Thursday, December 11, 2008

Random Acts of Classicism


In my new home town, there is a 1970s-era apartment building in a working-class neighborhood whose cornerstone is inexplicably inscribed with Latin axioms (and one Greek exclamation). I chanced upon it yesterday, and transcribed what I found there:

Eureka
Mens sana in corpore sano
Omnia vincit amor
[followed by the seemingly contradictory]
Labor omnia vincit
Gutta cavat lapidem
Ex nihil nihil fit

At the bottom of this list, the sculptor appears to have signed his work:

Loran scupsit

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