POMPEY'S THEATER

TEATRO DI POMPEO
Largo di Torre Argentina/Campo de' Fiori/Via del Sudario/Via di S. Anna

61/55 BC for the consul Pompey

Restored in the year 32 BC for Augustus (27 BC/14) who had the curia sealed and walled in and moved the statue of Pompey behind the scene

Restored again for Domitian (81/96), Diocletian (285/305) and Maximian (286/305) associated with Diocletian

It was the first theater in masonry in Rome
Diameter of the auditorium 160 m (525 feet)
The capacity was up to 17,580 spectators

The scene had large statues of the Muses with Apollo, five of which still existing in the Louvre, the National Museum of Naples and in the courtyard of Palazzo Borghese
At the center there were two groves of sycomore trees bordered by lines of fountains

On top of the auditorium there was the TEMPLE OF VENUS VICTRIX opened in 52 BC and corresponding to the modern Palazzo Pio Righetti
Behind the scene there was the huge PORCH of about 180 x 135 m (590 x 443 feet)

On the side of the porch opposite to the theater there was a great big rectangular exedra known as CURIA OF POMPEY that was used as a Curia for Senate meetings. There was a statue of Pompey

In the Curia of Pompey Julius Caesar was killed on March 15, 44 BC
Traces of the Curia are visible in the sacred area of Largo Argentina

ARCH OF GROTTAPINTA
In the Passetto del Biscione, so named for the remains of paintings with columns, swags and putti
S. MARIA IN GROTTAPINTA
Known from 1291. Deconsecrated

ARGENTINA THEATER

TEATRO ARGENTINA
Largo di Torre Argentina 52

Opened in 1732 and designed by the Marquis Girolamo Theodoli (1677/1766) for Duke Giuseppe Sforza Cesarini

In 1826 were added LOBBY, FOYER and FAÇADE (hitherto missing) by Pietro Holl (1780 / 1855-56)

In 1843 it was bought by Prince Alessandro Torlonia

Renewal in the years 1859/61 by Nicola Canevari

In 1869 it passed to the City of Rome for 100,000 scudi

Total reconstruction 1887/88 by Gioacchino Ersoch (1815/1902)

The restoration of 1926 by Marcello Piacentini (1881/1960) and the restoration of the years 1967/71 have almost completely cleared Ersoch’s reconstruction
The restoration of 2011/12 have given back the original soft color to the façade

In 1816 here was performed the world premiere of the opera The Barber of Seville by Gioachino Rossini which ended in a fiasco
Already for the second performance the success was huge and the public went to Rossini’s house Rossini to celebrate after the show. The composer disappointed by the premiere had not gone to the theater and, hearing the uproar, at first he was afraid that people were coming there to beat him up

The Teatro Argentina was also the venue of the world premieres of the works by Giuseppe Verdi I Due Foscari in 1844 and La Battaglia di Legnano in 1849, the latter during the revolutionary period of the Roman Republic at the presence of the national heroes Giuseppe Garibaldi and Goffredo Mameli
From the first half of the twentieth century prose was staged in this theater

BESSO PALACE

PALAZZO BESSO

Largo di Torre Argentina 11

It was built in the sixteenth century

It belonged to the Rustici and Olgiati families for whom it was renovated by Carlo Maderno (1556/1629)

In mid-1600s it passed to the Strozzi family from whom it was expropriated in 1882 by the Italian government to build Corso Vittorio Emanuele II

It was radically changed but the PORTAL at nº 26 built by Carlo Maderno in 1620 was kept

Since 1905 it belonged to the economist Marco Besso who housed in it an important cultural center and seat of the Foundations Ernesta and Marco Besso with a library of about 75,000 volumes about Dante Alighieri, Rome and studies about Italian proverbs

After some restoration in the gallery facing the church of SS. Stimmate di S. Francesco (SS. Stigmata of St. Francis) a frieze was discovered recently with “Eight virtues” and “Villages with hermits” 1606 by Tarquinio Ligustri (about 1563/1621) from Viterbo

“The exaltation of the life of a hermit, defined here as a peaceful relationship between the man of faith and a hospitable nature, is linked to S. Lucia Filippini's religiosity, to which the landlord had been particularly close. The demonstrated attribution to Ligustri of these landscapes will to do some clarity in the complex panorama of landscape painting in Rome at the beginning of the seventeenth century, often generically considered pertaining the school Brill” (Maria Barbara Guerrieri Borsoi - Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani Treccani)

HECATOSTYLUM - 100 COLUMNS PORTICO

HECATOSTYLUM

Corso Vittorio Emanuele II/ Largo di Torre Argentina

Portico with one hundred columns, at the north end side of the portico of the Theatre of Pompey and the sacred area of Largo Argentina

The official name was maybe PORTICUS LENTULORUM from the Lentuli family (members of the family who followed Pompey were consuls in 57 and 49 BC or consuls in 18 BC) sponsors of the building

At the time of Alexander Severus (222/235) it was rebuilt as BASILICA ALEXANDRINA, maybe unfinished

Maybe inside there were the "Statues of the fourteen nations conquered by Pompey" by Coponius

BURCKARDT'S HOUSE

CASA DEL BURCARDO

Via del Sudario 44

1503 for Johannes Burckardt, the papal master of ceremonies of five popes from Sixtus IV to Julius II, from 1478 to 1503

It incorporates a preexisting tower called TORRE ARGENTINA by Johannes Burckardt with its name painted on it, in honor of his hometown Strasbourg, Argentoratum in Latin

The tower was lowered and the height of the rest of the building raised one floor, making the tower itself disappear

It gave the name to the nearby Largo di Torre Argentina which does not take the name, as many mistakenly think, from the Papitto Tower on the Largo itself

It is the home since 1932 of the LIBRARY with about 40.000 volumes and the THEATRICAL MUSEUM OF BURCKARDT belonging to the SIAE (the Italian Association of authors and editors) with about 100 paintings, busts and statuettes of actors from the nineteenth and twentieth century, costumes, prints and drawings regarding theatre productions

SACRED AREA OF LARGO ARGENTINA

AREA SACRA DI LARGO ARGENTINA

Largo di Torre Argentina

It was discovered in the years 1926/28 during the demolition of the Palazzi Aquari, Rossi, Chiassi-Cesarini and the church of S. Nicola dei Cesarini

When the Sacred Area was evaluated extremely important for the history of the Roman Republic, it was decided not to build the planned new buildings and to enhance it archaeologically in the original site

FOUR REPUBLICAN TEMPLES

Conventionally referred to as A, B, C and D, from right to left facing west

They were found in the years 1926/28. Excavations sacrificed medieval structures and the remains of a brick building of the first century AD that connected the temples: it was at least two stories high and was probably the headquarters office for water and aqueducts

The oldest temple (about 300/290 BC) is the TEMPLE C very likely to be identified with the Temple of Feronia the ancient Italic goddess connected to the worship of water

Then, in chronological order, the TEMPLE A, maybe the temple of Juno Temple Curritis but more likely Temple of Juturna another water deity, founded in 241 BC by Quinto Lutazio Catulo after the triumph over the Carthaginians of the same year

Over the temple in the ninth century, if not before, the church of S. Nicola dei Cesarini was built. It was also known as S. Nicola de Calcarario 

Then the TEMPLE D, the Temple of the Lares Permarini 179 BC. Placed in the Vetus Porticus Minucia which was later expanded in the nearby Porticus Minucia Frumentaria. It was a large area east of the Area Sacra di Largo Argentina, the place where the free distribution of grain to the Roman citizens used to take place 

Finally, the ROUND TEMPLE B the Aedes Fortunae Huiusce Diei or "Temple of the fortune of this day" founded in 101 BC by Quinto Lutazio Catulo, namesake of the man who had built the Temple of Juturna, consul with Mario, following the victory over the Cimbri at Vercelli

The huge pieces of the colossal statue acrolith (the head is 1.46 m - 4.80 feet) in Greek marble representing the maybe female deity of the temple are now in the Centrale Montemartini

The acrolith was statue in which the trunk of the figure was made of wood, and the head, hands, and feet were made of marble. The wood was concealed either by drapery or by gilding and only the marble parts were exposed to view

CURIA OF POMPEY

In the west part of the area BIG PODIUM made out of blocks of tufa stone, inserted, as Dio Cassius recalls, between two latrines that were built only in the imperial age: it is what remains of the hall of about 20 x 20 m (66 x 66 feet) inserted in the area of the portico of the Theatre of Pompey

It was the place of meetings of the Senate on 15 March 44 BC when Julius Caesar was killed inside the building, at the foot of the heroic statue of Pompey

It's amazing that the City of Rome does not even remember with a plaque the place where one of the most famous men that ever walked this planet died: most of area where the Curia of Pompey used to be, in front of the Teatro Argentina, is occupied by a tram stop

TORRE DEL PAPITTO

In the south east corner. Twelfth century. It used to belong to the Pierleoni family, a member of which was anti-pope under the name of Anacleto II (1130/38), from whose inferior status came the popular name of the tower

Later it belonged to the Boccamazzi family

The porch was built in 1932

It is popularly confused with the Torre Argentina, which is actually a tower house incorporated in Via del Sudario 44 which belonged to Johann Burckardt, master of ceremonies of five popes from Sixtus IV to Julius II. He named it Argentina in honor of his hometown Strasbourg, Argentorotum in Latin