Monastic ruins

This detail from Hubert Robert's Hermit in the Colosseum (1790) is a good example of the the genre: Architectural ruins are presented as the space for devotions, but only a select few understand their supernatural dimension. The monk (he could be a Cistercian wearing his cowl) is praying at an abandoned altar in the Colosseum, which is itself a paradoxical but compelling site, declared sacred by Benedict XIV in 1749. There Christians were persecutered, there saints were made.
​The monk is framed by chattering women from the market stealing flowers on the left, and a cat who looks suspiciously like a rat on the upper right. The monk remains oblivious to them, it is his office to mourn. Notice that the flowers are below an image of the Virgin Mary.