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  • Prof: Good morning.

  • Today's lecture is entitled "The Prince and the Palace:

  • Human Made Divine on the Palatine Hill."

  • And I want to begin essentially where we left off,

  • and that is with the emperor Vespasian,

  • the founder of the Flavian dynasty,

  • and the political shrewdness that Vespasian demonstrated,

  • when he made the decisions that he did --

  • when he made the decision especially to use architecture

  • to further his political agenda.

  • And you'll recall that the way in which he did that was that

  • he-- and I'm going to show you the

  • site plan once again on the Esquiline and Palatine Hills;

  • the site plan that shows us how he did this.

  • How he did this was he recognized that he didn't want

  • to associate himself with Nero, but it was to his advantage to

  • associate himself instead with the emperor Claudius.

  • And he did that by finishing the platform,

  • and indeed the temple itself that we looked at last time,

  • and that is the Temple of the Divine Claudius,

  • the Claudianum, that had been begun by

  • Agrippina the Younger.

  • He completed that as a nod to Claudius;

  • and again, a very smart political move on his part.

  • He also, as you'll recall, razed the Domus Aurea of Nero

  • to the ground, covered up what was left of it

  • otherwise, and then he filled in the

  • artificial lake, and he used the property that

  • the artificial lake was on, to build the Colosseum,

  • which itself was a shrewd gift to the Roman people,

  • to gain their favor, and he did succeed in that

  • regard.

  • Equally important, perhaps even more important,

  • is the decision that Vespasian made in the year 79 A.D.,

  • and that decision--and we see a portrait once again of

  • Vespasian, on the right-hand side of the

  • screen, now in Copenhagen--the decision

  • he made in 79 was to appoint his elder son,

  • Titus, as co-regent.

  • And we see a portrait of Titus on the left-hand side of the

  • screen, in military costume.

  • It's a portrait that was found in Herculaneum,

  • so that we know it needs to date prior to 79:

  • so very likely sometime in the seventies,

  • that particular statue was put up.

  • Now the reason it was smart politically to appoint Titus as

  • his co-regent was that Titus was extremely capable.

  • He was also extremely popular in Rome, with the people,

  • with the Senate, and what it did was to ensure

  • the succession: to ensure the succession.

  • And so when Vespasian died of natural causes in 79 A.D.,

  • Titus was prepared to take over, and indeed he did,

  • and he took over without any contest whatsoever,

  • which was a great accomplishment.

  • Titus, however--oh, and Titus, by the way,

  • was young when he became emperor;

  • he was in his early thirties, about thirty-two,

  • full of energy, and he needed it for what lay

  • ahead, because he was unlucky.

  • And his reign was affected by three major events,

  • the first of which you know intimately already,

  • and that is the eruption of Vesuvius in 79 A.D.

  • Titus' reign was 79 to 81.

  • So in 79 A.D., Vesuvius erupts and Titus has

  • to deal with the consequences of that, covered over,

  • as you well know, almost all of Campania.

  • In the year 80 he suffered, or Rome suffered,

  • a very serious plague, which Titus also had to deal

  • with.

  • He had to marshal all of his energy and all his ingenuity to

  • deal with a very serious plague in Rome,

  • and that plague was followed by a fire,

  • also an exceedingly serious fire.

  • So Titus had his hands full, and perhaps it's not

  • surprising, given all the stress of those

  • years that he too died of natural causes in 81,

  • at a very young age.

  • But despite what he went through during 79 to 81,

  • Titus' claim to fame was something that happened much

  • earlier, and I've mentioned it before,

  • and that is something that happened already in the year

  • A.D.

  • 70.

  • And it was in the year A.D.

  • 70 that Vespasian sent his elder son to Jerusalem,

  • to Judea, to get involved in a major military war.

  • And it was Titus, as you'll recall,

  • who was victorious in the Jewish Wars, and that took place

  • in 70 A.D.

  • And it was extremely important, not only in itself,

  • from Rome's standpoint, but also because it provided

  • legitimacy to the Flavian dynasty.

  • I mentioned that when a Roman dynasty came to power in a civil

  • war-- which was the case,

  • both for Augustus, after the civil war that Rome

  • was plunged into after Caesar's death,

  • and was the case again for Vespasian after the chaos of the

  • year 68/69-- they needed a foreign victory

  • to gain legitimacy.

  • So for the Flavian dynasty, the war over Jerusalem gave

  • them that legitimacy, and was therefore extremely

  • important in terms of the art and ideology of the Flavian

  • dynasty.

  • I want to turn to an arch that was put up in honor of that very

  • victory over Jerusalem, sometime after A.D.

  • 81.

  • It was the so-called Arch of Titus,

  • one of the most famous Roman monuments of all,

  • and it was put up, although it bears Titus' name,

  • it was put up not by him, but by his brother Domitian,

  • his younger brother Domitian, who succeeded him after Titus'

  • death, which is why we date it to

  • sometime after A.D.

  • 81.

  • I want to show you first its location, because that itself is

  • significant.

  • We are looking at the Google Earth view of the Roman Forum.

  • You see the Roman Forum here.

  • You see the Colosseum up at the top center.

  • You see the Capitoline Hill or Campidoglio here;

  • the Victor Emmanuel Monument here--I've pointed these out

  • many times before--the Via dei Fori Imperiali of Mussolini;

  • the Imperial Fora to the left; again the Roman Forum here;

  • and the Palatine Hill, which we're going to be

  • concentrating on today.

  • But you'll remember that Nero's hope was to link the Palatine

  • Hill with the Esquiline Hill, which is right up to the left

  • of the Colosseum, and to do that via a spur

  • hill--a spur hill that's located just right here,

  • a bit above my finger--a spur hill called the Velia,

  • V-e-l-i-a, that was to link the two.

  • And you'll remember Nero's plans for his Domus Transitoria,

  • this palace that was to serve as a point of transit between

  • those two hills, and you'll recall also the

  • remains of some of the rooms from the Domus Transitoria.

  • So this was again land that had been built up by Nero.

  • So it's not surprising to see the Flavians--

  • once again Titus following suit, and then his younger

  • brother Domitian following suit--

  • to use land that had earlier been used by Nero for new

  • Flavian monuments, in this case an arch put up to

  • the victory that Titus celebrated over Jerusalem.

  • And if you look very carefully, again just a bit,

  • a few inches above where my finger is,

  • you will see the Arch of Titus standing on that spur hill,

  • on the Velia, between the Palatine and the

  • Esquiline Hills.

  • The Arch of Titus, again which dates to after A.D.

  • 81, was placed right next to the Sacred Way,

  • or the Via Sacra.

  • It doesn't span the street, but it's placed right next to

  • it, adjacent to it,

  • and I think you can see that very well in these two views

  • here, which also show that quite a

  • bit of ancient road actually survives,

  • or a piece of ancient road actually survives,

  • in the Roman Forum.

  • It's on the slope that you see here, and you can see the way in

  • which it goes right by the Arch of Titus that you see to its

  • right.

  • This is a view up the hill, up the Sacred Way,

  • toward the Velia, and here down,

  • from the Arch of Titus, down into the rest of the

  • Forum.

  • And again you can see the polygonal masonry of the ancient

  • road still preserved.

  • The ancient way, the Via Sacra,

  • was the road that the triumphant general took when he

  • returned to Rome, after a great military victory;

  • so this is exactly the road that Titus himself would've

  • taken when he came back from Judea and walked in triumph,

  • or rode in triumph, in his chariot,

  • along the Sacred Way and up to the Capitoline Hill.

  • Because the triumphant general, who was garbed with the

  • attributes of Jupiter, in this procession,

  • made his way up to the Capitoline Hill,

  • would get off his chariot up there,

  • right at the altar, in front of the Temple of

  • Jupiter OMC, and make a sacrifice to Jupiter.

  • So you have to imagine Titus doing this;

  • along with Vespasian, because you'll remember I

  • mentioned to you that they celebrated a joint triumph,

  • that Titus was willing to share his triumph with his father

  • Vespasian.

  • So they both would've come in, in triumph, into Rome,

  • after this great victory.

  • Once again you can see the arch in the view on the right.

  • Another view of the arch here, which shows it on the Velia;

  • and here you can get a very good sense of the way in which

  • that spur hill unites the Palatine and the Esquiline,

  • as well as the proximity of the Arch of Titus to the Colosseum.

  • We are seeing that the Flavians are building up a certain area

  • of Rome, with their monuments, and this is no exception.

  • The view that we see here, from the Forum,

  • of one side of the Arch of Titus, shows a modern

  • inscription, but we'll see that there is an

  • ancient inscription on the other side.

  • And we're also going to see that although the arch looks

  • very well preserved, it was actually quite heavily

  • restored by an architect by the name of Giuseppe Valadier,

  • and that happened in the nineteenth century that

  • Valadier-- V-a-l-a-d-i-e-r;

  • Giuseppe Valadier--restored the Arch of Titus.

  • And the part of the arch that is ancient is essentially the

  • central section, right here--mostly on the other

  • side actually; on this side just the spandrels

  • and the inner panels here, and on the other side we'll

  • see--well I'll show you when we get to the other side.

  • So this side important to know that the inscription is a modern

  • one.

  • Here's the other side of the arch, where you can see again

  • the central section is ancient, with the spandrels,

  • these triangular areas here; the columns on this side are

  • ancient; the keystone is ancient;

  • the frieze up above the keystone is ancient;

  • the inscription is ancient on this side.

  • But all the rest was restored by Valadier, as I said in the

  • nineteenth century.

  • And Valadier did something very interesting,

  • and archaeologically very forward thinking,

  • in that since the center of the arch was made out of Greek

  • marble, pentelic marble--p-e-n-t-

  • e-l-i-c--pentelic marble from Mount Pentelikon in Greece--

  • which in itself is interesting because we saw that the Flavians

  • were using imported marbles in their buildings;

  • I've mentioned that already before.

  • So we see a continuation of that trend here,

  • use of pentelic marble for the arch.

  • But when Valadier did the restorations,

  • or the reconstruction, he used travertine for the

  • modern parts of the arch, so that when you--it probably

  • isn't so evident to you from this view,

  • but when you stand in front of the arch you can see the

  • difference in the materials, and he wanted to point out to

  • the spectator that there was a difference between the ancient

  • part of the monument and the modern part of the monument,

  • as restored by him.

  • This view on the left, there are quite a number of

  • preserved paintings and engravings that show the arch

  • before the Valadier reconstruction,

  • and you see one of those over there.

  • And you can see we're looking at the same side of the arch

  • here as we are here.

  • So once again you can see the ancient -- what survived of the

  • ancient arch: the central part;

  • the two columns on bases; the keystone;

  • the spandrels; the frieze;

  • and then the inscription.

  • So, and we see that here.

  • And this is another one of those Roman monuments that was

  • essentially preserved because of re-use over time,

  • or at least the part of it that still exists.

  • And this was turned into, as so many other monuments,

  • was turned into a fortress at one point,

  • a fortress that was owned by the Frangipani family in Italy.

  • So that's the ancient part; the rest restored by Valadier.

  • And you have to also reconstruct in your mind's eye

  • that this arch would've served as a kind of statue base for a

  • representation, or for a sculptural group,

  • in bronze, that would've represented

  • Titus, and perhaps Vespasian also,

  • together, seated in a chariot, being led by four horses,

  • a great quadriga group that was customarily placed on the top of

  • such arches.

  • Below that the inscription plaque, below that,

  • as I've already described, a frieze--I'm going to show you

  • that frieze in a moment.

  • Then the spandrels, and then in the center here,

  • two great panels, one on either--figural

  • panels--one on either side of the arch.

  • You see the inscription here.

  • It's interesting because it tells us that it was the Senate

  • and People of Rome, the SPQR, the Senate and People

  • of Rome, who put this up to the Divine

  • Titus, Divo Tito,

  • as you can see here, and--the Divine Titus,

  • who was the son-- there's an F for filius

  • right over here-- the son of the Divine Vespasian.

  • So the divinity of both of these men, both of whom were

  • made gods at their death, is alluded to here.

  • So the Senate and People of Rome put this up to the Divine

  • Titus, the son of the Divine Vespasian.

  • And you can see all of these little holes that are located in

  • some of the letters.

  • The reason for those is that those were where bronze letters

  • were actually attached.

  • So these letters were inscribed and then bronze letters were

  • attached to them so that the inscription would gleam in the

  • sunshine, and so that you could see it

  • from considerable distance.

  • Down below the inscription plaque we see the frieze,

  • which purports to represent this great procession or parade

  • that took place when Titus returned from Jerusalem,

  • and had his triumphal procession along the Sacred Way,

  • and up to the Capitoline Hill and the Temple of Jupiter.

  • And you can see that the artist has made the figures fairly

  • small, but at the same time has made

  • each one distinct from the other,

  • so that this is more readable from the ground.

  • And then below that, the decoration of the keystone.

  • And then in either spandrel, or triangular area at either

  • side of the keystones, we see victories,

  • flying female figures of victory,

  • that are of course making reference,

  • in a general way, to this great victory that

  • Titus had over Jerusalem.

  • Important from the architectural standpoint are the

  • columns and especially the capitals.

  • I show you a detail of one of the preserved--

  • there are two again--but one of the two preserved capitals from

  • this side of the arch, the side that faces the

  • Colosseum.

  • And you see it here, and it's a distinctive capital

  • that we have not seen before.

  • It's a capital that actually combines the Corinthian and the

  • Ionic, because you can see the

  • Corinthian acanthus leaves growing up here:

  • flowers, as we see, in the usual

  • Corinthian order, and then prominent volutes of

  • the Ionic order up above.

  • We refer to this as the composite capital;

  • the composite capital, combining Corinthian and Ionic.

  • We see it quite infrequently in Roman architecture,

  • but we do see it on occasion.

  • So it's good for you to know about.

  • In the center of the bay I mentioned that there were two

  • great figural panels, and these figural panels make

  • reference to Titus' victory over Jerusalem,

  • to this important event, from the point of view of the

  • Flavians, that gave their dynasty

  • legitimacy.

  • And we see one of those here.

  • We actually see an image of Titus in his chariot,

  • and he's riding alone, without his father.

  • He's riding alone in his chariot, with the exception of a

  • female figure who accompanies him.

  • And you can see that female figure is winged,

  • and she is a personification of victory--

  • so she is heralding the victory that he has had in Jerusalem--

  • and, in fact, she holds a laurel wreath above

  • his head, crowning him,

  • because of that victory.

  • The chariot is led by four horses,

  • who are whizzing by, as you can see here,

  • and they are led, at the front,

  • by a woman in a helmet and military costume,

  • who might well be Roma, the personification of Rome

  • herself.

  • And what is she doing?

  • She's welcoming Titus back to Rome, after his great victory

  • over Jerusalem.

  • Over here, two other figures, two other male figures,

  • both headless today, but one of them in a toga,

  • and the other figure with a bare chest and a mantle wrapped

  • over the lower part of his body.

  • Because we have the same figures in other reliefs,

  • we know, despite the fact that they are headless,

  • that these are personifications of the Senate.

  • The dressed person, the person in toga,

  • is the Senate, the Genius--g-e-n-i-u-s,

  • like genius--the Genius Senatus,

  • or the Spirit of the Senate.

  • And this, the Genius Populi Romani, which was the

  • representative of the Roman People.

  • So keep in mind again, it was the Senate and People of

  • Rome that put up the arch to Titus, the son of the divine

  • Vespasian; and we see themselves,

  • or their personifications, represented in this scene.

  • More interesting from our standpoint,

  • vis-à-vis architecture, is the other scene,

  • on the other side of the central bay,

  • where we see the Roman soldiers, or a group of Roman

  • soldiers, bringing back spoils or booty,

  • trophies, from Jerusalem,

  • things that they have stolen from the temple in Jerusalem.

  • And you can see the famous seven-branched candelabrum that

  • they are carrying here.

  • The weight is so great that their shoulders bend under that

  • weight.

  • And we also see them with a table over here that has a

  • number of sacrificial implements and so on, that were taken also

  • from the Temple in Jerusalem.

  • So they carry these along in this parade,

  • for the people to see, for those in Rome to see,

  • to get a real palpable sense of what it meant to have this

  • victory, and of the spoils that are

  • being brought back.

  • And you can see that--this is represented very

  • illusionistically-- and you can see that they seem

  • to be walking through an arch, that is also represented here:

  • a very interesting scene indeed.

  • And you'll recall what they did with those spoils.

  • They took those spoils and they put them in the Templum Pacis

  • that we talked about last time, or the Forum Pacis that we

  • talked about last time, that served essentially as a

  • kind of museum where the people of Rome could see these images.

  • So once again the Flavians always showing an affinity for,

  • and an interest in, the people of the city --

  • the people of the city that they were trying,

  • of course, to court favor from.

  • So we're seeing Domitian, who again was the commissioner

  • of this monument, continuing on in the same vein

  • as Vespasian and Titus, honoring this victory that gave

  • legitimacy to the Flavian dynasty,

  • but also always acknowledging and thinking of the impact that

  • it's going to have on the Senate and the People of Rome.

  • The central bay, if you stand right below it and

  • look up, you will see the vault of the

  • interior of the arch, and you can see that it has a

  • coffered ceiling, as we've seen so often in Roman

  • monuments; quite well preserved,

  • with the coffers and then the rosettes in the center.

  • And if I show you another detail of that,

  • you'll get an even better sense of it, and also of how ornate

  • the decoration is.

  • We've talked about the fact that the Flavians had a

  • particular interest in very ornate decoration,

  • and you can see that as well here.

  • In fact, the drill has been used so extensively that it

  • almost dematerializes the vault, I think, in a very interesting

  • way, creating a kind of overall

  • tapestry of dark and light.

  • And then in the center a panel that is surrounded by a garland,

  • and in the center of that panel a depiction--

  • you can probably barely see it from where you sit--

  • but a depiction of Titus being carried to heaven on the back of

  • an eagle.

  • In this case Titus is not in military dress but in a toga.

  • He's on the back of an eagle, with outstretched wings,

  • and that eagle is taking him up to the heavens.

  • What this is, is a representation of

  • apotheosis-- a-p-o-t-h-e-o-s-

  • i-s--apotheosis, or divinization:

  • the divinization-- because the Romans believed

  • that they could make humans into gods,

  • after their death--the making of Titus into a god after his

  • death, and the depiction of--the

  • material depiction of him actually being carried to heaven

  • on the back of an eagle, a very powerful image.

  • And the fact that it is in the archivolt of this vault here has

  • led scholars to suggest that it is possible that the Arch of

  • Titus in Rome served as Titus' tomb.

  • And that seems to be corroborated by the fact that

  • behind the attic, or inside the attic of the

  • arch, is a staircase, as well as a chamber,

  • and I show both of them to you here: a spiral staircase and a

  • chamber, a chamber that might well have

  • served as a burial chamber for an urn of Titus.

  • The urn was never found--was not found in the excavation of

  • this monument, so we can't prove this,

  • but I think it's very possible that this arch served as a tomb

  • for the emperor Titus.

  • Titus was succeeded, as I've already mentioned,

  • by his younger brother Domitian, whom you see in two

  • portraits here: a portrait from Munich,

  • on the left, in military garb,

  • and then a bust-length portrait in Rome,

  • on the right-hand side of the screen.

  • Domitian was born in A.D. 51.

  • So he was only your age, about nineteen,

  • when Titus went off to the Jewish Wars.

  • There was never any question that Domitian would succeed his

  • brother.

  • Vespasian was in this for the long haul.

  • He created a dynasty and expected both of his sons,

  • first Titus, his older son,

  • and then his younger son, Domitian, to succeed him.

  • So Domitian's eventual rise to power was never in question.

  • And yet Domitian was jealous of his brother,

  • who was very popular in Rome, as I've already mentioned,

  • and who had this great military victory on which the Flavians

  • based their claim to rule.

  • And Domitian was very jealous of his brother.

  • He felt out of the loop, and so when he succeeded

  • Titus-- quicker than he thought,

  • because Titus died way before his time,

  • in his thirties, as you know--when Domitian

  • succeeded Titus, he came to power as a very

  • embittered man, and he never got over that

  • bitterness.

  • And, in fact, what we see Domitian doing is

  • really reverting to the megalomaniacal way of thinking

  • of people like Caligula and Nero,

  • exercising his imperial prerogatives to the fullest and,

  • in fact, even insisting that he be addressed as "lord and

  • god," dominus et deus;

  • which I've put on your Monument List for you,

  • dominus et deus, that's lord and god.

  • And he, not surprisingly, given his bent,

  • he not surprisingly moved away from the public architecture

  • that Vespasian and Titus had favored--

  • for Vespasian, of course, buildings like the

  • Colosseum, for Titus, the Baths of

  • Titus--the public architecture that had been favored by his

  • father and his brother.

  • He moved back to being interested in building palatial

  • architecture, essentially to his own glory.

  • And we're going to see that the major monument that he

  • commissioned was the Imperial Palace on the Palatine Hill,

  • that had been begun by Tiberius and Caligula;

  • he completed that palace in the nineties A.D.

  • Before we get to that, which will be our main focus

  • today, I would like--because it's

  • extensive and there's a lot to see--

  • I would like to say a few words about another commission of

  • Domitian, because he wasn't without the

  • desire to at least build some public buildings,

  • and I'd like to begin with one of those here.

  • This is a model of the so-called Stadium of Domitian,

  • a stadium or a race course, that was put up during

  • Domitian's reign; we date it usually to the

  • latter part of his reign, 92 to 96 A.D.

  • And you see that model again here.

  • And you can tell a lot about this building from both the

  • scanty remains, but also from other evidence

  • that allows us to be able to reconstruct it relatively

  • accurately.

  • You see it here.

  • These stadia were hairpin in shape--

  • as you can see, a straight end on one side,

  • a curved end on the other--but long,

  • elongated, a kind of elongated oval with one straight side,

  • as you can see.

  • It was put up in very similar fashion to theaters and to

  • amphitheaters, in that they built a concrete

  • hill and lined that concrete hill with stone seats,

  • and then buttressed it with a wall,

  • as you can see here, that was decorated,

  • just like the Theater of Marcellus,

  • or like the Colosseum, with in this case two tiers of

  • arches, two sets of arcades,

  • with columns in between them, those columns again having no

  • structural purpose whatsoever, just used as decoration for the

  • monument.

  • And then the exits and entrances, again done very

  • similarly to amphitheater or theater architecture,

  • as we've discussed it thus far.

  • So the main difference is it's not quite as tall as

  • amphitheaters, for example,

  • or theaters, and just two tiers of columns,

  • as you can see here.

  • And the main difference in plan is that it's a hairpin shape,

  • again with one straight side and one curved side.

  • Only a small--one can see today, and this is essentially

  • underground or what survives of it is underground,

  • although there's one section that can still be seen,

  • as I'll show you in a moment.

  • But what's absolutely miraculous is the fact that the

  • actual hairpin shape of the Stadium of Domitian is

  • preserved, in its entirety,

  • in the shape of one of Rome's most famous piazzas,

  • and my favorite, by far, the Piazza Navona,

  • which you see from the air here, in a Google Earth image.

  • And you can see again the exact shape: the straight side and the

  • curved side, of Domitian's Stadium, still preserved in the

  • Piazza Navona in Rome.

  • It's a wonderful piazza.

  • For those of you who've been there, I'm sure you have enjoyed

  • spending time there.

  • For those of you haven't, it really is a mecca within

  • Rome.

  • And you can see not only is it a pleasant place to walk but

  • also a place to see great buildings,

  • for example, Francesco Borromini's

  • Sant'Agnese in Agone, and Bernini's Four Rivers,

  • famous Four Rivers Fountain, in the center of the piazza,

  • in dialogue with one another.

  • And as we look at this from the air,

  • and we look at the curved end of the Piazza Navona,

  • you can see there's one street that you can take out of that

  • curved end, one small street.

  • If you take a left, and then a left again,

  • you will see the remains of the Stadium of Domitian;

  • I'm going to show those to you in a moment.

  • And if you stay in the center of the piazza,

  • near the Four Rivers Fountain, and you go sort of diagonally

  • across from that, you will end up at one of the

  • four best ice cream places in Rome;

  • you can get some of the best gelato in Rome.

  • You can get good gelato almost anywhere in Rome,

  • and in Italy, but the very best,

  • this is one of those four; I'll say something more about

  • that in a moment.

  • Here are the remains of the Stadium of Domitian that can

  • still be seen.

  • Very few tourists notice this, but it's well worth looking at,

  • because you can see the brick-faced cement construction

  • that served for the-- that was how the substructures

  • of this building were built-- and I think you can even see

  • that from a distance here-- made out of concrete,

  • faced with brick -- but the arcades and the

  • columns, that I showed you before,

  • out of travertine, ashlar masonry travertine,

  • which was one of the last buildings actually in Rome to be

  • made of travertine ashlar masonry.

  • Just to show you also that again--just as when we were in

  • Capri I showed you the Bar Tiberio,

  • and its reference to Tiberius--it's amazing what

  • those who put up restaurants and bars and so on,

  • around Rome, it's amazing--it demonstrates

  • the strong sense of history that Italians have.

  • Because just the fact that they recognize that these are remains

  • from the Stadium of Domitian-- everyone thinks of this

  • structure as the Piazza Navona-- but the fact that they are well

  • aware of the fact that it was Domitian's Stadium,

  • so that the wine bar across the street--

  • and this is one that was just opened the last couple of

  • years-- the wine bar across the street

  • is called the Domiziano: the Domiziano,

  • after Domitian, because it's right across the

  • street from the Stadium of Domitian.

  • With regard to ice cream--I take my gelato seriously,

  • and I'm sure all of you who've been to Italy feel the same way.

  • It's not like American ice cream--not that American ice

  • cream isn't good--but it's absolutely fantastic.

  • And so I will make some recommendations this semester.

  • And this is the first one that I'm going to make,

  • because it's one of my favorites, and everyone agrees

  • this is one of the best ice cream parlors in Rome.

  • It's called Tre Scalini.

  • It's also a restaurant, a restaurant you can pass on.

  • Like so many restaurants in the center of famous piazzas,

  • it's not the best, but--and you don't have to sit

  • outside, although they will try to

  • beckon you to sit outside, because it costs more to eat

  • the ice cream outside than it does if you just walk into--

  • walk through the door--there are actually two doors,

  • one on that side, one on this side--

  • go right up to the counter, take a look at what's there,

  • and make your order.

  • And my recommendation for this particular gelateria is the

  • tartufi; they are very famous.

  • This is the best tartufo in Rome, without question,

  • if you like chocolate.

  • It's a chocolate bomb essentially, as you can see in

  • these images here.

  • It is one big, well fairly large,

  • very rich chocolate, with big, the biggest chocolate

  • chips you ever saw on it, and then they put a dollop--I

  • don't even like whipped cream, but when it's panna on

  • top of the tartufo, I go the whole way.

  • So you have the panna on top of the tartufo.

  • And if you sit outside and are willing to pay extra,

  • they'll throw a pirouette on top;

  • if not, you have to forego the pirouette.

  • But I really highly--whether you like chocolate or you don't

  • like chocolate-- I've gone with people who are

  • not the kind of chocoholic I am, who like this anyway.

  • So it's really a treat, and at least once when you're

  • in Rome you have to indulge in a tartufo at Tre Scalini.

  • I want to move from Domitian's Stadium to the building that

  • we're going to concentrate on today,

  • because again it is so extensive, and that is

  • Domitian's Palace on the Palatine Hill.

  • We usually refer to it as Domitian's Palace on the

  • Palatine Hill, or the Imperial Palace on the

  • Palatine Hill.

  • But the nomenclature is complex, because in antiquity it

  • was referred to as the Domus, the Domus Augustana--like the

  • Domus Aurea, the Golden House of Nero--the

  • Domus Augustana: Augustus' House,

  • essentially.

  • Because by this point the word Augustus had become

  • synonymous with emperor; so every emperor was the

  • Augustus.

  • So this is the Domus Augustana, which again continues

  • construction.

  • We talked about the fact that Tiberius had begun a palace on

  • the Palatine Hill, on the slope of the Palatine

  • Hill that Caligula had added to that.

  • His successors: Claudius was not that

  • interested in palatial architecture,

  • as you'll remember; Nero had other plans for the

  • Domus Transitoria, and for the Domus Aurea.

  • So it was left to the Flavians, specifically to Domitian,

  • to complete the Imperial Palace, which he does,

  • and then it is dedicated, as you can see from the

  • monument list, in A.D.

  • 92.

  • We also know the architect of the Domus Augustana,

  • and that was a man by the name of Rabirius, R-a-b-i-r-i-u-s;

  • a very important Roman architect by the name of

  • Rabirius.

  • To get back to the nomenclature for a moment.

  • So the actual name of the palace was the Domus Augustana.

  • But here's where it gets complicated.

  • There's also a public wing of the house and a private wing of

  • the house.

  • The public wing--and you can see it in this Google Earth

  • image from the air-- the public wing is on one

  • story--and we see that over here--

  • and that was referred to in ancient times as the Flavian

  • House, the Domus Flavia,

  • the Domus Flavia.

  • The private wing was on two stories, or part of it was on

  • two stories--you can see it here;

  • it's even larger, more extensive--and that was

  • called, in ancient times, also the Domus Augustana.

  • So this word, the Domus Augustana,

  • referred both to the private wing, as opposed to the Domus

  • Flavia, but also to the palace as a whole.

  • So I just wanted you to be aware of that,

  • because as you do your reading in the textbooks and so on,

  • you might find that a little bit confusing.

  • But we can simplify it completely and just call it the

  • Palace of Domitian on the Palatine Hill,

  • which is what I suggest we do.

  • So once again we can see quite good , in this view from the

  • air, the way in which this Domitianic structure was planned

  • and built.

  • We see over here, for example--and I'm going to

  • show you these in plan, and also the remains

  • shortly--we can see on the upper left what is a basilica;

  • next to that an audience hall; a great fountain court over

  • here; a triclinium or dining

  • room over here; and then fountains on other

  • side that belong to the Domus Flavia or the public section of

  • the palace.

  • And then over here the private area,

  • as I said larger, on two stories,

  • right here, with a court in the center and

  • a whole host of small rooms surrounding that,

  • living quarters and so on, for Domitian and others;

  • a peristyle court; another peristyle court;

  • and then a great sunken stadium over here on the right.

  • This was a far cry from Romulus' huts,

  • as you see them; Romulus' village,

  • of the eighth century B.C., that I remind you of over here,

  • and show you what has happened in the interlude.

  • But what's extremely important I think,

  • given Domitian's view of himself as lord and god,

  • as dominus et deus, it's interesting to see what he

  • builds.

  • And he certainly felt that he was very much in the tradition

  • of Romulus; he wants to associate himself

  • with Romulus, and also, of course,

  • with Augustus, who lived, as you know,

  • on the Palatine Hill.

  • But at the same time he wants to inject his living space with

  • the kind of grandeur that had not been--

  • that was certainly true under Nero in his Domus Aurea,

  • but that had not been true for any of the other earlier Roman

  • emperors.

  • So the Domus Aurea, the impact of the Domus Aurea

  • once again, is something we should think about as we look at

  • this incredible palace.

  • This is a plan from the Ward-Perkins textbook that

  • perhaps shows you better than the view from the air exactly

  • what this structure was all about.

  • We see the public wing on the left-hand side,

  • the Domus Flavia of the palace on the Palatine Hill.

  • And it includes, as you can see in the upper

  • left corner, a basilica: a basilica, a room with a

  • central space, divided by two side aisles by

  • columns.

  • And that was a basilica that Domitian himself sat in and

  • tried cases in, as the judge.

  • Then, next to that, an audience hall,

  • or an aula, a-u-l-a;

  • that was the place where Domitian met with visiting

  • dignitaries.

  • Then on axis with the--up in the upper right,

  • a lararium, which was a place where they

  • kept household gods and so on-- then on axis with the audience

  • hall, the peristyle, the peristyle.

  • And if you look at that in plan, it's got columns,

  • of course, as peristyles do.

  • But look at what's in the center of it.

  • It actually is a fountain, and it is a fountain that is

  • octagonal in shape.

  • So the impact of Nero's Domus Aurea immediately clear,

  • the impact of that remarkable octagonal room on the

  • architecture of Domitian and on the architect Rabirius:

  • so an octagonal fountain.

  • And then on axis with the aula or audience hall,

  • the peristyle, is the triclinium or

  • dining room of the house: a very large dining room with

  • panoramic windows through which one could see a very

  • interestingly elliptically shaped fountain,

  • one on either side.

  • Now as you look at that plan of the Domus Flavia,

  • and especially at the basilica, the audience hall and the

  • triclinium, there is one feature that all

  • three of those have in common, that I haven't yet mentioned,

  • which is what?

  • All three of them have what?

  • No one?

  • Student: A half circle.

  • Prof: A half circle; okay, exactly,

  • an apse, an apse on one end, and all of those apses face in

  • the same direction.

  • The basilica has an apse; the audience hall has an apse;

  • the triclinium has an apse.

  • Those were Domitian's apses.

  • That's where Domitian sat, dominus et deus;

  • he wanted to be honored and, in fact,

  • worshipped, as lord and god, and he needed a space to do it

  • in, and he wanted to sit on a

  • throne, underneath the dome of heaven,

  • in a sense.

  • So the dome of heaven was a vault,

  • made out of concrete and decorated in some way in

  • antiquity, probably with mosaic,

  • or whatever, to give it the sense of a dome

  • of heaven.

  • He wanted to sit in that space in every one of those rooms.

  • So whether he was trying a law case,

  • welcoming visiting dignitaries, or eating in his

  • triclinium, he wanted to sit beneath at

  • least a semi-dome of heaven.

  • And that's indeed what he did, as he was again worshipped as

  • dominus et deus.

  • So this is a very important, I think,

  • phenomenon in this particular monument,

  • and one that is well worth thinking about,

  • in terms of the way in which architecture is used by given

  • individuals to define themselves,

  • to define their lives, and to define their era.

  • Over here again the private wing;

  • I'm going to hold on that for a moment and we'll come back to

  • that shortly.

  • This is a detail of the basilica, where we see the plan

  • of the basilica, and also a cross-section of the

  • same structure.

  • And you can see it is completely in keeping with other

  • basilican architecture we've looked at, both in civic

  • locations and elsewhere.

  • A central nave with an apse on one end--again,

  • imagine Domitian sitting over here;

  • the central nave divided from the side aisles by columns,

  • fairly simple but very interesting structure in the

  • context of this particular palace.

  • Over here an outstanding restored view that probably

  • gives you a better sense than almost anything I can show you

  • of the Domus Flavia or the public space of Domitian's

  • Palace.

  • Here's, of course, the basilica over here,

  • and you can see that this room, like all of the rooms in this

  • palace, were done in marble,

  • and that marble was of various colors,

  • as you can see here, and it was marble that was

  • brought from all over the world.

  • We've talked about the fact that the Flavians did this.

  • We've talked about this as the case for the Templum Pacis,

  • for example, bringing marble from Egypt and

  • Asia Minor and Greece and elsewhere in the Roman world,

  • bringing it all here and using it, using that variegated marble

  • to make-- to ornament,

  • obviously, this palace in Rome.

  • Over here the aula or the great audience hall;

  • the Aula Regia we call it, over here, also with the marble

  • on the floor, as well as on the walls.

  • You can see that this particular room--

  • and it was apparent in plan as well--

  • has scalloping around the perimeter of the room:

  • a series of niches, as you can see,

  • with statuary in them, surrounded by columns,

  • two tiers with other windows up above,

  • as you can see.

  • And here you get a sense of that space in which Domitian

  • would have sat: the apse of the room,

  • the curvature of the wall, made, of course,

  • out of concrete--as this entire structure was--

  • made out of concrete, with a semi-dome.

  • And you have to again imagine Domitian sitting beneath that,

  • or inside that apse and beneath that semi-dome here.

  • The peristyle court, open to the sky;

  • columns all around, covered colonnade,

  • two stories, and then in the center this

  • octagonal fountain.

  • Leave it to Domitian, leave it to Rabirius,

  • to transform Nero's octagonal room into a fountain,

  • in the context of this palace.

  • And then on axis again, with the Aula Regia,

  • and with the peristyle, is the triclinium.

  • And this restored view again gives you a very good sense of

  • that apse in which Domitian would have sat enthroned,

  • with the semi-dome above his head, two tiers;

  • again, the walls decorated with variegated marbles brought from

  • all different parts of the world;

  • as well as with columns.

  • And then picture windows, through which you would see

  • these very interesting elliptical fountains,

  • as you dined, one on either side of the

  • structure.

  • There's a lot of controversy as to how the rooms that were

  • roofed, were roofed -- whether they had barrel vaults or not.

  • You can see this particular restored view shows one flat

  • roof and one barrel vaulted roof.

  • We're not absolutely sure about that, and again scholars

  • continue to argue which was the case here.

  • I mentioned statuary in the Aula Regia,

  • and we have some evidence for what that statuary might have

  • been like, and the way in which it was

  • used by Domitian.

  • I show you two examples.

  • These are two statues, one representing Hercules,

  • on the left, and the other,

  • on the right, representing Apollo.

  • And these are truly colossal in scale,

  • and they are made of beautiful materials,

  • again imported materials -- in this case a kind of maroon

  • colored stone, and in this case a greenish

  • colored stone.

  • Again, they're very large in scale, colossal in scale,

  • and you can see the exaggerated musculature of both of these

  • figures.

  • And I think they are very telling in terms of--

  • as we think about Domitian sitting in rooms like the Aula

  • Regia, greeting visitors,

  • and when you think about what this man,

  • who wanted to be worshipped as lord and god thought of himself,

  • and you see the kind of statuary that he surrounded

  • himself with-- this is a very different man

  • than his predecessor Claudius-- the kind of imagery that he

  • associated himself with.

  • It's a way of pumping himself up, I think, by having himself

  • surrounded by these very athletic figures of Hercules and

  • also of Apollo.

  • What do you think this is, just from looking at it?

  • The remains--you can see the remains are not as extensive as

  • one wishes they were, but enough is there to allow a

  • reconstruction of the whole.

  • What are we looking at here?

  • Student: The octagonal fountain..

  • Prof: The octagonal fountain, the octagonal fountain

  • of the peristyle court.

  • Excellent.

  • See it's really--most people, who wander around these

  • remains, would not be able to figure out for the life of

  • themselves what this was.

  • But you'll be glad when you go up on the Palatine Hill to know,

  • as you stand here, that this was once an octagonal

  • fountain, with a spectacular water

  • display undoubtedly.

  • This is the triclinium, or what survives--sad--what

  • survives of Domitian's triclinium.

  • This is his apse; this is the very apse in which

  • Domitian would have sat enthroned, as he ate with

  • special invited guests, as he held a state dinner in

  • Rome.

  • And you can see, if you look very carefully,

  • again the construction is brick-faced concrete

  • construction.

  • We talked about the fact that after the fire of 64,

  • a decision was made to begin to use brick as a facing,

  • because brick was more fireproof than stone.

  • And we see that borne out; the entire Imperial Palace on

  • the Palatine Hill was made of brick-faced concrete

  • construction.

  • But if you look very carefully, you will see some stucco and

  • you will also see some marble revetment.

  • So, in this case, that brick was covered over

  • with marble, to give it a much more luxurious look for the

  • dominus et deus.

  • Also interesting here--actually there's a tarp on top of

  • preserved mosaic, and I'll show you that mosaic

  • in a moment-- but what's interesting here is

  • that the pavement rests on something that should remind you

  • of something we saw earlier in the semester,

  • which is what?

  • You're nodding, so.

  • Student: The hypocaust..

  • Prof: The hypocaust.

  • It's a hypocaust system; just as we saw in the Stabian

  • Baths in Pompeii, they have raised the pavement

  • up on these piles of brick, and then in between them would

  • have placed terracotta pipes and also braziers with hot,

  • hot coals, and so on and so forth, to heat the floor of the

  • triclinium, so that Domitian could not only

  • sit in his apse, but could have his feet warm

  • while he ate.

  • This gives you again I think a really good window into the kind

  • of man we are dealing with here, and what he was trying to

  • achieve, once again through architecture,

  • through architecture.

  • This is another view of the apse in which Domitian sat,

  • and here we do see--without the tarp we can see that the mosaic

  • is actually pretty well preserved.

  • And it is the colors that we so often find in Roman mosaics ,

  • especially in major public buildings and in private

  • palaces: this combination of green,

  • maroon and white, as you see here,

  • with a variety of very attractive geometric shapes.

  • Again, you can see the concrete construction,

  • faced with brick, and you can see the remains of

  • some of the marble revetment that would have covered the

  • walls and made this all that much more ostentatious in

  • ancient Roman times.

  • This fountain is a marvel.

  • I love this fountain.

  • This is the fountain that you see, or one of the two that you

  • would see, through the panoramic windows of the triclinium

  • in Domitian's Palace.

  • And this is where I think the genius of Rabirius shows

  • through; and Rabirius shows,

  • in a sense, himself to be the Frank Gehry of his day --

  • somebody who really enjoyed undulating forms,

  • and the way in which concavity and convexity can be played off

  • against one another, to great result.

  • It's an elliptical fountain.

  • It's fairly small in scale.

  • It's elliptical, as you can see here,

  • and the convexity of that ellipse played off--

  • and you see it repeated again here--

  • played off against these interesting undulating walls;

  • all of this created again out of concrete and faced with

  • brick.

  • So you imagine the bricks have to be very carefully molded to

  • fit where they need to fit into this incredible scheme.

  • And, of course, in antiquity this would have

  • been stuccoed over, and probably had some marble

  • revetment on it, and so on and so forth.

  • But the shape is absolutely marvelous,

  • and I think we are definitely in the presence of a great

  • architectural genius, in the person of Rabirius,

  • who was working for Domitian.

  • The private wing of the palace, equally spectacular in its own

  • way.

  • I mentioned to you already that it's larger in the space that it

  • covers than the Domus Flavia.

  • And part of it is on two stories, the part that you see

  • over here.

  • There's a fountain court in the center, and then two stories of

  • rooms around that; another peristyle back here;

  • and then a stadium, once again a hairpin shape,

  • with a curved side and a flat side, just like his stadium in

  • Rome.

  • But he already had a stadium, a public stadium,

  • where one could watch racehorses and races and the

  • like.

  • He used this instead.

  • And it's actually sunken--because remember this

  • part is two stories--this is sunken, a sunken stadium next to

  • it.

  • It was used as a place for pleasurable walks,

  • as a kind of outdoor garden where Domitian,

  • and again special visitors, could spend some time,

  • a pleasant place to walk within the city.

  • We see here another axonometric view from Ward-Perkins,

  • where we can also get a very good sense,

  • not only of the Domus Flavia, as we've already described it:

  • the basilica and the aula on one end;

  • the octagonal fountain in the center;

  • and then over here the dining hall with the two elliptical

  • fountains, one on either side.

  • Here we see again the private area with the sunken stadium

  • over here; with the peristyle court with a

  • fountain in the center; two stories around that;

  • and then over here another couple of other peristyle

  • courts.

  • There are actually three peristyle courts in total here.

  • But what's interesting, I think, when you look at this

  • axonometric view, I think it's interesting to see

  • that-- or a kind of cutaway view--to

  • see that from the outside a lot of these spaces didn't look as

  • interesting as they did from the inside.

  • We are definitely moving--we've seen that be the case for

  • awhile, vis-à-vis Roman architecture.

  • Think back to some of the early residences in Pompeii where they

  • were very plain and severe on the outside,

  • but when you went inside and saw the atrium and the

  • impluvium and the compluvium and the

  • garden, it was something else again;

  • this whole element of surprise.

  • And that's true even here, I think,

  • in this palace, where the structures are less

  • interesting from the outside and more interesting from the

  • interiors of them.

  • Here's a Google Earth image again of just the private part

  • of the palace where we see this interesting peristyle court;

  • the other two peristyle courts behind it;

  • these rooms placed on two stories;

  • and then once again the sunken stadium.

  • The sunken stadium is actually quite well preserved.

  • As you can see here, it's one of the better

  • preserved parts of the villa today.

  • You can get a very good sense, not only of its shape but also

  • of its scale; it's enormous, a huge stadium.

  • And again you have to imagine Domitian wandering around here.

  • And you can see the curved end on one side,

  • but most importantly the concrete construction,

  • faced with brick, and including columns and other

  • marble revetment.

  • This is a view of that first court, the one that has rooms on

  • two stories around it.

  • Once again, Rabirius has had a great deal of fun with his

  • fountain.

  • He seems to have taken particular pleasure in designing

  • fountains and in letting his imagination run free with regard

  • to fountain design.

  • You see here again he's playing off convex against concave.

  • He's done all of this out of concrete;

  • these shapes are done in concrete, faced with brick,

  • and again the bricks have to be molded very specially to fit the

  • space within that, that they need to accommodate

  • themselves to.

  • And if any of you know anything about those female warriors

  • called the Amazons, they carry shields called

  • peltas, p-e-l-t-a; these should remind you--don't

  • they look like peltae?

  • They look very much like--that's probably

  • coincidental, I'm not implying here that

  • there's any particular iconography to this particular

  • fountain.

  • But who knows?

  • But they do look very much like shields that are carried by

  • Amazonian women.

  • But at any rate, this playing off of convex

  • against concave; Rabirius is clearly enjoying

  • himself with this monument.

  • Then the rooms on two stories.

  • And you see, just as we saw quite some time

  • ago in the second phase of the Villa of the Mysteries,

  • where they were beginning to open up the exterior and create

  • bay windows and more windows and make it less severe than it had

  • been in the original Domus Italica,

  • we see that sort of thing here: many more windows used,

  • the wall being opened up.

  • They've gotten so sophisticated in their use of concrete that

  • they are able to open the walls up more,

  • with these rectangular windows of different shapes--

  • as you can see, some large, some smaller,

  • some on the ground, some higher,

  • sort of like windows-- and then above additional

  • openings that are arcuated on the top.

  • So clearly he's again enjoying opening up this wall and

  • creating interesting views, from one part of the structure

  • to another.

  • Two more images of that wonderful fountain,

  • where I think you can see even better the way in which this has

  • all been done out of concrete, faced with brick.

  • And you have to imagine, of course, the spectacular

  • water display, the actually water jets that

  • would've come up.

  • The Bellagio it may not have been, but it probably was

  • something-- sort of the ancient version of

  • the Bellagio in Las Vegas, the fountains at the Bellagio.

  • Here you see a restored view of this fountain court,

  • where you get a sense that once you add a bunch of statuary and

  • water jets-- which you don't see actually

  • working here-- and paint the walls,

  • the whole thing would've been even more spectacular still;

  • and I think that gives you some general sense of the original

  • appearance of the palace.

  • Around the court, the fountain court,

  • and the private wing that we've just looked at,

  • there were a series of rooms, and if you look at some of

  • those rooms in detail, I think you'll be amazed by

  • what you see; some fantastically shaped

  • rooms: some of them cruciform, cross-shaped;

  • some of them going way back to the frigidaria with

  • circular rooms with radiating alcoves.

  • And not surprisingly, again given what Severus and

  • Celer were able to achieve at Nero's Domus Aurea,

  • given the fact that the octagon is clearly also in the mind of

  • Rabirius in this building, we see him creating small

  • octagonal rooms, and exploring and experimenting

  • with those octagonal rooms.

  • And you see a couple of them in plan, on the side,

  • on one of the sides of this fountain court.

  • I show you here a view from, or several views from the

  • Ward-Perkins textbook, where we see a cross-section,

  • a plan, and also an axonometric view of

  • one of these octagonal rooms that we believe was designed by

  • Rabirius for the Palatine Palace.

  • And I compare it down here to the octagonal room of Nero's

  • Domus Aurea, which was clearly the model for Rabirius' foray

  • into designing octagons.

  • It's a much smaller room than Nero's octagonal room,

  • but he takes the whole concept a step further.

  • It's an octagon; yes, it's eight sided,

  • just like the Domus Aurea.

  • It has radiating alcoves.

  • Some of them are rectangular, some of them are circular,

  • as you can see here.

  • And if you look at the axonometric view,

  • you will see two interesting things that are a step forward.

  • One of them is the fact that although in the Domus Aurea the

  • eight-sided room-- although the room was

  • eight-sided, the dome was itself essentially curved;

  • it's a traditional dome.

  • What we see happening here though is they take the eight

  • sides and continue that segmented feel into the dome.

  • So we have an eight-sided segmented dome in this octagonal

  • room in the Palatine Palace, which is different than the

  • Domus Aurea.

  • And the other thing, and perhaps even more

  • significant, is the fact that if we look at

  • the individual niches, we will see that they are

  • envelopes of space, in the same way that Nero's

  • Domus Aurea was, and that they have--and just

  • like Nero's Domus Aurea, they have niches within niches.

  • But what Rabirius has done here is something really quite

  • extraordinary and very different from anything we've seen earlier

  • in Roman architecture, and that is he's placed some of

  • these additional niches or windows or doorways off axis

  • with the niche itself.

  • Now we have seen that the Romans cared above all about

  • axiality and symmetry, and yet we see here--and this

  • is why I call him the Frank Gehry of Roman architects--

  • he is willing to try something entirely different.

  • He is clearly enamored of circles and rectangles and domes

  • and the like, but he is also willing to

  • dispense with the usual axiality of Roman architecture,

  • and explore placing things off axis in a quite inventive way.

  • And I can show you that even better by looking quickly at the

  • two views of one of these octagonal rooms,

  • from the private wing of the Palatine Palace,

  • where you can see not only--and I hope you can see it from where

  • you are-- you can see not only the

  • segments--can you see the segmented dome?

  • I think quite clearly here.

  • You can see these envelopes of space.

  • You can see these openings; this whole idea of creating

  • vistas from one building to another but--

  • and you can see the way in which these vary,

  • that some are doorways, some are windows--

  • but I think you can also see the way in which he is beginning

  • to place-- here's a window that is placed

  • completely off axis with the niche.

  • This is even more apparent in this other view,

  • where you can see one of these radiating niches,

  • and in that radiating niche there's an opening that starts

  • at the floor, and then there's another

  • opening, to the left of it, that's higher up.

  • And again you get this sense of asymmetry, rather than symmetry,

  • in this.

  • And this is again very experimental,

  • very different; it really is different than

  • almost anything I can show you, not only before but even after

  • this great work of architecture, and it gives us some insight

  • into the creativity of Rabirius, and the way in which Domitian

  • was allowing him to be.

  • Because I think this goes above and beyond.

  • Clearly Domitian is imaging himself;

  • I think especially in the public realm of this building,

  • he's very concerned with how he's presenting himself to his

  • public.

  • Over here I have the sense that he has really let Rabirius be

  • Rabirius; that he's let Rabirius do what

  • he wanted to do to create an interesting and architecturally

  • exciting space, in which he could live and

  • could enjoy some of the interesting architectural motifs

  • that Rabirius instills in this extraordinary structure.

  • Now Domitian was succeeded by John Kerry;

  • no, well sort of, in the sense that he was

  • succeeded by a man by the name of Nerva, who looks very much

  • like John Kerry, don't you think?

  • That's a coin of Nerva on the left-hand side of the screen.

  • Domitian, by the way--I think I may have forgotten to mention,

  • but he ended up just the way Nero did.

  • He was--well in his case he was actually assassinated;

  • Nero was forced to commit suicide but Domitian was

  • assassinated.

  • He was issued a damnatio memoriae at his death.

  • And he was succeeded by Nerva, Nerva who was appointed by the

  • Senate.

  • The Senate had had it with despots, and they decided the

  • time had come to choose one of their own.

  • And they selected Nerva, who was an elderly and very

  • highly respected member of the Senate.

  • And this was the first time the Senate did this--

  • since Augustus founded the Empire in his reign,

  • the first emperor of Rome--this is the first time that an

  • emperor was appointed by the Senate.

  • And Nerva was a highly respected and pretty

  • level-headed guy, and he was able to bring peace

  • and prosperity back to the Empire.

  • He did not last very long however.

  • He had a very brief reign, and therefore very little time

  • to have an impact on architecture.

  • But again you see him represented on a coin on the

  • left-hand side of the screen.

  • I'd like to show you one building though;

  • I'd like to end today with one building that was actually begun

  • by Domitian and then completed by Nerva.

  • It began as the so-called Forum Transitorium,

  • under Domitian, and became the Forum of Nerva,

  • under Nerva.

  • In order to do this I need to take you to the general plan of

  • the Imperial Fora in Rome.

  • We've looked at this before.

  • You'll remember the location of the Roman Forum here,

  • and obviously down below: the Forum of Julius Caesar that

  • we've already studied; the Forum of Augustus built

  • right next to that, that we've also looked at in

  • detail; and then the Forum Pacis,

  • or the Templum Pacis of Vespasian,

  • which we have looked at more recently,

  • and which you'll recall was built in such a way so that it

  • faced the Forum of Augustus and the Forum of Julius Caesar next

  • door.

  • I mentioned to you I think already that there was a very

  • large piece of property over here that was--

  • on which stood essentially one of Rome's Seven Hills,

  • the Quirinal Hill--Q-u-i-r-i-n-a-l;

  • the Quirinal Hill of Rome occupied this area.

  • But it was an area that was being eyed by Domitian.

  • You can see from his palace that he had big plans,

  • and once the palace was coming to fruition,

  • he was thinking again about public architecture and the fact

  • that he would really like to build a forum to rival that of

  • his father, a forum that was bigger than

  • that of his father's.

  • And he'd like to put it over here, facing his father's forum,

  • across the Forum of Augustus and the Forum of Julius Caesar.

  • He dreamed those big dreams but he was never able to realize

  • them.

  • What he did instead was to take this area that was located

  • between the Forum of Vespasian and the Forum of Augustus,

  • the Forum of Julius Caesar; this area that I mentioned to

  • you was called the Argiletum--A-r-g-i-l-e-t-u-m;

  • I think I've got it there, the Argiletum.

  • That area was a street that connected the Roman Forum with

  • an area of Rome called the Subura--

  • S-u-b-u-r-a--the Subura, which was a residential area

  • that I mentioned had in it mostly these wooden apartment

  • houses; large numbers of people lived

  • in the Subura.

  • So there was this street, the Argiletum,

  • that attached the two, or connected the two to one

  • another.

  • And Domitian decided to use that as a forum,

  • to himself, that would be placed next to that of his

  • father.

  • And he placed in that forum a temple of his patron goddess

  • Minerva; his patron goddess was Minerva,

  • and he built a temple to honor her, in this location.

  • Because this forum was like a street and was so narrow,

  • that had an effect on what could be built there;

  • so that you can see, for example,

  • in plan, that while the Forums of Julius

  • Caesar and Augustus, and the Forum Pacis,

  • all had colonnades, covered colonnades in fact,

  • there was no space to build a covered colonnade here.

  • So what they had to do was place the columns very close to

  • the wall and not put any ceiling on top of those columns.

  • You can see the same here.

  • This is a plan of the original Forum of Domitian,

  • or what was called the Forum Transitorium,

  • because it served as a point of transit between the Subura and

  • the Roman Forum.

  • The Temple of Minerva over here, consistent with temple

  • architecture as we've seen it thus far this semester:

  • a temple with a frontal orientation,

  • single staircase, façade orientation,

  • freestanding columns in the porch, and so on.

  • The entranceway over here.

  • The Forum Pacis would be here.

  • The Forum of Caesar and Augustus at the top.

  • And then you can see these bases for the columns,

  • very close to the wall -- not attached to it,

  • but very close to the wall on either side,

  • because there's no space for colonnades.

  • Here's a Google Earth image showing the Imperial Fora,

  • as it looks today, part of the later Forum of

  • Trajan, the Forum of Augustus,

  • and what is preserved of the so-called Forum Transitorium

  • over here.

  • This is a model of what the Forum Transitorium would have

  • looked like in ancient Roman times,

  • in the time of Domitian, with the Temple of Minerva,

  • with these columns on either side.

  • And you can see from this model the difference that that makes,

  • when you don't have enough space to build covered

  • colonnades.

  • You've got columns that look like they are projecting out of

  • the wall, with projecting entablatures on top of them.

  • We have not seen this before in built architecture.

  • This is a very important development.

  • We have seen it in painting but we haven't seen it in built

  • architecture.

  • Here's a detail of the Forum Transitorium,

  • with these columns placed almost flush with the wall--

  • although not quite, they project a little bit in

  • front of the wall-- with the projecting

  • entablatures.

  • The walls made out of tufa blocks, as you can see here.

  • The rest with marble, and a panel at the top;

  • and we think there would've been lots of such panels

  • representing the goddess Minerva herself.

  • So we see that here.

  • We have not seen it in built architecture before,

  • but we have seen it in painting.

  • This is a detail of Cubiculum 16, in the Villa of the

  • Mysteries, and you can see one such set of

  • columns that project out of the wall,

  • with the projecting entablatures up above.

  • So it's something again that we think may have been done in

  • temporary wooden architecture, for example.

  • But keep in mind how early that painting is--you all know the

  • date of it, because you've studied it for the exam;

  • it's mid B.C.

  • So it's way before even the Augustan period,

  • and yet we see that there, and now we finally see it in

  • built architecture, and it's going to have a real

  • history in Roman architecture in a very different way than

  • concrete does.

  • This whole idea of decorating a wall by placing a series of

  • columns that project in and out along that wall,

  • giving it a kind of--using the traditional language of

  • architecture, columns, to create a kind of

  • undulating wall, or what we're going to call

  • later in the semester a "baroque"

  • wall.

  • Two details of one of the surviving capitals,

  • with the frieze up above, a frieze that represents scenes

  • of women weaving; I'm not going to get into the

  • meaning of all of that here today.

  • But you can see the way in which the columns project

  • somewhat out of the wall: Corinthian capitals,

  • projecting entablature, very highly decorated,

  • just like all of Flavian architectural ornament,

  • as you can see here, very deeply drilled,

  • and so on and so forth.

  • But this whole idea of decorating a wall in this way,

  • and instilling movement in that wall by this undulating

  • in-and-out scheme, is going to again have a very

  • important future in Roman architecture.

  • This is an interesting view because it shows us just what

  • we've looked at, some of those remaining columns

  • from the so-called Forum Transitorium,

  • which was renamed the Forum of Nero after Domitian's death and

  • damnatio memoriae.

  • Nero just took it over and said, "Okay,

  • it's my forum now" and renamed it to himself,

  • but didn't add anything architecturally to it.

  • We see it here.

  • And this is one of those great views in which you can see the

  • difference between modern ground level and ancient ground level.

  • In order to see the lower part of the forum,

  • you've got to go right up to the edge of the street and look

  • down on it.

  • And this also an interesting engraving by the famous artist

  • Piranesi, a Piranesi print of the eighteenth century.

  • He did a lot of wonderful prints.

  • And if there's any interest in this class,

  • by the way, we have plenty of these at Yale,

  • and I know one of the teaching fellows,

  • if not more than one, would be more than happy to

  • find the time to take those of you who might be interested in

  • looking at Piranesi prints of Rome,

  • over to the British Art Center and so on,

  • or elsewhere, to take a look at these.

  • But what's interesting about this one is it shows where the

  • ground level was at the time that this was engraved by

  • Piranesi; that is, in the eighteenth

  • century, it was pretty much where it is here.

  • It was much higher than it is now, and then when they

  • excavated it, in modern times,

  • they got us down to ancient ground level and to the bottoms

  • of the columns.

  • I want to end up with this one last image,

  • because--very different, very different--

  • but it allows us to continue on with a point that I made when we

  • discussed the Colosseum, and which has already turned up

  • in the online forum, and that is the use of Roman

  • buildings as quarries for later architects and later patrons,

  • namely princes and popes, and the way in which buildings

  • like the Colosseum were pirated for later architecture.

  • In the case of the Forum Transitorium,

  • or the Forum of Nerva, we know that the Temple of

  • Minerva, that the material out of which

  • it's made-- the reason that it does not

  • exist at all today, the Temple of Minerva,

  • is that it was taken apart and reused by Pope Paul V for a

  • fountain that he wanted to build on the Janiculum Hill in Rome,

  • the so-called Acqua Paola, which you see here.

  • The Acqua Paola, the temple was torn down in

  • 1606-- it still stood in 1606,

  • it was torn down then-- and it was placed in this

  • fountain, or used for the construction of

  • this fountain, that was dedicated in 1612,

  • and built by the architect Giovanni Fontana.

  • And you see it here.

  • And it's not easy to determine exactly which parts are from the

  • temple itself.

  • But much of the building stone that you see here,

  • reused in this fountain, comes from the Temple of

  • Minerva in Rome.

  • So it shows you again the way in which these buildings were

  • used as quarries.

  • But the way in which Roman buildings live on -- they either

  • live on as themselves, or they live on as other

  • buildings.

  • And I think that's a nice thought and a nice note on which

  • to end today.

  • Thank you.

Prof: Good morning.

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B1 中級 美國腔

13.王子與宮殿。帕拉丁山上的 "人是神"。 (13. The Prince and the Palace: Human Made Divine on the Palatine Hill)

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