TARENTUM

TARENTUM
Corso Vittorio Emanuele II/ Largo Ottavio Tassoni

Temple on the Campus Martius near the present Ponte Vittorio Emanuele II (Victor Emmanuel II Bridge) dedicated to Dis and Proserpina revered underground on an altar that was dug up for each ceremony

Here also took place the Ludi Saeculares (Secular Games) about every century (110 years)

Near, perhaps along Via Giulia, was the TRIGARIUM land reserved for horse racing in trighe until 500 BC and for the rites of the Equus October that consisted of a run, with the sacrifice of one of the winning horses and of a competition between Sacravienses and Suburani, the inhabitants of two ancient neighborhoods of Rome

On today's Via del Banco di Santo Spirito near the church of Sts. Celsus and Julian was the ARCH OF GRATIAN (367/383), VALENTINIAN II (375/392) and THEODOSIUS (379/395) dating to about 379/383
Corresponding with the PONS NERONIANUS (Bridge of Nero) was the ARCH OF ARCADIUS (395/408), HONORIUS (395/423) and THEODOSIUS about 406, built after the victory of Stilicho at Pollentia on the year 405

PORTICO MINUCIA FRUMENTARIA

PORTICUS MINUCIA FRUMENTARIA

Via delle Botteghe Oscure/Corso Vittorio Emanuele II

Arcaded square of 150 x 115 m (492 x 377 feet) probably built under Domitian (81/96) for the free distribution of grain to the people of Rome in an area previously occupied by the Villa Publica

“It was not till the year 123 BC, that the first legal provision was made for supplying the poor at Rome with corn at a price much below its market value. In that year C. Sempronius Gracchus brought forward the first Lex Frumentaria, by which each citizen was entitled to receive every month a certain quantity of wheat (triticum) at the price of 6 ⅓ asses for the modius, which was equal to 1 gallon and nearly 8 pints English (8.2 liters). (...) This was only a trifle more than half the market price (...). It must not be supposed that each person was allowed to receive as much as he pleased every month; the quantity must of course have been fixed, and was probably five modii monthly, as in later times. This quantity was only given to fathers of families; but it was not confined to the poor, as Plutarch would imply, for every citizen had a right to it, whether he were rich or poor (...); and even Piso, who had been consul, applied for his share at the distribution. It appears, however, from the anecdote which Cicero relates about Piso, that each citizen had to apply in person, a regulation which would of itself deter most of the rich” (William Smith)

The square included a preexisting TEMPLE OF THE REPUBLICAN PERIOD discovered in 1938, probably the Temple of the Nymphs, of which there are two columns of stuccoed lava stone and the brick wall of the cella that belongs to a restoration of the time of Domitian (81/96) after the fire of the year 80 AD

VISCARDI CELSI PALACE

PALAZZO VISCARDI CELSI

Corso Vittorio Emanuele II 18

End of 1500 for the Celsi family

FAÇADE renewed in 1678 by Giovanni Antonio De Rossi (1616/95)

When the Celsi family finished in the early 1700s, it passed to the Viscardi family who changed the entire façade

Today it belongs to the Mercantili Bernetti family

RECTANGULAR COURTYARD

Ancient sculptures and a fountain composed of a “Strigillated sarcophagus with lion heads” that serves as a tank in which water flows from the mouth of a mask

ROOM WITH ARCHITECTURAL PERSPECTIVES

Beautifully painted by Giovanni Paolo Pannini (1691/1765)

“His importance consisted in the timely reception of the necessity, even in his specific genre, to break away from the drama and rhetoric of his predecessors of the seventeenth century, by means of a language that would be more agile and brilliant, implemented with a painting drive loose and mushy. The technical implementation is coupled, however, with taste of a man of theater, who knows how to make come alive his whims with the basic animation of human presence and of subsidiary details, informing the viewer of the memory or of the suggestions of a very much alive rapport, lived in direct contact with his views in the eternal city. His views, in fact, with their subtle balance between reality and fantasy, are always on a human scale, not taking the ever looming and impending timeless grandeur of Piranesi” (Giancarlo Sestieri)

SORA PALACE

PALAZZO SORA

Corso Vittorio Emanuele II 217

1503/10 maybe by Giuliano Leno for the Fieschi family, even if it has been wrongly attributed to Donato Bramante

It was later property of the Savelli family and in 1579 of Giacomo Boncompagni, Duke of Sora son of Pope Gregory XIII Boncompagni (1572/85)

It was restored in 1845

A third of the building was demolished in 1888 and a new façade was built on Corso Vittorio Emanuele II in imitation of the old one

Now it is a high school called ISTITUTO PROFESSIONALE STATALE PER L’INDUSTRIA E L’ARTIGIANATO CARLO CATTANEO (Professional Institute of State for Industry and Crafts Carlo Cattaneo)

SFORZA CESARINI PALACE

PALAZZO SFORZA CESARINI

Via dei Banchi Vecchi 118/Corso Vittorio Emanuele II

1458/62 built for Cardinal Rodrigo Borgia, later Pope Alexander VI (1492/1503)

It was given as a sort of “bribe” to Cardinal Ascanio Sforza, who had supported Rodrigo Borgia in the conclave

The Cardinals Sforza and Della Rovere held the functions of Registrars of the Church here and the building was used as Chancellery until Leo X Medici (1513/21) moved the Chancellery offices to Palazzo Riario. Since then palazzo was known as the Old Chancellery

In 1697 the Sforza family intermarried with the Cesarini and since then they unified as Sforza Cesarini, current owners of the building

Modified 1730 by Pietro Passalacqua (1690/1748) with a new FAÇADE ON VIA DEI BANCHI VECCHI

FAÇADE ON CORSO VITTORIO EMANUELE II 1886/88 by Pio Piacentini (1846/1928) in a style that mimics the architecture of the sixteenth century

MASSIMO DECORATED PALACE

PALAZZO MASSIMO ISTORIATO

Piazza dei Massimi 2/Corso Vittorio Emanuele 151

1532/36 Baldassarre Peruzzi (1481/1536) for Angelo Massimo

He built it on a preexisting building at the same time of the adjacent Palazzo Massimo alle Colonne

Also known as PALAZZO MASSIMO DI PIRRO for a statue of Mars found here and incorrectly believed to be an image of Pyrrhus

1877 restored by Luigi Fontana (1827/1908)

On the FAÇADE ON PIAZZA DEI MASSIMI paintings in monochrome “Stories from the Old and New Testament” 1523 maybe of the school of Daniele da Volterra (1509/66) for the marriage of Angelo Massimo

In the palace there was since 1467 the printing of Arnold Pannartz and Conrad Schweynheim, the first ever in Rome

“Some considerations lead rather to recognize it in a house that the Massimo brothers had in the immediate vicinity of Campo de' Fiori, along the Via Mercatoria, obligatory point of passage for Romans and foreigners, and therefore very suitable place for the sale of books produced in series. This same house - a sign of continuity in the use of places for both production and for sale - housed in all likelihood, after Sweynheym and Pannartz two other typographical workshops: the one of Eucario Silber and that of Antonio Blado, located «in field Florae in aedibus Iohannis Baptistae de Maximis»“ (Anna Modigliani - Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani Treccani)

In front of the building in Piazza dei Massimi COLUMN OF THE ODEON OF DOMITIAN found in 1937 and moved here in 1950

DELLA VALLE PALACE

PALAZZO DELLA VALLE

Corso Vittorio Emanuele II 101

1517/23 maybe Antonio Cordini detto Antonio da Sangallo the Younger (1483/1546) and Andrea Contucci aka Andrea Sansovino (1460/1529) for Cardinal Andrea Della Valle who kept in the palace his collection of ancient statues now largely in Florence

Giorgio Vasari attributed with little credibility to Lorenzo Lotti aka Lorenzetto (1490/1541)

It was left unfinished outside after the sack of Rome in 1527

It passed in 1633 to the Del Bufalo family who had it restored

Since 1948 is the headquarters of CONFAGRICOLTURA (Italian General Confederation of Agriculture), an organization that represents and protects Italian farmers

Employers associated with Confagricoltura account for two-thirds of all enterprises in the sector and employ more than 500,000 workers

SERPIERI ROOM

Coffered ceiling with rosettes, garlands and golden putti with in the center colorful coat of arms of the Cardinal

Walls painted with “Fake architecture and rural landscapes”, “Figures of warriors and female figures” and frieze with “Marine divinities and sirens” maybe by Francesco de' Rossi aka Francesco Salviati (1510/63) or an artist of the school of Giulio Pippi aka Giulio Romano (1499/1546)

FARNESINA PALACE ON VIA DEI BAULLARI (third part) - GIOVANNI BARRACCO MUSEUM OF ANCIENT SCULPTURE

Second Floor

Greek Art (mostly ancient Roman copies):

“Head of the Silenus Marsyas” Antonine copy of a bronze original by Myron of Eleutere (about 500/440 BC)

“Head of the Kassel Apollo” Flavian copy from Phidias (about 490/430 BC) found during excavations at the end of the nineteenth century in the Interior Ministry on Viminal Hill

Two heads of the “Doriforo (Spearman)” copies from originals by Polykleitos of Argos (about 490/about 425 BC). The one found in the Baths of Caracalla accentuates the pathetic expressiveness of the masterpiece by Polykleitos

“This copy of the Late Hellenistic or Augustan period clearly shows the activity of the copyist in the reinterpretation of some details: it was pointed out that, in addition to extremely detailed performance of the locks, only the left side of the face can be consistently associated with a Polykleitos' setting, probably in correspondence with the angle from which the statue had to be visible. The rest of the face is charged with a pathos totally new that emphasizes the rotation of the face, the eyes more deeply hollowed, the mouth opened more, thus destructuring the solidity of the facial scheme of Polykleitos” (Lucio Fiorini)

Two heads of the “Diadoumenos” one of them, beautiful, although very worn, comes from Terracina, “Hercules”, “Athlete crowning himself” all copies from originals by Polykleitos of Argos (about 490/about 425 BC)

“Herm of Pericles” from original by Cresila

SIXTH ROOM

“Votive relief dedicated to Apollo with Latona and Diana” original attic 370/360 BC

“Head of Apollo Lyceum” by Praxiteles (about 395/326 BC)

“Wounded Bitch” Roman copy signed by Sopatro from Greek original by Lysippus (about 370/300 BC) in Pentelic marble

Pottery dating from 700 to 400 BC

SEVENTH AND EIGHTH ROOM

“Portraits of Sophocles, Euripides, Demosthenes and Epicurus”

Roman art:

“Head of a Child” maybe Nero, part of the Julio-Claudian family. It was found in the Villa of Livia Ad Gallinas Albas at Prima Porta

“Fragment of mosaic with partridges” also from the Villa of Livia Ad Gallinas Albas

“Bust of youth of the gens Julia” from Pozzuoli

“Bust of a Flavian Woman”

“Fragment of a fresco with Hermaphrodite” (second century AD)

“Funeral palmirene slabs” (third century AD) from Palmyra in Syria

In addition, “Ecclesia Romana” fragment of mosaic of the beginning of the thirteenth century from the apse of the demolished Basilica of St. Peter

ARCHAEOLOGICAL EXPLORATIONS

In the underground ruins of a Roman building of the late antiquity, perhaps a domus (house) with commercial function

BALEANI PALACE

PALAZZO BALEANI

Via Larga/Corso Vittorio Emanuele II 244

1627/28 maybe by Francesco Peparelli (active since 1626/d. 1641) with original FAÇADE ON VIA LARGA which was opened in 1630 opposite the Chiesa Nuova

Formerly known as Palazzo Cerri and Palazzo Caucci

FAÇADE ON CORSO VITTORIO EMANUELE II rebuilt in 1922 by Pietro Romagnoli who demolished the block with the exception of Francesco Paparelli's seventeenth-century wing and rebuilt one office building that took up the seventeenth-century façade design with the technique of “fake antique”

Now is the headquarters of CIMS, Centro di Ricerca per le Malattie Sociali (Research Center for Social Diseases) of La Sapienza University

MONUMENT TO NICOLA SPEDALIERI

MONUMENTO A NICOLA SPEDALIERI

Piazza Sforza Cesarini

1898 Mario Rutelli (1859/1943)

The monument was placed in front of S. Andrea Della Valle only in 1903 and then moved here in 1957 to make room for the fountain by Carlo Maderno

Nicola Spedalieri (1740/95) was a priest, philosopher and writer, author of "About Human Rights" of 1791. He rejected the deistic and atheistic character of the French Revolution, but he defended the rights of man proclaimed by it and he reckoned those rights as fundamentally Christian, considering the popular sovereignty as the foundation of government power

HOTEL TIZIANO

HOTEL TIZIANO

Corso Vittorio Emanuele II 110

1886/88 Gaetano Koch (1849/1910) for the Marquis Francesco Saverio Lavaggi. Formerly known as Palazzo Lavaggi Pacelli belonging to the family of Pius XII Pacelli (1939/58)

It was converted into a hotel in 1956

The linear façade clearly inspired by the architecture of Antonio da Sangallo the Younger contrasts with the contemporary façade of the nearby Palazzo Vidoni by Francesco Settimj (active 1875/88) which is much more densely built. Both were built at the time of the opening of Corso Vittorio Emanuele II