From vaticinia to The Vatican.
I'm almost halfway through reading Robert Hughes's Rome: A Cultural, Visual, and Personal History (2012); while it's entertaining and interesting enough in its way, it's not a patch on Hughes's magnum opus The Fatal Shore: The Epic of Australia's Founding (1986).
As usual, I'm finding that Rome's index is only partially complete; if only I could overcome my OCD-ish desire to flesh out the indexes of books that I read, I could read far more books. Ah, well....
There are some interesting and surprising bits of trivia to be had. To wit, Hughes notes:
"..a part of the Vatican Hill [was] traditionally considered sacred to Apollo. Another part of its mythic history was that Etruscan priests used to watch for auguries and make prophecies (vaticinia) from this spot. Hence the name 'Vatican' for the general area."
-- Rome: A Cultural, Visual, and Personal History; p. 216
I already knew, from reading Anthony A. Barrett's Caligula: The Corruption of Power, that Caligula had a racetrack and a residence on Vatican Hill; but I didn't know the Etruscan history behind said hill.
Yet another bit that perhaps subconsciously informed the Vatican's development, particularly in the Middle Ages and Renaissance. Huh.
As usual, I'm finding that Rome's index is only partially complete; if only I could overcome my OCD-ish desire to flesh out the indexes of books that I read, I could read far more books. Ah, well....
There are some interesting and surprising bits of trivia to be had. To wit, Hughes notes:
"..a part of the Vatican Hill [was] traditionally considered sacred to Apollo. Another part of its mythic history was that Etruscan priests used to watch for auguries and make prophecies (vaticinia) from this spot. Hence the name 'Vatican' for the general area."
-- Rome: A Cultural, Visual, and Personal History; p. 216
I already knew, from reading Anthony A. Barrett's Caligula: The Corruption of Power, that Caligula had a racetrack and a residence on Vatican Hill; but I didn't know the Etruscan history behind said hill.
Yet another bit that perhaps subconsciously informed the Vatican's development, particularly in the Middle Ages and Renaissance. Huh.