Public and private life on the Capitoline Hill

Papers of the British School at Rome 87 (2019)

This article investigates an aristocratic domus located on the Arx, overlooking the well-known insula of the Aracoeli from the northern summit of the Capitoline hill. This domus was buried during the construction of the basilica of Santa Maria in Aracoeli in the 13th century and remained sealed until the 1980s. I have reconstructed its layout - at least three levels survive - relying on my architectural survey and on the Vittoriano archives. The original phase dates from the 1st century BC but substantial restorations were made during the Flavian age, when the domus lost its fauces-atrium-tablinum pattern, and in the early 3rd century AD, when it was expanded vertically by a deep cut into the tuff bank, received a new façade, and was redecorated with frescoes in red-green linear style. The domus of the Aracoeli must have been a residence of high level and, not by chance, in the Severan age it was supplied by lead pipes bearing imperial stamps; other fistulae allow the identification of earlier owners before its incorporation into the imperial domain. Although the Capitoline hill was mostly occupied by public buildings, apparently the Arx was a prestigious neighborhood and not a sort of monumental acropolis. I discuss the development and the architectural design of the domus of the Aracoeli, including its underground residential spaces as well as its sculptural and painted decoration; finally, I examine the remodellings of the original atrium house from a socio-cultural point of view.

Journal of Roman Archaeology, 2018

The debate on the relationships between Rome, Italy, and the Mediterranean world in the Archaic and mid-Republican periods remains very lively. Complementing the most recent discoveries and interpretations, I present two unknown mid-Republican documents from the Arx, the N summit of the Capitoline hill. Excavations for the Monument to Victor Emmanuel II brought to light after 1887 many walls and artifacts, which have been studied almost exclusively to produce archaeological maps or catalogues of objects. The structures sealed beneath the basilica of Santa Maria in Aracoeli toward the end of the 13th c., rediscovered in the 1980s and surveyed by the present author since 2001, shed new light on a number of religious, historical, topographical, architectural and art-historical issues.

American Journal of Archaeology, 2014

The crypt of the church of Santi Sergio e Bacco on Piazza Madonna dei Monti in Rome preserves the partial remains of a Roman structure showing multiple building phases. Tuff piers approximately 5 m tall belong to the atrium of a republican atrium house, with the surrounding rooms reflected in the adjacent spaces of the modern basement. During the Imperial period, this atrium was closed off, and a bath complex was added in adjacent rooms. The rooms preserve marble revetment, figural painted plaster of various styles, and floors of opus sectile. As a residential structure with a long occupation history, the house clarifies our impression of the lower Subura and its development as a neighborhood. When considered with other examples of atrium houses nearby, a standard lot size and house form for elite residential development can be suggested for the Subura and the southern Viminal slopes during the Republican period. Later renovations to the structure provide material evidence that a socially mixed population continued to occupy the valley of the Subura, and they demonstrate the persistent importance of the Argiletum as the primary thoroughfare of the area from the Imperial period through late antiquity.

Anales de Arquelogía Cordobesa , 2010

The archaeological excavations at Palazzo Valentini, Rome, began in 2005 in some rooms at the underground level and represent the first phase of an articulated project of restoring and taking a new function of the area.The excavations 2005-2009 have been conducted in three different areas: on the west side of the palace; on the east side; at the NW corner of the palace. In the first area the limited excavation has revealed some walls in opus latericium of the beginning of the Hadrianic period, probably related to a public building, whose function has not yet been discerned. In the other two areas the excavations have disclosed part of a high residential headquarter of the mid- and late Empire “in the shade” of the Trajan’s Forum. On the east side of the palace the research has revealed a continue series of building phases between the 1st and the 5th century A.D. The most important remains belong to two rich domus of the mid- and late Empire, called domus A and B, that between the end of the 3th and the middle of the 4th century were refurbished with internal decoration in opus sectile, incrustationes and mosaics. In particular a polychrome mosaic dating to the end of the 3rd or the beginning of the 4th century in a triclinium of the domus A is analysed: its central area has a geometric pattern with rotae sericae filled out by geometric and figured motifs. The African origin of the typology during the 3rd century and its diffusion first in Italy, after in the western and at last in the eastern provinces, joins with the presence of figured elements, which are numerous in late phases and especially diffused in the Greek-Illyrian and oriental sphere. At the NW corner of the palace a thermal complex, with a series of building phases at least from the 3rd to the 5th century, but with a superb renovation during the first half of the 4th century, can be connected in a single residential context with the domus B. Here also floors and walls were covered by opus sectile decoration and the barrel vault of the frigidarium was probably decorated with a mosaic. The owners and the possible tenants of the two domus, which rise in the centre of the Urbs, adjoining the Imperial Fora, big and articulated in various sectors and a large number of rooms according to the typical plans of the important late antique domus, are surely senators and high level dignitaries.

Theoretical Roman Archaeology Journal, 2002

Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, 2000

2021

The paper investigates Early Modern Rome in its very hearth: the Roman Forum. The focus on architectural history is strictly related with other disciplines, such as history, art history, religious studies, diplomacy, cultural studies. It analyzes the project by Baldassarre Peruzzi (1481 - 1536) for the transformation of the churches of Santa Martina and Sant’Adriano, and the space in between, illustrated in the drawing Florence, GDSU 625Ar. The drawing has been indicated in so far as “enigmatic” by the scholars: it was not clear who was the patron, which the function of the building, the date, if it was a survey, an actual commission, or an ideal project. The identification of the patron in cardinal Agostino Trivulzio (1485 - 1548) makes now possible to understand its meaning and purpose. Suddenly, the project appears clearly aimed at reconfiguring the cardinal’s titular church and building the related residence, renovating a century-old tradition of cardinals deacons in Rome. This work has been conducted jointly by Andrea Bonavita and me, discussing every single aspect together.