Identification The tabernae depicted in the upper left corner of this fragment are of the most common type of shops on the Marble Plan. Each shop consisted of a single room with a wide opening towards the street that could be screened off at night. The owners perhaps resided with their families on a wooden platform in the back of the shop. The courtyard behind the four tabernae, top left, would have provided the shops with a common work area. Although rarely indicated on the Plan, all the tabernae that backed onto this yard would have had an opening in the rear that provided access to the space. Such rear courts are common on the FUR -- a few other examples are frs. 281, 184 and 279ab (Reynolds 1996, pp. 163-64). In general, such courtyards provided air, a work area, and perhaps even a pleasant garden setting which was an especially desirable feature in the crowded city. The two sets of exterior stairs suggest that the fragment depicts a hilly section of Rome. The covered arcade that fronts the tabernae at bottom right signifies that these shops had a second storey or a mezzanine level, which would have provided the shop owners with additional living or storage room. The formal aspect of the internal columns in the building top left, the variety of building shapes, the carefully planned placement of stairs, the spacious area between the tabernae, and the hilly geography signal a type of cityscape which one might expect to find at the foot of central hills such as the Capitoline or the Palatine.

Significance No monumental buildings are represented here, and the fragment instead provides a view of the lesser known structures that made up the urban fabric of Rome: the residential and commercial buildings. As elsewhere on the Plan, the hilly topography of the city is represented solely by stairs and ramps.

Text by Tina Najbjerg