ID AND LOCATION
| Stanford #
| 551 |
| AG1980 #
| 551 |
| PM1960 #
| 551 |
| 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 wide street traverses the fragment from bottom right to upper left, doubling in width on route. On the right, it is flanked by a straight line, which probably represents the edge of a sidewalk. Behind the sidewalk lies a large, rectilinear complex of small and large rooms. This complex is divided into two by a narrow passageway or alley that is lined on the bottom by an arcade. Behind and below the arcade a group of six rooms is visible; three open up towards the arcade, two towards the street, one is only partially shown. The section above the alley is faced at the bottom by three small tabernae and two larger rooms that open onto the alley. Along the street, it is flanked by a small, square room, a narrow, elongated room, and a large corner room with an opening towards the street and to the space above it. On the other side of the wide street lies a huge complex of variously sized rooms. Common walls divide the complex into roughly four smaller sections. Top left lies a L-shaped section with four rooms opening onto a central corridor. The bottom room has two openings towards the corridor. Below this section is a large room with a smaller room in the back. These two sections are separated from the middle section by a long, straight dividing wall. The upper left room of the middle section is only accessed via a covered portico that flanks the two previously mentioned sections on the street side. Below it lies another room that does not seem to be accessible from anywhere. Two small rooms provide access to this middle section. The second of the two opens onto a long room next to a staircase. There seems to be further access through the staircase area to the back area of this section which consists of a corridor flanked on both sides by equally sized rooms. The right front part of this middle section contains two large, interconnected rooms with one opening from the wide street. To the right of the middle section lies the fourth and final section of the complex. One large room gives access from the wide street to at least three smaller rooms or shops. The leftmost room opens onto the back of the section in which one more large room is visible and a series of smaller rooms behind it. One of these contains a staircase.
Identification Some of the rooms in these two complexes, especially those in the front of the first section on the left, in the back of the middle section on the left, and in the back of the last section on the left, are somewhat inaccessible from the main street, suggesting that they perhaps are private apartments. The rooms with wide openings towards the central street, such as the front rooms of the middle and the last sections on the left side, are probably tabernae. The front rooms of the sections on the right side of the wide street are probably also shops.
Significance 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 may have resided with their families on a wooden platform in the back of the shop. This fragment is typical in that it shows no monumental buildings but instead provides a view of the lesser known structures that made up the urban fabric of Rome: the residential and commercial structures.
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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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| tabernae, street, alley, corridor, apartments |
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