On Thursday of last week, I went to the Capitoline Museums. There was a lot of really neat things in them, I just picked a few of the really famous ones to post. I have PLENTY more. This is Bernini's medusa...










This is the original equestrian statue of Marcus Aurelius. The one in the piazza between the museums is a copy to preserve the real one.












This is the bronze statue of the she-wolf nursing Romulus and Remus the founders of Rome.













Giant foot...














Giant head....


















Venus


















The dying Gaul














The Amazon


















The theater of Marcellus next to some ruins.















I was on my way to the church that has the Mouth of Truth, I have pictures of that below, when I came across this church with columns in the sides and it was surrounded by ruins. I thought I'd take a look inside...










I think it was Saint Nicholas Church?



















The inside was pretty, nothing special compared to other churches in Rome. I saw a man coming up from steps in front of the altar, and usually old churches have steps leading to a famous tomb under the altar, so I peeked down to see whose relics were there. Instead of a tomb I just saw a metal gate, which was weird. So I went to walk away and the man said, "under the altar you can see the original foundations of roman temples". I thought that sounded cool so I went down the steps. The man followed me and said, "Let me show you". Turns out he was a tour guide for this place and he took me on a little tour of the underground ruins that the church is built over.







Apparently in ancient Rome there were three pagan temples built here dedicated to Janus, Juno?, and Hope. The church was built on the foundation of the middle temple, and the columns of the side temples are what I saw on the outside walls of the church. You cant really tell from these pictures but you could see the original foundation stones and the bases to the columns.







Down here further they found remains of a fish market that was underneath the temples from the etruscan period. It was so exciting to just stumble on this!











This temple was right next to Saint Nicholas Church, I forget what its name is though!

















This one is the Temple of Hercules and was right next to the one above.













Accross the street is Santa Maria in Cosmedian.


















The mouth of truth! I got a nice German couple behind me in line to take the picture (I guess those years of German in high school do come in handy). Obviously Im not a liar because I still have my hand! Actually it didnt occur to me until afterward that my hand could have been chomped off...