ID AND LOCATION
| Stanford #
| 323 |
| AG1980 #
| 323 |
| PM1960 #
| 323 |
| 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 row of tabernae traverses the fragment on a diagonal. The shops face a street on the other side of which additional rooms are visible. In the bottom right corner, another row of rooms emerge from the back wall of the diagonal row of shops. The two rows of tabernae flank the corner of what seems to be a courtyard.
Identification Rows of tabernae are ubiquitous on the Plan, and the type 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 perhaps 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 courtyard at bottom left may have served as a common work area for the the shop owners whose shops backed onto it. Although not indicated on the Plan, there probably were openings in the back of the tabernae to give access to the courtyard.
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. The fragment was later used as building material in the 17th c. construction of the Farnese familys Giardino Segreto (Secret Garden) near the Via Giulia, and was rediscovered in 1888 or 1898 when the walls of the garden were demolished. Since then, it has been stored with the other known FUR fragments in various places: the storerooms of the Commissione Archeologica (1888/1898-1903), the Antiquarium Comunale (1924-1939), the Capitoline Museums (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.) N.B. PM 1960 does not reveal the whereabouts of the fragment between 1903 and 1924.
Text by Tina Najbjerg
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| KEYWORDS
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| tabernae, courtyard |
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