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: Il Foro di Traiano nel Medioevo e nel Rinascimento

2023; Archaeological Institute of America; Volume: 128; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Italiano

10.1086/728762

1939-828X

James E. Packer,

Medieval and Early Modern Justice

Previous articleNext article FreeBook ReviewIl Foro di Traiano nel Medioevo e nel Rinascimento By Roberto Meneghini (BAR-IS 3059). Oxford: BAR Publishing 2021. Pp. 220. ISBN 9781407358949 (paper) £55. Il Foro di Traiano nell’Antichità: I risulti degli scavi 1991–2007 By Elisabetta Bianchi and Roberto Meneghini (BAR-IS 3097). Oxford: BAR Publishing 2022. Pp. 338. ISBN 9781407360034 (paper) £88.James E. PackerJames E. PackerProfessor of Classics Emeritus, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL; [email protected] Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUSFull Text Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmailPrint SectionsMoreIn these two volumes, Meneghini provides accounts of the history, excavation, and architectural character of the Forum of Trajan in Rome. In the first two sections of the earlier one (hereafter Foro 2021), he summarizes the history of the site from antiquity through the end of the twentieth century and emphasizes both the large-scale Fascist excavations of 1929–32 and my own topographical study of the site (The Forum of Trajan in Rome, University of California Press 1997). On the triangular plot between Via Alessandrina and the new Via del Impero (now Via dei Fori Imperiali), the excavators of the 1930s demolished the upper stories of the post-antique buildings and buried their cellars in a small park that overlooked their recent excavations. In 1998–2000, Meneghini cleared this site, and, in his third section, he documents in detail the medieval remains in the cellars under the park.In the second volume (hereafter Foro 2022), Meneghini provides detailed accounts of the ancient materials uncovered in his excavations of 1991–2000. Two final sections by Bianchi document the exploration and character of the Trajanic drainage system and examine the site’s brick stamps. The remainder of this review summarizes Meneghini’s report on and interpretation of his ancient finds. To simplify the citations below, I assume that the Column of Trajan marks the north side of the forum.Meneghini’s new excavations began at the south end of the East Portico (Foro 2022, 2, fig. 1.1, herein fig. 1). He cleared first a short, narrow Trajanic corridor and three adjacent rooms behind. Built at a raking angle against the earlier “Domitianic Terrace” (originally a nymphaeum), they included a small triangular storage (?) area and a pair of two-story, rectangular chambers (Foro 2022, 37, fig. 2.13 A–C). Barrel-vaulted, these originally had marble pavements and revetments, and the smaller room (B) includes two superimposed apses. The lower one has an internal, semicircular seat, and indicated in the bedding mortar for the pavement was perhaps a large pedestal for statuary. These rooms are today built into the picturesque 14th-century Loggia of the Knights of Malta.Fig. 1. Forum of Trajan excavation plan (R. Meneghini, Foro 2022, 2, fig. 1.1; courtesy BAR Publishing). View Large Image Download PowerPointTo the west lay the forum’s south perimetral wall. Of its three straight sections, that in the center, at right angles to the main axis of the forum, was configured as a triumphal arch. The obliquely positioned walls that flanked the arch had sizable, fluted Corinthian columns en ressaut (diameters 1.48 m; heights 11.79 m). Some fragments of giallo antico and cipollino shafts, one of pavonazzetto, and one battered capital (FT 9265) survive. The giallo antico columns probably come from the arch-like center wing; the others, from columns en ressaut along the oblique walls. Behind them lay a long, roofed “sala trisegmentata,” a hall with three wings. Paved probably with porphyry (is this the famous Porticus Purpuretica, SHA, Prob. 2?), its plan repeated that of the forum’s tripartite perimetral wall. Behind the sala was a rectangular portico, a vestibule between the forums of Augustus and of Trajan. Elaborately finished, it had Corinthian columns with cipollino shafts (diameter 0.84 m; height 7.60 m), a pavement in slabs of portasanta and cipollino, and wall panels of colored marbles. And finally, the excavations of 2016–20 also involved the removal of the north section of the Via Alessandrina to “achieve adequate urban planning and correct readability” (Foro 2021, 72). Clearing also much of the adjacent Trajanic piazza, this work and that of 1998–2000 exposed the concrete bedding mortar, the rectangular impressions of the travertine pavers still clearly visible.At the end of Foro 2022, Meneghini proposes a revised picture of the forum’s architecture in light of his new excavations (307–25). For the facade of the center wing (31 m long) he suggests two corner entrances hidden behind eight closely spaced columns. Part of the forum’s dedication survives (Foro 2022, 146–47, figs. 3.94–96), and using the image from the back of a Trajanic aureus, he dates this inscription to 112–115 CE and locates it on the attic of his straight wing (Foro 2022, 72, fig. 2.58). The fluted pavonazzetto shaft (Foro 2022, 69, FT number not given) indicates either that the cipollino and pavonazzetto columns alternated along the oblique lateral walls or that they were grouped in pairs. The excavators also uncovered the site of the famous equestrian statue of Trajan. Closer to the south perimetral walls than to the Basilica Ulpia, the statue faced the basilica (Foro 2022, 170, fig. 3.122). Apart from the three porches, the basilica’s ground-floor facade was closed (Foro 2022, 308–09, figs. 6.1–3), and, north of the Column of Trajan, the existing Hadrianic remains are most probably not from the Temple of Trajan but are instead the foundations of Trajan’s Parthian Arch.For this reviewer, not all these conclusions are acceptable. As Meneghini’s reconstruction plan shows them (Foro 2022, 2, fig. 1.1, see fig. 1 herein), the intercolumniations of the eight columns on his straight wing are too narrow. They hide the facade behind them and leave scant space either for the tabernacles that appear on Trajanic aurei and sestertii or for the center opening that Meneghini omits on this plan. On the coins, this arch-like wing has only six columns that frame the opening (fig. 2 herein), and the tabernacle in each intercolumniation and the arch are clearly visible. This view also suggests that, for all three wings—since their lengths were nearly identical—the number and spacing of their columns would have been the same. With its column shafts of different marbles, the forum’s south perimetral wall would thus have echoed and varied the architectural features of the opposite colonnaded facade of the Basilica Ulpia. On the basilica’s facade, behind the three porches, and on the facades of the side porches, the fluted Corinthian columns were of pavonazzetto. The four columns of the central porch were of giallo antico. Directly above the pavonazzetto colonnade, on unfluted cipollino shafts, the Ionic columns of the second story would have been visible from the forum. Moreover, since the two stories that faced the piazza were open, there was, as contemporary aurei and sestertii show, no clerestory.Fig. 2. The arch at the south entrance to the Forum of Trajan: left, reconstruction drawn by John Burge; right, reverse of a Trajanic aureus (drawing courtesy J. Burge; aureus [Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, département Monnaies, médailles et antiques IMP-3197] courtesy Bibliothèque nationale de France). View Large Image Download PowerPointThe equestrian statue of Trajan probably did not (as Meneghini affirms) face the basilica. To avoid giving visitors arriving from the Forum of Augustus a close view of a colossal, gilded, equine rump, the statue must have faced toward the arch. As the archaeological remains show, the statues of dejected Dacians on the attics of the forum’s lateral colonnades and on the south facade of the Basilica Ulpia would then have appeared to frame and accompany Trajan’s statue. On horseback in military garb with a lance, the imperial hero and his conquered Dacians would together have welcomed visitors into his forum, a permanent record of the emperor’s impressive military achievements in costly, multicolored, foreign marbles. And with regard to the Temple of Trajan, Meneghini also rejects the several convincing, recent excavations of Paola Baldassarri (“Indagini acheologiche a Palazzo Valentini. Nuovi dati per la ricostruzione del tempio di Traiano e Plotina divi,” RM 122, 2016, 171–202) who provides ample evidence for the size, location, and architectural elements of the temple. To suppose, as Meneghini suggests, that Baldassari’s remains would have been parts of Trajan’s Parthian Arch (which scholars have never convincingly located) is seriously mistaken.Yet, in Meneghini’s defense, his long years of study and excavation in the Forum of Trajan have given us abundant new information on the site. On its south side we now have the perimetral walls with their columns en ressaut, the center wing with its arched entrance, the plan, and many of the architectural elements from the peristyle that linked the Forum of Trajan with the north lateral colonnade of the Forum of Augustus. Meneghini’s account of these finds is convincingly detailed and profusely illustrated with measured plans and sections—although scaled elevations of the new column shafts from the south perimetral wall are not given. And scholars will likewise find of major interest Bianchi’s detailed accounts of the forum’s drainage system and the newly recovered brick stamps from various parts of the site. Yet, while all students of the topography of ancient Rome will now gratefully use this fundamental raw data, they should not accept Meneghini’s final conclusions about the architecture of the forum. An authoritative new reconstruction of the Forum of Trajan, solidly based on the new archaeological investigations, on the Forma Urbis, and on the ample numismatic evidence, has yet to appear. Previous articleNext article DetailsFiguresReferencesCited by American Journal of Archaeology Volume 128, Number 1January 2024 The journal of the Archaeological Institute of America Views: 155Total views on this site Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/728762 Views: 155Total views on this site HistoryPublished online December 05, 2023 Copyright © 2024 by the Archaeological Institute of AmericaPDF download Crossref reports no articles citing this article.