Roman History in Cremona

On Wednesday I went to the Archaeological Museum of Cremona to learn about the city's deep rooted past.

The museum is in San Lorenzo's church, which was converted into a museum

The post office of Cremona was relocating to a new plot of land, the contractors working diligently, and one of them ran across a Roman ruin.

It is true that the Romans inhabited much of what is now Cremona, primarily because it is along the Po River and rivers were used to transport food, oil and salt. I had the pleasure of visiting the Archaeological Museum of Cremona that is a good example of Italian history. It is a good example because it demonstrates how creative Italians were over time reusing materials from previous eras to build new things. For example, the Roman Colosseum was used to build St. Peter's Basilica, that is why one wall looks jagged. The Archaeological museum also demonstrates this layers of history with the collection being of Roman times dating around 1 b.c., it exhibits excavations held in the museum of a 5th century church, Christian catacombs, and the main museum building is St. Lorenzo's 10th century church which was converted to be used as the museum. I felt a bit strange going to a museum held in a house of worship. There were the spots where paintings of the saints shown through, empty little caves next to the doors where the holy water once stood, the chapel of Mary (usually on the left) was left untouched.

An entrance to the church in a part that is still being escavated.

Where a bowl of Holy Water once stood.

It was a mix that felt strange since it featured starkly different times in history but was still appropriate since they all happened in the same place. My favorite part of St. Lorenzo's church was a painting of Mary with baby Jesus, she looks calm and he looks sweet.

The main collection was incredible. It showed the daily life of Romans in Cremona, how they bathed, ate, decorated their homes and even their superstitions. Roman life was splendid amongst the wealthy. Looking at the collection made me realize that there are a lot of similarities between the way they lived then and how we live now. Take a look and see what you think:

Birds used as art on mosaics of wealthy homes. We use posters, paintings and other inspirational and beautiful things.

Wall paper of the medusa. Some people still like creepy wall paper.

More wall paintings of local and immagined immages.

Animals liked walking across the cement for homes then too.

On the left is a large bowl for olives, the smaller ones are for transporting olive oil, salt and wine. The were sealed with clay and floated down the river by the hundreds before arriving at the destination. We use trucks to bring us our produce and meat.

Writing instruments at the bottom.

These are all frames for rooms. In my interior design class we still used these when decorating homes and offices.

This was used by a wealthy family to display food. We pull out our nice china for guests.

Roman keys and my giant house key.

Ah...this one is...touchy. I should add a short paragraph:

 So Romans were superscious. They belived that all bad events were a result of envy from someone else. Dog died? Someone must have been jealous of you. People prevented jealousy in various methods: they buried little gods by the doors of their house (we put up pictures of the saints and Jesus) and men wore phallic pendants as necklaces. The men of the families would wear these penis necklaces because they thought it would give them good health and keep them fertile. I bet anyone wearing these today could ward off envy!

A god of fertility holding many penises

 And we move from that to food and tableware.

Wealthy Romans ate with clay and sometimes drank from glasses.

These are more jars that were used to transport olives, wine and salt down the Po River to the various cities.

This is a mosaic floor and labryinth from someones home. Today we make puzzles.

These are bronze cooking item used for making soups. Lentiles were a big part of Roman diet. Meat was also served but in small chewable peices since they did not have forks and knives yet.

Lastly, no trip to Cremona is complete without a walk down to the main piazza where there is a market on Wednesday, violin makers shop and the Cathedral of Cremona.

The Grana Padano cheese stand infront of the Cathedral of Cremona

A peak inside a violin makers shop. This shop is infront of the Cathedral.

My all time favorite picture of Cremona: the reflection of the Catheral from the window of a violin makers shop.

Did you know that the modern violin was created in Cremona? The first string instruments did not have that little "f" shape on either side and thus sounded different. It wasn't until Antonio Stradivari created the violin that he realized the instrument needed a few outlets to help with the sound. He thought and thought and finally tried carving in a scroll like the letter "f" inspired from the scrolls of marble on the roof of the Cathedral of Cremona. And that, my friends, is how the violin got it's "f".

The scroll that helped out the violin

Patterns for the violin