TERMINI TRAIN STATION

STAZIONE TERMINI
Piazza dei Cinquecento

FIRST STATION
1862/63 with the name Stazione Centrale delle Ferrovie Romane (Central Station of the Roman Railways)

In the sixteenth century in this area had been built the Villa Montalto-Peretti owned by Cardinal Felice Peretti, later Pope Sixtus V (1585/90)
The villa was later acquired by the Massimo family, who gave it to the Papal State just when the construction of the train station was being planned, and, as a result, the villa was demolished

The station was built in conjunction with the opening of the rail link from Rome first to Ceprano and later to Napoli

SECOND STATION
1868/74 by Salvatore Bianchi (1821/84) for a city of just 200,000 inhabitants

After switching to the Kingdom of Italy in 1870, the works suffered several interruptions and slowdowns

The decision was made to build a central station for Roma in this area, despite it would have had more sense to build a station for each line, such as Paris or London
The first two railway lines of the Papal States had in fact the last stops in the Porta Maggiore (the Rome-Frascati, 1856) and in Porta Portese (the Rome-Civitavecchia, 1859, later extended to Pisa). There were also existing projects for the Rome-Ceprano and Rome-Ancona

However, it was decisive the influence of the powerful Belgian Monsignor Francesco De Merode who had interests in the Termini area and in the current Via Nazionale, the street that him himself planned

The Master Plan of 1931 included two main stations in Rome: one in the north, on Campo Parioli where later the Olympic Village was built, and one in the south in the area of Casilino Mandrione. The two stations would have connected by a tunnel and Termini would have been a transit underground station
It was an idea that, with hindsight, was not so bad and would have avoided the huge wound of the railroad tracks that cuts the center of Rome
But then in 1936 it was decided to organize the Universal Exhibition and, with the new idea of developing Roma towards the sea, it was decided to have Termini as the only main station

THIRD STATION
Begun in 1938 with the sides longer than 2 km (1.2 miles) by Angiolo Mazzoni Del Grande (1894/1979)

“Angiolo Mazzoni Del Grande always tried new ways of expression, up to level of the heterogeneous language that defiled the rationalist lexicon with a rich materiality that Marinetti called futurist, but that demonstrates the need to meet the demands of the administration of which he was a dependent, in some circumstances, the result of mediation in situations of discord among its stakeholders, particularly complex and evident in the events related to the history of the important railway junctions of Florence, Rome and Venice” (Alessandra Capanna – Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani Treccani)

Front building
1947/50 designed by two groups of architects joint winners of the competition: the one of Leo Calini (1903/85) and Eugenio Montuori (1907/82) and that of Massimo Castellazzi (1901/77), Vasco Fadigati (1902/?), Achille Pintonello (1902/?) and Annibale Vitellozzi (1902/90)

The building is 53 m long (174 feet) and the huge CANTILEVER ROOF extends for 19 m (63 feet) to the outside with a bold technical solution. It is nicknamed the dinosaur
Bas-relief 1951 by the Hungarian artist Amerigo Tot (1909/84)

“The front building remains one of the most interesting works in the Italian post-war and it is a concrete testimony of the renewal effort that architectural culture had undertaken in those years” (Piero Ostilio Rossi)

Termini Station was renovated in 2000 and a huge shopping mall was opened in the basement

It is the first train station in Italy and the second in Europe after the Gare du Nord in Paris for number of passengers
It has been figured out that every day about 480.000 people enter this train station, as mentioned on the official Stazione Termini web site

ARCHAEOLOGICAL EXPLORATIONS
The building is located on the former site of a popular quarter of the second century AD

The frescoes found during construction are now exposed on the top floor of the nearby archaeological museum of Palazzo Massimo
At the side of the front building and inside the station itself are visible sections of the ancient Servian Walls

MASSIMO PALACE - NATIONAL ROMAN MUSEUM (eight part)

Eighth Room - Mythological Cycles

“Head of Hercules” from Nemi

“Torso of Minotaur” from Via S. Tommaso in Parione

“Group of Achilles and Penthesilea” second century AD from Settebagni from a Hellenistic original of about 170/160 BC

“Manly torso with chlamys” representing Odysseus stealing the Palladium maybe from a Hellenistic bronze original of 197 BC by Nicerato. It was found in Via Margutta

“Mutilated statue of teacher of the children of Niobe” early second century AD from a group of Niobids

“Torso of Amazon”

Ninth Room - Theater

“Actor disguised as Papposilenus” second century AD from Torre Astura

“Double herm of Dionysus” of the Hadrian period from Via Sallustiana

Tenth Room - Ships of Caligula (37/41) in Nemi

“Protomes” including one with the head of Medusa

“Balustrade with posts and Dionysian herms”

Eleventh Room- Historic Celebrations

“Headless statue with breastplate”

“Relief of the victory of Actium”

“Relief of Terracina”

Twelfth Room - Sarcophagus of Portonaccio

Incredibly epic and detailed “Sarcophagus of Portonaccio” with battle between Romans and barbarians

On the lid “Four scenes from the life of the deceased”

On the sides “Barbarians ask for mercy and crossing of a bridge of boats by Roman soldiers with barbarian prisoners” 180 maybe of Aulus Julius Pompilius one of the generals of Marcus Aurelius

“Strong is undoubtedly the parallelism with the reliefs of the Column of Marcus Aurelius: in fact this sarcophagus shares with the column the expressiveness of the characters represented at the limits of the disintegration of form, according to a design concept, due to the exasperated use of the drill, which would fully affirm itself in the third century” (Elena Calandra)

MASSIMO PALACE - NATIONAL ROMAN MUSEUM (sixth part)

First Gallery - Portraits from Villa Adriana in Tivoli

“Marcus Aurelius”

“Crispina”

“Caracalla”

Fifth Room - Sculptures from Imperial Homes

Two copies of the marvelous “Venus before the bath” from the original maybe in bronze of the second century BC by Doidalsas exhibited, according to Pliny, in the Portico d'Ottavia: one from Hadrian's Villa at Tivoli, the best of many existing copies and one in Parian marble found in 1913 in Via Palermo, near the Viminal Palace

“It is in the wake of the changes introduced by Lysippus and Praxiteles: it inherits from the first the rhythm sought in the apparent instability, from the second the delicate sensuality. Typical of Asia Minor, from which Doidalsas came, however, is the full and prosperous softness” (Elena Calandra)

“Headless Ephebe” first century AD from the Villa of Nero in Subiaco maybe a Niobid with traces of ganosis, the wax-like substance which was used to imitate complexion

“Head of a Young Girl Asleep” first century AD from the Villa of Nero in Subiaco, maybe a dead Niobid

“Dancing Girl” from Hadrian's Villa

It's amazing how a statue with most of the limbs missing would still be able to express so intensely movement, sensuality, music and joy

“Statue of Dionysus” and “Statue of Athena” of the Vescovali-Arezzo type from Hadrian’s Villa

“Maiden of Anzio” third century BC in white Greek marble of two different types of which the finer it is used for the flesh

“Figure of intense expressiveness, caught in a complex pose, enriched with light and shadow play, thoughtful and melancholy” (Carlo Bertelli, Giuliano Briganti, Antonio Giuliano)

“The slender figure must be connected to the school of Lysippus, while the overall approach reminds of Praxiteles' compositional schemes. The twist of the figure shows instead the beginning of Hellenism. On the other hand the use of two different qualities of marble connects it to workshops of Asia Minor and also the adoption of the heavy roll of folds around the waist is of Greek and Eastern European origin” (Elena Calandra)

“Apollo of Anzio” mid-first century AD from an original of the fourth century BC of the school of Praxiteles. It was found by the Anzio-Ardea state road

“Headless amazon on horse fighting a barbarian” Antonine period from Anzio. It is a copy of a Hellenistic original

“Head of an Amazon” from Hadrian's Villa

“Headless statue of Heracles” first century BC from the Villa of Voconio Pollio in Ciampino from a Greek original of the fourth century BC

“Statue of Hermes”

“Crater with cranes and snakes” in Pentelic marble from Hadrian’s Villa

“Portrait of Antinous”

“Two heads of Apollo Lyceus” from the original by Praxiteles (about 395/326 BC)

“Apollo from the Tiber” neo-attic work in Parian marble

Sixth Room - Statues from Gymnasiums

“Lancellotti Discus Thrower” found in 1781 in the Villa Palombara where Piazza Vittorio is today and kept in Palazzo Lancellotti

It was bought in 1939 by Hitler for 5 million lira and was taken to Munich. It was retrieved after the war

“Discus Thrower of Castel Porziano”

Both statues are copies from a bronze original of about 450 BC by Myron of Eleutherae (about 500/about 440 BC)

“The body is caught in the moment of its maximum tension. But the effort is not reflected in the face, which expresses only a measured concentration of determination and intelligence. Strong and harmonious the twisting of limbs, in a wheel composition, with the gestural rhythm of the hands on which attention inevitably focuses” (Carlo Bertelli, Giuliano Briganti, Antonio Giuliano)

“Ephebe of Monteverde” first half of the first century AD

“Three heads of athletes” from originals of Skopas, Polykleitos of Argos (about 490/about 425 BC) and Lysippus

MASSIMO PALACE - NATIONAL ROMAN MUSEUM (fifth part)

SECOND FLOOR - Statues of the Imperial Period

First Room - Room of the charioteers

“Eight herms of charioteers” from the Shrine of Hercules Cubans (hypothetical attribution), in the area of Viale Trastevere

Second Room - Period of Trajan (98/117) and Hadrian (117/138)

“Two figures with breastplate”

“Plotina” about 120, Trajan's wife, from the Baths of Neptune in Ostia

“The personality of Plotina influenced a lot the formation of Hadrian and, according to sources, even his rise to power: linked to Hadrian with an almost maternal deep friendship if not a love affair, she would have reached the point of falsifying the last will of her husband in his favor. The belated evidence of gratitude from Hadrian shown on coins from the year 134 for the woman who had opened the doors of power for him, giving him also her niece Sabina - daughter of Matidia, sister of Trajan - as wife, was probably due to his intent to minimize the rumors about their alleged relationship” (Elena Calandra)

“Statue of Trajan-Heracles”

“Two portraits of Sabina” wife of Hadrian, one from the Victor Emmanuel Monument area with significant traces of colors and one from the Appian Way

“Hadrian” about 117 from S. Bibiana

“The fact that Hadrian used to wear a beard, expression of his philhellenism and function connoting the concept of sapientia (knowledge), plays a crucial role also from a formal point of view. Along with the curly and plastic locks of hair, it works as an element of vivid chiaroscuro contrast with the smooth and bright surfaces of the face. In a solidly classical composition is introduced therefore, albeit still mildly, an idea of plasticity and baroque exuberance that will find a strong emphasis in later portraits” (Gian Luca Grassigli - TMG)

“Antinous” from the Magna Mater field at Ostia with the faces of two unidentified people in the diadem, perhaps Nerva and Hadrian and traces of red in his hair

It is believed that at least 2,000 statues of Antinous existed in ancient times of which only about 115 are currently extant

“Relief of Antinous Silvanus” from Lanuvio

“Funerary relief of the Decii” from the Via Ostiense

Third Room - Period of Antoninus Pius (138/161)

“Heroic Antoninus Pius” from Terracina with chlamys buckled on the shoulder maybe like the Diomede Cuma-Monaco type of the fifth century BC widely used by public figures and Roman emperors

“Two portraits of Antoninus Pius” one from Formia and one from an unknown location

“Statue of Faustina Minor” wife of Marcus Aurelius with head maybe not relevant, of the so called praying type perhaps a reworking of a type created for Livia

“Two friezes of Provinces” (maybe Thrace and Egypt) from the Temple of Hadrian

Fourth Room - Period of Marcus Aurelius (161/180) and Commodus (180/192)

“Statue of Lucilla” sister of Marcus Aurelius

“Portrait of Crispina” wife of Commodus

“Lucius Verus”

“Two bearded philosophers”

MASSIMO PALACE - NATIONAL ROMAN MUSEUM (fourth part)

Seventh Room - Exceptional Bronzes from Via IV Novembre

“Boxer” about 100/50 BC

“The realism of the representation deliberately enhances the contrast between the realism of the Hellenistic boxer with the heroic ideals of classical athletes. His body and face swollen and bruised depict a grim reality even if not an annihilating one, which is contrary to the simplicity of the pose and to the beard and hair orderly styled in linear curls reminiscent of the classic styles. Figures like this show that the continuing interest for features of the Hellenistic Baroque style merges with limpid classical reminiscences” (John Griffiths Pedley)

“Hellenistic Prince” about 150 BC

“The eclecticism of the composition is apparent on one hand in the polykleitos matrix expressed in the weight and solidity of the body, on the other hand in the obvious reminiscences of Lysippus seen in the structure, size and character of the head, in the rhythm of the work that cites the 'Alexander with the Spear' and in the gesture of the right hand resting on the buttock, in direct allusion to the 'Erakles at Rest' of the sculptor from Sicyon” (Mario Torelli, Mauro Menichetti, Gian Luca Grassigli)

Eighth room - Neo-Attic statuary production and decorations

“Aphrodite demure” first century BC signed by Menophantos from the Botanical Gardens on Celium Hill, connected to the tradition of Aphrodites started with the Aphrodite of Cnidus by Praxiteles

“Unlike the Cnidian one, the Aphrodite of Menophantos shows traits closer to the human sphere, as revealed by the fearful expression of the face that doesn't have anymore the godly detachment of the Praxiteles' model. Compared to other replicas, original elements remain in this case the toiletries box at the feet of the goddess and the resumption of the theme of the towel held on the womb, which seems to even want to emphasize the modesty of the creation of Praxiteles or, rather, a form of ambiguous game that attracts the viewer's eye on the covered areas” (Brunella Germini)

“Headless Athena” from Celium Hill echoing the Athena Parthenos by Phidias

“Cylindrical base with Maenads dancing” first century BC in Pentelic marble from the Sciarra Collection

“Muse” perhaps Melpomene of the Melpomene Farnese type

“Neo-Attic basin” early first century BC in Pentelic marble from Lungotevere in Sassia with transport of weapons of Achilles forged by Hephaestus after Thetis' request

“Figurative late Hellenistic language inspired from models of Pergamon. The functionality of the basin as a fountain which, in all likelihood, was destined to be part of the decoration of the garden of a wealthy Roman villa, was assured by a median hole, through which water ran to be poured from the rim, so as to make more naturalistic the decoration with the marine cortege” (Brunella Germini)

“Neo-Attic frieze with Nike and bull” about 60 BC inspired by the reliefs of the Temple of Athena Nike in Athens

“Altar with archaistic Graces” end of first century BC from the Appian Way

STAIRCASE

Statues of “Zeus”, “Apollo” and “Dionysus”

MASSIMO PALACE - NATIONAL ROMAN MUSEUM (first part)

PALAZZO MASSIMO

Piazza dei Cinquecento 3

1883/87 Camillo Pistrucci (1856/27) in Neo-Renaissance style as home to a college for Jesuits until 1960, on the site of the Palace of Sixtus V at the Baths, the last building to be demolished of the large Villa Peretti Montalto which had become property of the Massimo family

The Italian state bought it in 1981 and had it restored to convert it into a museum by Costantino Dardi (1936/91)

The ground floor was opened to the public in 1995 and the whole museum in 1998

MUSEO NAZIONALE ROMANO

National Roman Museum

It is made out of five different museums in five different locations. The other four are Palazzo Massimo, Crypta Balbi, Museo delle Terme and Museo Palatino

Established in 1889 with headquarters in the Baths of Diocletian and then enlarged with the antiquities of the Kircher Museum and of the Ludovisi collection

GROUND FLOOR - Statuary of the Republican and Augustan period

Room of passage

“Colossal polychrome Minerva” of the Augustan period, from the Aventine Hill, perhaps near the site of the Temple of Minerva seat of the guilds

She is represented sitting as Minerva patron of craftsmen and of the children of school age

MONUMENT TO JOHN PAUL II

MONUMENTO A GIOVANNI PAOLO II

Piazza dei Cinquecento

2011 Oliviero Rainaldi (1956)

5.20 m (17 feet) high, made of bronze with a silver patina of faded green. Inspired by a photo of 1993 when John Paul II wrapped a child in his cloak

It has caused quite a lot of criticism mainly for lack of resemblance with the Pope, so much that it had to be modified and completed in 2012