ID AND LOCATION
| Stanford #
| 312 |
| AG1980 #
| 312 |
| PM1960 #
| 312 |
| Slab #
| unknown |
| Adjoins
| none |
CONDITION
| Located
| false |
| Incised
| true |
| Surviving
| true |
| Subfragments
| 1 |
| Plaster Parts
| 0 |
| Back Surface
| smooth |
| Slab Edges
| 0 |
| Clamp Holes
| 0 |
| Tassello
| no |
TECHNICAL INFO
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| ANALYSIS
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| Description A street moving from the bottom left to top right of the fragment, and a second street emerging from its left side, divide the architecture in this fragment into three sections. The building in the lower left corner is barely visible. Only an arcade can be seen flanking one side of the section. The building in the top left corner consists of numerous parallel rooms and corridors with many openings to the street and to each other. Two sets of staircases give access to second stories. The building is flanked on the right by a row of small tabernae. The block on the right consists of a central courtyard that is surrounded on at least three sides by outward-facing tabernae. In each corner, an opening provides access to the courtyard.
Identification Early reconstruction scholarship placed this fragment alongside the bottom of fr. 21c, attributing it to the Balnea Surae. However, later sources exclude this possibility (PM 1960, p. 80). The building to the right seems to be mainly of commercial use, although the individual tabernae may also have served as residence for the shop owners and his family. In that case, a wooden platform in the rear of the shop would have provided sleeping quarters. The central courtyard may have functioned as a work area, shared by the shop owners. The structure in the top left corner is more difficult to identify. Its open nature speaks against it being used as a multi-apartment residence and even against a commercial use. The rooms that line it on the right do, however, represent shops. The luxury of having a covered sidewalk arcade in front of a row of shops, as is possibly what is depicted in the bottom left corner of this fragment, was apparently not restricted to such grandiose areas as the slopes of the Palatine, facing the Circus Maximus (see fr. 8bde).
Significance This fragment is typical of non-identified fragments of the Plan. No monumental buildings are represented, 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.
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| 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. From here, it was transferred to the Palazzo Farnese and stored there. It was not among the fragments that were reproduced in the Renaissance drawings that are now kept in the Vatican, but 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 known fragments in wooden frames along the main staircase. In 1903, museum curators included the fragment in a reconstruction of the FUR mounted on a wall behind the Palazzo dei Conservatori (1903-1924). Since then, the fragment has 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. (This fragment’s history corresponds to Iter E as summarized in PM 1960, p. 56.)
Text by Tina Najbjerg and David Koller |
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| KEYWORDS
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| streets, stairs, tabernae, courtyard |
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