ID AND LOCATION
| Stanford #
| 320ab |
| AG1980 #
| 320a-b |
| PM1960 #
| 320 a b |
| Slab #
| unknown |
| Adjoins
| none |
CONDITION
| Located
| false |
| Incised
| true |
| Surviving
| true |
| Subfragments
| 2 |
| Plaster Parts
| 0 |
| Back Surface
| smooth |
| Slab Edges
| 1 |
| Clamp Holes
| 0 |
| Tassello
| no |
TECHNICAL INFO
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| ANALYSIS
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| Description These joined fragments were part of a slab edge. The surface of the fragments is extremely corroded and worn, making it difficult to discern whether the long, uneven line that traverses the entire group on an oblique angle is deliberate or not. The line has been included in AG 1980, pl. 46, which makes it seem legitimate despite its obvious incongruence with the remaining, rectilinear architecture. On the right, a wide street is flanked by a row of tabernae, fronted by an arcade. Additional rooms at the back indicates these were back-to-back tabernae. Bottom left, a corner of a building is visible. On the right it is flanked by a row of rooms that open onto the street as well as onto a courtyard behind them. A wall separates them from another row of back-to-back tabernae on the left. The shops that face left are smaller than those on the right. The uneven line creates a border between these shops and the arcaded street to the right that continues to the top of the fragment group. Far left lies another row of shops, facing the back-to-back shops across a wide street.
Identification Rows of tabernae are ubiquitous on the Plan, and those depicted here are of the most common type seen on the FUR. Each shop consisted of a single room with a wide opening towards the street that could be screened off a night. The owners probably resided with their families on a wooden platform in the back of the shop, although the small size of some tabernae may indicate they were strictly for commercial use. The luxury of having a covered sidewalk or arcade in front of a row of shops was apparently not restricted to such grandiose areas as the slopes of the Palatine, facing the Circus Maximus (see fr. 8bde). Frs. 33abc, 34a, 34b and 34c depict a large, predominantly commercial area by the Tiber which abounds with rows of tabernae and arcades. These covered arcades or porticos signify that there was a second storey or a mezzanine level above the shops, which would have provided the shop owners with additional living room (Reynolds 1996, p. 158).
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, the fragment was moved to the Capitoline Museums and exhibited with some of the other known fragments in wooden frames along the main staircase. Since then, it has been stored with the other FUR fragments 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 fragments history corresponds to Iter E as summarized in PM 1960, p. 56.)
Text by Tina Najbjerg
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| KEYWORDS
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| back-to-back tabernae, street, arcade |
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