This interesting item was posted on Twitter here.
![](https://i0.wp.com/www.roger-pearse.com/weblog/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/palatine_meta_sudans_rev_john_shaw_smith_1850.jpg?resize=640%2C496&ssl=1)
Photographs of the Meta Sudans are always welcome. This one is at an unusual angle and indicates that the destruction facing the Colosseum was not flat 180°, as it often appears in photographs, but nearer 150°.
The photographer, the Rev. John Shaw Smith, was an Irish clergyman who travelled in the Mediterranean around this time over a period of a couple of years, in the relaxed fashion of the day. Photography was new, and everything he took is probably valuable.
There must be a wealth of photographs and other material in Italian archives, but sadly inaccessible. Google increasingly is turning into a commercial portal instead of a search engine, so I doubt this will improve soon.
A great picture! Rome still hasn’t recovered from the catastrophe that destroyed and buried it in the 10th century AD.