ID AND LOCATION
| Stanford #
| 21d |
| AG1980 #
| 21d |
| PM1960 #
| 21 d |
| Slab #
| VII-14 |
| Adjoins
| 21a 21b 21c |
CONDITION
| Located
| true |
| Incised
| true |
| Surviving
| true |
| Subfragments
| 1 |
| Plaster Parts
| 0 |
| Back Surface
| smooth |
| Slab Edges
| 1 |
| Clamp Holes
| 1 |
| Tassello
| no |
TECHNICAL INFO
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| ANALYSIS
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| Description The far right corner of the fragment was part of a slab edge; a partial clamp hole is visible there. It depicts two rows of tabernae that meet at an oblique angle and are separated by a narrow alley. A staircase in the leftmost shop demonstrates that the horizontal row of shops was multi-storeyed. Arcades run along the outside and the inside of the tabernae. It is uncertain whether the bottom arcade frames a street or a courtyard.
Identification: Shops next to the Baths of L. Licinius Sura The fragment joins with frs.
21a,
21b (missing), and
21c
to form the corner of a slab. The two clamp holes in the group (one in this fragment, another in fr. 21a) locate the ensemble precisely in the upper right corner of slab VII-14 (PM 1960, p. 79). This location is further confirmed by the inscription in frs. 21b and c which identifies the building depicted there as the balneum Surae, a bathing complex known from the Regionary Catalogues to have been situated in Regio XIII, on the Aventine Hill. Traditionally, the balneum Surae is associated with remains of a bath structure of Trajanic date uncovered north of the Via di Santa Prisca; and the large street that runs in front of the baths (visible here and in frs. 21b and c) is generally identified as the clivus Publicus, modern Via di Santa Prisca (LTUR V, p. 65; Richardson 1992, p. 396). A different proposal locates the complex to an area south of the Via di Santa Prisca, more precisely in the corner of Via di Santa Prisca and Via di Santa Sabina, where it would coincide with the remains of a bath structure of similar layout to what is depicted on the FUR fragments (LTUR V, p. 65).
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| HISTORY OF FRAGMENT |
| This fragment was originally part of one large piece, consisting of frs. 21abcd, that was discovered in 1562 in a garden behind the Church of Saints Cosmas and Damian. The large piece was transferred to the Palazzo Farnese and stored there. Renaissance engravers reproduced it in 16th-c. drawings that are now kept in the Vatican (for more information about the creation and accuracy of these drawings, see Cod. Vat. Lat. 3439), and Giovanni Pietro Bellori included it in his 1673 publication of the Plan. At some point thereafter, the piece broke and section 21b disappeared. The remaining three pieces a, c, and d were moved to the Capitoline Museums and exhibited with some of the other known fragments in wooden frames along the main staircase. In 1903, museum curators included them in a reconstruction of the FUR mounted on a wall behind the Palazzo dei Conservatori (1903-1924). Since then, the three fragments have been stored with the other known FUR fragments in various places: the storerooms of 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 (PM 1960, p. 79).
Text by Tina Najbjerg
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| KEYWORDS
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| columns, colonnade, shops, tabernae, street, stairs, courtyard, arcade |
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