Caracalla as Alexander (medal from Abukir)
I am just back from a quick visit to Berlin. Although I had visited the city several times before, I had never been to the Bode-Museum. Stupid me: it is one of the most beautiful museums I’ve ever been to. It has a great collection of painting and sculpture, and four rooms of Late Ancient and Byzantine art. Among the highlights are the apse of a church from Ravenna, a gambling machine from Constantinople, a fifth-century relief showing Saint Simeon, and beautiful ivories.
The greatest delight, however, turned out to be four rooms with coins and medals. There were hundreds of them, superbly displayed; I might have spent several hours over there, but at ten o’ clock in the evening, the museum closed. The Bodemuseum is really worth a couple of hours, and don’t postpone it until your fifth visit to Berlin.
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[...] the Greek classics. Later, the Pergamon-Museum was added, with finds from the Ottoman Empire; the Bode Museum has a Byzantine and Medieval collection; and the Neues Museum contained everything else – Egypt [...]