Rome in the Footsteps of an XVIIIth Century Traveller

Links to this page can be found in Book 3, Day 3 and Rione Monti.

The page covers:
The plate by Giuseppe Vasi
Today's view
Le Colonnacce (Tempio di Pallade - Foro Transitorio)
Palazzo del Pio Istituto Rivaldi

The Plate (No. 53 - ii)

In this 1753 etching Giuseppe Vasi showed the last section of Strada Alessandrina which he depicted in its entirety in Plate 102 in 1756. The apparent subject of the plate is a minor church named after the slaughter (Macello) of some martyrs (Martyrum), which supposedly took place in this area; Vasi shows only the side of the church, because the remaining columns of a Temple to Pallas Athena (Minerva) are his true objective.
The view is taken from the green dot in the small 1748 map here below. In the description below the plate Vasi made reference to: 1) Tempio Antico di Pallade; 2) Ruins of Tempio della Pace (actually Basilica di Massenzio); 3) S. Maria in Macello Martyrum. 2) is shown in another page. The small map shows also 4) Palazzo del Pio Istituto Rivaldi.

Today

(left) The view in June 2009 (see it on a painted XVIIIth century door at Casino di Villa Borghese and in a 1905 painting by Alberto Pisa); (right) S. Maria in Macello Martyrum before 1932

In 1932 the whole neighbourhood including the church was pulled down. Excavations were carried out and then partially covered to open Via dell'Impero (today Via dei Fori Imperiali), a large avenue between Piazza Venezia and Colosseo; the ancient columns were included in an archaeological area which is not usually open to the public, but is visible from Strada Alessandrina.
S. Maria in Macello Martyrum was also known as S. Agata dei Tessitori because it belonged to the guild of the Weavers (see a list of churches belonging to a guild).

Le Colonnacce (Tempio di Pallade/Foro Transitorio)

(left-above) Detail of the central relief including a scene portraying Athena in the act of cursing Arachne (far right); (left-below) detail of a side relief; (right) portrait of the goddess

The Temple to Pallas Athena was referred to as "Le Colonnacce" (the ruined columns). The reliefs show women involved in activities such as weaving which were protected by the goddess. Some scenes are thought to represent the myth of Arachne, a princess of Lydia of whose weaving skills Athena was envious. The goddess checked a cloth woven by Arachne in the hope of finding a fault; when she realized there were not any, she became upset and eventually she turned Arachne into a spider. The myth probably reflects a commercial war between Athens and Miletus, a Lydian town known for its dyed woollens.

Wall of the Forum and in the background Torre de' Conti

Actually the columns did not belong to a temple, but to a portico which surrounded a Forum built by Emperor Domitian and completed by Emperor Nerva. It is also known as Foro Transitorio because it linked Basilica Aemilia in the Roman Forum with Foro di Augusto and therefore part of it is covered by Via dei Fori Imperiali. The remaining part of a temple which stood at its northern end was pulled down in 1612 by Pope Paul V to use its columns for Acqua Paola, the large fountain he built on the Janiculum.

XIth century house built upon the marble floor of the southern part of the Forum near Basilica Aemilia

In recent years parts of the southern part of the Forum which were covered by gardens in 1932 were made visible again.

(left) Floor of the southern part of the Forum; (right) Exhibits at Mercati di Traiano: fragments of a relief portraying a Province which were found in 2000 in the Forum

Palazzo del Pio Istituto Rivaldi

(left) Palazzo del Pio Istituto Rivaldi; (right) fountain

The palace was initially designed by Antonio da Sangallo in the first half of the XVIth century and then modified when it was acquired in 1567 by Cardinal Alessandro de' Medici (Pope Leo XI). In 1662 it was bought by a charity and turned into a hospice. In 1932 it lost most of its large garden and later on it was abandoned because of a possible collapse.
In the section of Via dei Fori Imperiali adjoining the remaining garden of the palace there is a modern fountain: its ancient upper basin was found in 1696 near Ostia and it was initially used to embellish the courtyard of Palazzo di Montecitorio.

Exhibit at Mercati di Traiano: Odoardo Ferretti: A view of the garden of Pio Istituto Rivaldi prior to its demolition (watercolour). This and some other paintings were made at the request of Antonio Munoz, the Superintendent in charge of the opening of Via dei Fori Imperiali

Munoz's boast that nothing significant was found is belied by his own catalogue of remains uncovered and then quickly destroyed. One sixth of the total volume of material carted away and used as infill along the Via Ostiense was made up of the remains of wells dating to the eighth century BCE, late Republican and Imperial houses and shops, long cryptoportici, the Compitum Acili (an important crossroads of the fifth century BCE, marked by a shrine), as well as much of the Villa Rivaldi and its gardens, including its celebrated niched retaining wall, and three churches.
Andrew J. Manson - Rationalism and Ruins in Roma Mussoliniana - 2015

Exhibit at Mercati di Traiano: "Elephas antiquus" which was discovered in 1932

Munoz quipped that the discovery of the fossil remains of "elephas antiquus" at the lowest stratum meant that in prehistory the area under the Velia was like a "zoological garden" where elephants and hippopotami roamed as they do now in the centre of Africa. Manson
You may wish to see a diorama of prehistoric Latium at Museo Civico di Zoologia and the skeleton of a dwarf elephant in Sicily.

Centrale Montemartini: (left) Archaic Dionysus; (centre) two heads of Apollo; (right-above) Antinous, the favourite of Emperor Hadrian; (right-below) Silvanus, a Roman god of agriculture. These heads of statues were found in the 1930s during the excavation of the garden of Palazzo del Pio Istituto Rivaldi. They belonged to a rich Roman house of the IIIrd century AD

The image used as background for this page is based on a 1756 etching by Giovanni Battista Piranesi.

Next plate in Book 3: Chiesa di S. Maria Liberatrice.
Next step in Day 3 itinerary: Ruine del Foro di Nerva.
Next step in your tour of Rione Monti: Ruine del Foro di Nerva.

Excerpts from Giuseppe Vasi 1761 Itinerary related to this page:

Chiesa di s. Maria degli Angioli Si disse anticamente questa chiesa in macello martyrum, perchè ivi appresso il tempio di Tellure, in tempo delle persecuzioni de' Cristini, se ne faceva macello; ed è tradizione, che nel pozzo, che si conserva nella medesima chiesa, vi siano stati posti molti corpi di santi Martiri. Dipoi essendo questa chiesa nel 1517. conceduta alla confraternita de' Tessitori, vi posero il titolo di s. Agata. Quasi incontro a questa si vede un nobilissimo avanzo creduto del tempio di Pallade, ornato mirabilmente: ma per disavventura molto rovinato, e sepolto quasi per metà.