Friday, October 21, 2011

The Whole World in His Hand?

Statue of Charlemagne, San Luigi dei Francesi, Rome, Italy  ©  Doug Hickok


 This imposing sculpture of Charlemagne (Charles the Great) adorns the exterior of the Church of St. Louis of the French, the French National church of Rome. This baroque basilica is famous for its masterworks of art, including the Caravaggio painting I linked you to on Monday's post.

Charlemagne,
 often referred to as Pater Europae (Father of Europe) was the first Holy Roman Emperor and united most of Western Europe in a time of strife and darkness.  Maybe that's why he's got the whole world in his hand... though the small size of the orb seems to indicate that the emperor may have had a magnificently large ego.

Hope you have a magnificent weekend!


15 comments:

  1. The grainy texture to this photo is very apt.

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  2. Carolus Magnus. And one of my favourite churches on earth. And much, much better than my photograph of him.

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  3. Красивая! Это мощь и величество!

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  4. Amazing some of the things that were created back then. I wonder if anything from now will be looked upon as fondly in a few hundred years.

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  5. why emperors, kings, popes, and other "great" persons of the past and the present would want to hold the whole world in their hand eludes me ... too much harm has come of this desire, surely!
    this doesn't mean that this photo isn't a beauty, though, because it is, especially the pov from below ...

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  6. Good vertical shot, nice angel.

    Greetings,
    Filip

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  7. Great perspective Doug--perfect representation of power

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  8. He must have been really a great man... Just recently we've visited one of his favourite places, Aachen.
    God bless you!
    Cezar

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  9. very impressive, this looks huge.. nicely captured..

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