Word: fortuna
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Fortuna, Calif...
...started digging in a pit near a wall of the medieval church of St. Homobonus, patron saint of tailors. Penetrating 20 ft. down, they came to a layer of rubbly soil which they recognized as the earth-fill foundation of Roman temples of Mater Mututa, goddess of childbirth, and Fortuna, protectress of women who have been married only once. In this hallowed ground they found twelve fragments of dark brown pottery decorated with incised dots and geometrical figures...
Seldom since the pagan days of old had so many pilgrims come trudging to the shrine of the Goddess of Fortune where it sits in pleasant ruins not far from Rome. But Fortuna was out of luck last week...
...Shrine of Lady Luck. Praeneste, often mentioned by the classical writers, was an ancient religious center 23 miles east of Rome in the Sabine hills. Sacred to the goddess Fortuna, it was the Roman world's bulkiest, solidest shrine. It throve for a thousand years, reaching its peak about the time of Christ, and was the last pagan center to be suppressed by Christianity. When Lady Luck was still lucky, her intricate complex of sacred buildings covered an area a dozen times bigger than St. Peter...
During the Dark Ages, Fortuna's temples were looted down to their bones. Even their marble facings were carted away for building material. Gradually the town of Palestrina and the feudal stronghold of the Colonna family spread over the massive remains, effectively hiding them from archeologists. In 1944, Allied bombings peeled away the medieval buildings. When the war ended, Palestrina was a wreck, but the lower parts of Fortuna's temple lay almost undamaged under heaps of rubble...