ID AND LOCATION
| Stanford #
| 11e |
| AG1980 #
| 11e |
| PM1960 #
| 543 a |
| Slab #
| VII-7 |
| Adjoins
| 11fgh |
CONDITION
| Located
| true |
| Incised
| true |
| Surviving
| true |
| Subfragments
| 1 |
| Plaster Parts
| 0 |
| Back Surface
| smooth |
| Slab Edges
| 0 |
| Clamp Holes
| 0 |
| Tassello
| no |
TECHNICAL INFO
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| ANALYSIS
|
| Description A horizontal street traverses the upper part of the fragment. From the right, it is flanked on its upper side by a series of buildings with tabernae in front, by a section of corridor apartments, by another large building with shops in front, and finally by a cluster of rooms, seemingly inaccessible from the street. Numerous staircases suggest that all of these units were multi-storey structures. Again moving from right to left, the horizontal street is flanked below by a covered arcade that fronts a row of back-to-back tabernae. An opening with a staircase in the middle of the row provides access to the structures above them. To the left of this section are three equally sized and shaped atrium houses. Apart from a few differences in the layout of the atria, all three are fronted by shops on either side of the central entrance, the fauces; the atria lead through a tablinum into a large peristyle in the rear. In all three houses, an oecus flanked by two small rooms in the back opens onto the peristyle. Except in the middle house, smaller rooms frame the atria on each side. Left of the atrium houses, the upper right corner of a large courtyard is visible; it seems to contain two small squares, perhaps basins or altars.
Identification: Vicus Patricius E. Rodríguez-Almeida located this fragment and the joining frs. 11fgh and 11i in the bottom left corner of slab VII-7, based on the similarities (such as marble color, thickness, smooth back, and sawing irregularities) between these fragments and those already securely placed in the top of the slab (Rodríguez-Almeida 1975-76, pp. 274-75, and fig. 8; 1992, pp. 66-68, figs. 15-16). In addition to these similarities, certain features, such as the horizontal street and the porticoed structure in fr. 11fgh, correspond exactly to excavated remains between the Viminal and Cispian Hills (see Rodríguez-Almeida 1975-76, fig. 8). The horizontal street in this fragment can therefore be identified as the vicus Patricius, the street that marked the border between the fourth and the sixth Augustan regiones of the city (Rodríguez-Almeida 1975-76, p. 274; LTUR V, p. 183). The vicus Patricius started at the clivus Suburanus in the south and ran north between the Cispian and Viminal Hills to the Viminal Gate in the Republican city walls (corresponding to modern Via Urbana)(see map in LTUR III, fig. 190). The large structure -- probably an atrium house -- in the top right corner of this fragment has recently been identified as the large domus that held the famous Odyssey frieze, excavated in 1848 (Coarelli 1998, pp. 31-33). The posited association beween this structure and the Papirii family (Coarelli 1998, pp. 33-37) must remain tenuous at best.
Significance Rodríguez-Almeida's positioning of these fragments provides us with a vivid picture of a little-known neighborhood that seems to have been a mix of multi-storey apartment complexes, luxurious single-family residences, and shops. The fragment provides us with the best-known examples of atrium houses on the Plan. |
|
| HISTORY OF FRAGMENT |
| Like the majority of FUR fragments, this piece was discovered in 1562 in a garden behind the Church of Saints Cosmas and Damian. It was transferred to the Palazzo Farnese and stored there. Renaissance engravers reproduced the fragment in 16th-c. drawings that are now kept in the Vatican (Cod. Vat. Lat. 3439), and Giovanni Pietro Bellori included it in his 1673 publication. In 1742, it was moved to the Capitoline Museums and exhibited with some of the other fragments in wooden frames along the main staircase. Since then, the fragment has been stored with the other known FUR pieces in various places: the storerooms of the Capitoline Museums (1903-1924), the Antiquarium Comunale (1924-1939), the Capitoline Museums again (1939-1955), the Palazzo Braschi (1955-1998), and since 1998 in the Museo della Civiltà Romana in EUR under the auspices of the Sovraintendenza ai Beni Culturali del Comune di Roma. (This fragment's history corresponds to Iter A' as summarized in PM 1960, p. 56.)
Text by Tina Najbjerg and Jennifer Trimble |
|
| KEYWORDS
|
| street, atrium houses, apartment complexes, corridors, stairs, domus, tablinum, peristyle, oecus, cubiculum, street, tabernae, shops, arcade, portico, fauces, basin?, altar? vicus, |
|
Prev
