PALATINE HILL - PALATINE HILL MUSEUM (second part)

ROOM VIII
More imperial portraits

Interesting portrait of “Marcus Aurelius (161/180)” young and beardless, dating back to about 147

“Julia Domna” Syrian wife of Septimius Severus (193/211) who was a native of Libya

“Maximinus Thrax (235/238)” the so-called “Emperor soldier”

He was born in today's Bulgaria and was a shepherd who had made a career in the army. He was huge and the Historia Augusta (document probably dating from the early fifth century AD with biographies of the emperors) reports that he was incredibly 2.40 m (9 feet) tall

He was the first emperor who never went to Rome during his reign

“Balbino (238)” was emperor for three months together with Pupienus with whom he quarreled bitterly. During the quarrel were both killed by the praetorians who proclaimed emperor the thirteen-years-old Gordian III

“Bust of Merman” late second century AD with his mouth open to let water flow out. It was in fact used as a fountain in the Septizonium

“Bas-relief of a woman with two birds in one hand and a cane in the other” early fourth century AD maybe a personification of winter

“Graffiti with donkey man crucified” from the Pedagogium with the inscription in Greek: “Alexamenos worships his god” first half of the third century AD

It is probably a very early mockery of the Christian religion

ROOM IX

The sculptural decoration of the Palace. Greek originals and Roman copies of the Classical and Hellenistic periods

“Acroterial headless statue of Aura” with peplum open on the side. Maybe Greek original of the fifth century BC from near the Arch of Titus

An acroterial statue is a statue placed as a decoration on the roof of a temple

“Fragment of a relief with Leda and the Swan”

“Child seated”

“Headless statue of Aphrodite or Kharis” from the original by Kallimacos with beautiful light drapery that enhances the sensual posing of the goddess

“Statuette of a satyr looking at his tail”

“Dionysus as a child”. It was originally placed in the arms of Hermes

“Head of Aphrodite”

“Fragmented face of Westmacott's Ephebe”

“Statuette of Diomedes carrying the Palladium”

“Torso of Artemis”

“Head of Aphrodite of Cnidus” and “Head of Apollo Sauroctonos” from the original by Praxiteles (about 395/326 BC)

“His ideal is the Charis, who is beauty combined with grace. He does not move in the sphere of the solemn Olympian deities as Phidias and the artists of the fifth century, but he chooses only a few semi-divine beings or gods, and represents them with an all human beauty in a tone already delicately sensual and romantic. For his particular poetic content he creates rhythms that free figures from the equilibrium gravitating around their axis which was the central problem of the art of the fifth century and which had been formulated in more complex and organic way by Polykleitos. Praxiteles' rhythms are either leaning on a lateral support, giving a new curve to the figure, or either, when support is lacking, the body bends in its own soft gravity, it is released in an inert abandonment, or bends in a simple pose, often with its head bowed, always avoiding the static and vertical line” (Enciclopedia Treccani)

“Headless statue of a girl dancing”

“Two muses sitting”

“Fragmentary head of Doryphoros” from original by Polykleitos of Argos (about 490/425 BC)

“Head of Asclepius”

“Two heads of Apollo” of the Anzio type

“Veiled head of Venus Sosandra” or savior of mankind, from an original of about 460 BC by Calamis

It was his most famous work and it was placed on the Acropolis of Athens

“Figure solemn and quiet, which expresses an ideal of femininity in the process of affirmation. We are far beyond the ancient climate: there is obviously some psychological research, the desire to penetrate in the privacy of individuals” (Carlo Bertelli, Giuliano Briganti, Antonio Giuliano)

“Hera Borghese” second century AD from an original of the end of the fifth century BC

“An original of the last quarter of the fifth century BC takes to the extreme the drapery of the Parthenon with a bold play of folds. It is a statue of a goddess found in secondary arrangement in the agora of Athens and reconstructed from several fragments. The work recalls the so-called type of the Hera Borghese, known only through replicas of Roman age. These types of statues, created especially to depict Aphrodite, introduce a new vision of the deity - more feminine and sensual, different from the idealized humanity of the goddesses of the Parthenon - which will lead, in the following century, to the naked Aphrodite by Praxiteles, the famous Aphrodite of Cnidus” (Marina Castoldi)

“Heads of Trojan princes and dying barbarians”

Statue of “Magna Mater sitting” in Pentelic marble, originally located in the Temple of Magna Mater

“Head of Hygeia” Augustan copy of a late-classical work

PALATINE HILL - DOMUS TIBERIANA

Domus Tiberiana

The first truly unified palace built by an emperor is maybe that of Tiberius (14/37)

The area was covered in the sixteenth century by the Farnese Gardens. It is largely uncharted

Perhaps Tiberius built it over his birthplace. It included a library

It was probably the seat of the designated successor of the emperor when he was still alive, as Tiberius was the successor of Augustus

We know with certainty that Marcus Aurelius (161/180) and Lucius Verus (161/169) lived here when they were adopted and designated as successors of Antoninus Pius (138/161)

It was used as a residence by Pope John VII (705/707)

PALATINE HILL - St. BONAVENTURE

S. Bonaventura

1675/77 for Cardinal Francesco Barberini on a huge castellum aquae (building with the function of collection and distribution of water) that was intended to supply the Severan Baths

The cardinal supported the reformist Franciscan friar Bonaventure of Barcelona, later canonized, who wanted to build the church here

Today the convent adjacent to the church is the seat of the Centre for Youth Ministry in the Roman Province of the Franciscan Minor Friars

FAÇADE and INTERIOR redone in the years 1839/40

COUNTER FAÇADE

“Tombstone of the painter Francesco Mancini (1679/1758)” 1758 with his portrait

1^st ALTAR ON THE RIGHT

“Crucifixion with the Madonna, St. John the Evangelist and Mary Magdalene” about 1678 by G.B. Beinaschi (1638/88)

2^nd ALTAR ON THE RIGHT

“Madonna and Child, St. Anne, St. Joseph and Spanish Franciscan saints” 1680 by Giacinto Calandrucci (1646/1707) a pupil of Carlo Maratta

MAIN ALTAR

“Virgin Mary and the three Franciscan Orders” about 1685 by Filippo Micheli from Camerino

Beneath the altar there is the tomb of S. Leonardo da Porto Maurizio, who died in 1751 in a nearby convent and gave great impetus to the devotion of the Christian martyrs of the Colosseum and to the Via Crucis (Stations of the Cross) which was very popular since then

He was one of the greatest inventors and propagators of the Stations of the Cross personally creating some hundreds of them. He built the aediculae outside the church, in clay since 1772, and in the Colosseum, later removed

AT THE SIDES OF THE ALTAR

Niches on the right “St. Anthony of Padua” 1867 and on the left “St. Francis”1869 Pietro da Copenaghen

2^nd ALTAR ON THE LEFT

“Annunciation” about 1678 by G.B. Beinaschi

1^st ALTAR ON THE LEFT

“St. Michael the Archangel” about 1678 by G.B. Beinaschi who was assisted in the four paintings in this church by his daughter Angela Maria Beinaschi

SACRISTY

“Deposition” about 1678 by G.B. Beinaschi signed also by his daughter Angela Maria

“Virgin Mary with Sts. Francis and Anthony of Padua” 1862 by Pietro da Copenaghen

CONVENT

“Our Lady of Beautiful Love” by Sebastiano Conca (1680/1764)

“St. Anthony” by Luigi Garzi (1638/1721)

“Virgin Mary and St. Bonaventure” by Pietro Gagliardi (1809/90)

“Lady of the Sacred Heart Jesus” 1766 by Pompeo Batoni (1708/87) donated by the painter to the missionary priest of the convent to take with him on his missions

PALATINE HILL - PUBLIC AND REPRESENTATIVE AREA OF THE EMPEROR'S PALACE - DOMUS FLAVIA

Built for Domitian (81/96) between 81 and 96 by the architect Rabirius, occupying the whole central part of the Palatine Hill

It was built entirely in concrete covered with bricks and fronted on the west side by a colonnade of cipolin marble, later replaced by brick pillars, which also had to continue on the north side where the main entrance was

It was the public and representative wing of the Imperial Palace, the private wing was the Domus Augustana

Three series of rooms arranged on three sides of a rectangular peristyle, surrounded by a portico with columns of Numidian marble and with a central octagonal fountain

At the center of the north side there is a huge room known as AULA REGIA (royal hall) where the emperor, seated on a throne in the semicircular apse at the opposite side of the entrance, used to receive and give audience

The room (30.5 x 38.7 m - 100 x 127 feet) had also marble columns covered with colored marble and with niches for statues

The roof was probably slanted (i.e. inclined towards the outside, sending rain water toward the outer walls) with wooden coffered ceiling

On the sides of the Aula Regia there were two smaller rooms:

The west one known as BASILICA, built on the former Aula Isiaca (House of Isis), rectangular, with apse and divided into three naves by a double row of columns in yellow marble from Tunisia and maybe an auditorium for meetings of the Imperial Board

The one on the east, called erroneously LARARIUM, built on the House of the Griffins, was perhaps the seat of the Praetorian Guard

On the west side of the peristyle there is a wing of connection between the two main areas of the palace, formed by an octagonal room with four apses and two side rooms symmetrical and elliptical

To the south there is a large hall with an apse at the center paved with polychrome and set on a “vespaio” (crawl space) where in the cold months hot air was circulating, identified as the TRICLINIUM and cited in sources with the name of COENATIO JOVIS

The room had a semicircular apse elevated on a step and had the sides opened with large windows over two symmetrical nymphea with monumental oval fountains

HALL OF ISIS

Located under the so-called BASILICA in the west part of the Domus Flavia

Rectangular room only partially preserved with the short apsidal added later on, relevant to a stately home of the Republican period

Its name derives from the many decorative motifs referring to the Egyptian cult of Isis and Serapis, as the garland of roses on the net, the lotus, the serpent with flat body

The paintings date to about 30/25 BC and are considered to be an example of advanced second Pompeian style

The paintings are now kept in a room in the Loggia Mattei in the Domus Augustana area

HOUSE OF THE GRIFFINS

Under the so-called LARARIUM in the east of the Domus Flavia is the most interesting republican house found in Rome, called “of the Griffins” for the stucco decoration of one lunette

The paintings are dated to late second or early first century BC (the house was older) and are the oldest of the second Pompeian style extant in the world with illusionistic representation of columns that are detached from the walls even if they don't open to prospective backgrounds as in the second advanced style

It is present here again the structure of a wall in blocks that in the first style was made of stucco

The more complete paintings are now in a deposit adjacent to the Palatine Museum and in-situ there are less complete walls, the lunette with griffins and some mosaics

One of these mosaics has a small central square area with stones and colorful marbles: it's the floor known as scutulatum which is also to be found in the Temple of Jupiter Capitolinus in Rome and in the House of the Faun in Pompeii

STRUCTURES BUILT IN CONCRETE AND BRICKS

At the side of the complex of S. Bonaventure are the remains of a construction in concrete covered with bricks: it might be a nympheum (fountain) or a building for the water distribution system

PALATINE HILL - THE PRIVATE RESIDENCE OF THE EMPEROR - DOMUS AUGUSTANA

DOMUS AUGUSTANA

 Private residence of the emperor with small rooms alternated to spacious areas all arranged around the peristyle

The construction was based on two levels: an upper level at the same height of the Domus Flavia, and a lower one about 12 m (40 feet) below

The upper floor was arranged around a large peristyle colonnade in the center with a pool of water and a small temple on high podium at the center, maybe dedicated to Minerva

In one of the rooms around the peristyle there is the LOGGIA MATTEI with a set of columns

It was reduced to a room in 1595 when the owners, members of the Mattei family, had the ceiling built as a vault

The recently restored frescoes (about 1520) were reintegrated with the round zodiac signs returned by the Metropolitan Museum in New York, while the painted walls are preserved in the Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg

At the bottom center of the peristyle is a fountain with pattern of peltae (small shields) facing each other

COLUMNATED EXEDRA

Façade of the Domus Augustana on the Circus Maximus, which was originally made out of a two-story colonnade to allow the emperor and his court to watch the races

“LIVIA’S BATHS”

It is in fact a complex of buildings related in part to Nero's Domus Transitoria (temporary house) and partly to the Domus Aurea (golden house)

Above the Domus Transitoria, destroyed by fire in AD 64, were laid the foundations of the Domus Aurea, never finished, that Domitian reused for its imperial palace

“PEDAGOGIUM”

Structure of the Domitian's period (81/96)

It was believed to be the school for the imperial servants (Pedagogium), which is, however, known to have been on the Celium Hill

The name comes from one of the graffiti of the Severan period visible in one of the rooms (“exit de paedagogio”)

One of the most famous graffiti is a crucifix with a donkey's head and Greek inscription: “Alexamenos worships (his) god”. Probably a very early mockery of the Christian religion

It was most likely the residence of the imperial pages

It was excavated in mid-1800s for Tsar Nicholas I of Russia, the owner of the area at the time

Double row of small rooms with mosaics and plastered along a peristyle arbitrarily rebuilt by Luigi Canina (1795/1856) using parts not belonging to the building

DOMUS PRAECONUM

Structure of the Septimius Severus' period (193/235)

In a room on the walls there are a number of male figures in natural size as well as a floor mosaic with a procession of eight men carrying a banner

It was therefore believed that this building was the Domus Praeconum, the seat of the college for the heralds

An inscription however identify it more convincingly as the Seat of Nuntii Circi, messengers of the circus