Exactly 178 Years Ago Yesterday Afternoon, Perhaps The Most Costly Drunken College Age Vandal's Act, In History...

As I've often extolled the virtues of the Irish people, around the world. . . this morning, I feel compelled to make mention of some effects of what is often called "the Irish affliction", in fair balance.

The Trinity College (Dublin) student was rumored at the time to be mentally infirm, but when immediately arrested he smelled strongly of alcohol. [My graphics are from last year (but I never published this one, then), thus the 177 reference -- it is 178 this year.]

The kid served a month in a British prison (because of a poorly crafted statute, he could only be charged with destroying the glass case, not the vase, itself). And he is lost to. . . a footnote of ignominious drunken Irish history. It is all of our enduring loss, though -- as each restoration (three of them since) have only been moderately successful at hiding all the cracks and chips. Here's from any number of web-sites, on the tale:

. . .It is a Roman two-handled glass amphora which is dated to between 23 BC and 25 AD. Made of cameo glass, it ikely depicts the marriage of Peleus and Thetis from Greek Mythology.

The vase is a violet-blue glass surrounded with white glass cameo (likely blown as a separate white jacket around the original violet-blue amphora, then exquisitely cut away, with abrasive tools). There are horned heads with beards below the handles of the vase that are placed between the paired scenes. The scenes depict seven human figures and a large snake. The vase is 24.5 cm in height and 17.7 cm in its maximum width. The vase may have been originally commissioned for a member of the family of Caesar Augustus. . . .

The vase was reputely discovered in a sarcophagus, in the tomb of the emperor Alexander Severus and his mother, by Fabrizio Lazzaro and was excavated sometime around 1582. . . The first written mention of it is in 1601, in a letter describing it as among the Barberini family's holdings. . . .

On February 7, 1845, at about 3:45 pm, the vase was smashed into more than 200 pieces by a drunken Irish college student. He tossed a larger nearby sculpture onto the glass case, shattering it, and in the mayhem, utterly crushed the vase. . . .

It was later reported that he didn't even know what was in the glass case, and had little memory of picking up the statue. Now you know. . . Don't drink, and browse. Smile. . . .



नमस्ते