhaustively for the iconographic and compositional sources of all the paintings in this church devoted to the founder of the Hospitalarian order in Granada, San Juan de Dios. Here’s the actual grisaille in the church.

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JJ Merelo @jjmerelo.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

I am reading this book, “Caprichos barroco que curan el ánimo”, on the paintings of the San Juan de Dios basilica in Granada, no so that you don’t have to, but because it’s mandatory reading in the Iconography class. Also, written by the professor. Also, there will be a mandatory for-credit quiz.

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