ID AND LOCATION
| Stanford #
| 550ab |
| AG1980 #
| 550a-b |
| PM1960 #
| 550 a b |
| Slab #
| unknown |
| Adjoins
| none |
CONDITION
| Located
| false |
| Incised
| true |
| Surviving
| true |
| Subfragments
| 2 |
| 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 The joined fragments depict at top a row of large tabernae on a diagonal angle, opening toward top right. Behind these shops, another row of tabernae connects with the back wall of the first row. These shops face downwards and are fronted by a corridor or alley of trapezoidal shape. A small opening in the bottom wall of this alley leads to another, strangely shaped space. This space gives access to a third space from which a second opening gives way to an enclosure or space next to the second space. Two triangular spaces at the bottom seem to be blocked off from the rest of the architecture.
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 at night. The owners perhaps resided with their families on a wooden platform in the back of the shop. The function of the strangely shaped spaces in the bottom of the fragment is uncertain. Their shape may have been caused by the problems encountered by the map makers when they had to mosaic together the many surveys of different areas of the city. A good example of this problem is fr. 10g.
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. The distinct carving or ductus of this fragment may help join it to other fragments.
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| HISTORY OF FRAGMENT |
| Like the majority of FUR fragments, these now joined pieces were discovered in 1562 in a garden behind the Church of Saints Cosmas and Damian. From here, they were transferred to the Palazzo Farnese and stored there. They were not among the fragments that were reproduced in the Renaissance drawings that are now kept in the Vatican, but Giovanni Pietro Bellori included them in his 1673 publication. In 1742, the fragments were moved to the Capitoline Museums and exhibited with some of the other known fragments in wooden frames along the main staircase. Since then, they have 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. (The history of these fragments corresponds to Iter E as summarized in PM 1960, p. 56.)
Text by Tina Najbjerg |
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| KEYWORDS
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| tabernae |
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