Capitoline Hill Research Articles

Locked Up and Locked In: Of Roman Imprisonments and Liberations

Locked Up and Locked In: Of Roman Imprisonments and Liberations Cristina Mazzoni (bio) If today Rome’s art treasures beckon travelers the world over, in the early modern period it was the presence of the martyrs’ remains that made this city such a popular travel destination. Foremost among these relics were of course those of Saint Peter, the first pope: he is quite spectacularly remembered in the basilica that bears his name. There are other places in Rome that display the mark of Peter’s passage, too. One of these is the Mamertine Prison: an unadorned, dark and damp cell, the oldest jail in Rome, carved into the slope of the Capitoline Hill in the fourth century BCE It is here that the Gaul leader Vercingetorix and the African King Jugurtha were incarcerated, and it is here, as legend tells, that the apostles Peter and Paul, held captive like ordinary criminals, awaited execution. Known as the Mamertine Prison since the medieval period, this jail was identified as the Carcer Tullianum in ancient Roman times. It was the top-security prison for the Roman state, consisting then, like today, of two rooms: a top one (the Carcer) made of travertine and tufa stone, and another below it (the Tullianum), a round structure, also made of stone and originally built around a natural spring of water. This spring was later regarded as miraculous because it was believed to originate, supernaturally, out of Saint Peter’s need to baptize his fellow prisoners. The Carcer and the Tullianum in turn lie below two other structures: the Chapel of the Holy Crucifix (named after a much-revered wooden crucifix once hanging on the façade of the Carcer) and, on top of that chapel, the Church of San Giuseppe dei Falegnami, Saint Joseph of the Carpenters. In her Notes from England and Italy (1869), Sophia Peabody Hawthorne, the painter, illustrator, and writer best known for her marriage to Nathaniel Hawthorne, wrote at length of the Mamertine, concluding: “It made me faint to think how utterly impossible it would be to escape. It would be as easy to tear asunder a mountain as to break through these ponderous stones. I hope St. Peter was allowed a torch.”1 Discouraged by her husband from pursuing her interests in painting and writing, and impeded by the practical restrictions of caring for a busy family in a foreign country, one can imagine why Sophia was especially sensitive to the suffering brought on by constrictions and thus so moved by her visit to the Mamertine Prison. Darkness is what frightened [End Page 246] Sophia most, and through her hope that “St. Peter was allowed a torch,” she dwells on the metaphor of light as life, and death as but a temporary, and only partial, triumph of the night. For Sophia, jails meant more than physical imprisonment: the severe ground of the Mamertine represented a place of passage, a road to glory and not to destruction. The Mamertine’s darkness, for this New Englander, led to light as death brings on a life that cannot be lost again: “I hope St. Peter was allowed a torch. O wonderful revolution! He who was chained and martyred then, now rules Christendom from the throne of the most magnificent Cathedral in the world, and a hundred ever-burning lamps watch round his sacred grave, under the high altar, like so many sleepless eyes of seraphs. He who was in black darkness has light enough now, and having died for his Lord Jesus, he has found his life, which he can never lose again.” To stand within the Mamertine Prison can be today, as it was for Sophia some fourteen decades ago, an experience of the contrast between light and darkness and strength and weakness, unearthed in the hard stone clearly carved with great exertion, and in the effortlessly flowing, gentle spring of water. To be captured and to be free: many are the ways of human entrapment, and though some are not of stone, they are no less durable, no less confining. The complex ways of our spirit can make even the most privileged among us feel victimized and unable to change a seemingly...

Fluid City: River Gods in Rome and Contested Topography

Fluid CityRiver Gods in Rome and Contested Topography Charles Burroughs (bio) Introduction: Blurred Boundaries—Conceptual and Topographical Few major cities have undergone so thorough a transformation as early modern Rome, where a shrunken “gigantic cadaver”1 became a paradigmatic early modern theater of architectural magnificence, worthy of its ancient predecessor. No single site better exemplifies this transformation than the Campidoglio, the ancient Capitoline Hill, surmounted by a grand piazza bordered on three sides by palaces but open to the city on the fourth side where St. Peter’s dome, designed by Michelangelo for Pope Paul III (r. 1534–49), rises above the distant skyline. The same architect and patron played key roles in the sixteenth-century remodeling of the Campidoglio (Fig. 1), though the only building actually erected on the hill by the pope was not part of Michelangelo’s Capitoline ensemble. Early in his long pontificate, Paul saw to the construction of the Torre Farnese (or Paolina), a fortified residence designed with an eye to defense and domination, certainly not aesthetics. Until its demolition to make way for the Victor Emmanuel Monument (1885), the Torre Farnese was a looming presence on the hill, overlooking a city where by now numerous palaces exemplified the classicizing, formal language of the Renaissance, of which it showed hardly a trace.2 Nor could there be a stronger contrast with Michelangelo’s highly innovative and allusive designs for the civic palaces on the Campidoglio, though these were not realized until long after Paul’s death (the date of the design is a different issue, as noted below), or indeed with the same architect’s work, from 1546, on Paul’s own family palace, the Palazzo Farnese. It has recently been suggested that we should see the rustic character of the Torre Farnese, traditionally sometimes referred to as a villa, in a more positive light, and as [End Page 187] qualifying not just the traditional image of Rome but also prevailing notions of an urban/rural disjunction.3 This may be too large a claim for so undistinguished a building, but I will argue that it is applicable, in principle, to the remodeling of the Campidoglio, whatever the contrast in formal terms. If so, Michelangelo’s Campidoglio both drew on and helped to shape a wider setting—Rome itself—that already defied such binary stereotyping. Click for larger view View full resolution Figure 1. “The Roman Campidoglio ideally completed according to Michelangelo’s design,” Stefano Duperac (Etienne DuPérac), etching 1569, included in the Speculum Romanae Magnificentiae, published by Antoine Lafreri. Metropolitan Museum of Art, inv. 41.72(1.14). Courtesy the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. A related indeterminacy exists, moreover, in the visual rhetoric of the Campidoglio, embracing both the architectural framework and, emphatically, a number of sculptures prominently installed on the hill.4 I will focus especially on statues of river gods, specifically on a motif expressive of both stability (the river as enduring topographic identifier) and fluidity (the allusions to flowing hair [End Page 188] and water). Though such contradictions apply to all images of river gods, in the light of the complex history of this pair of statues they constitute a special case: one statue underwent a radical change of iconography, and both were subjected to a drastic shift of location and, presumably, meaning. The introduction of statues or related objects into a site as fraught with historical and political associations as the Campidoglio is certainly evidence of existing prestige, but they inevitably take on new significance, especially when integrated—as happened with the river gods—into a newly designed configuration likely to be expressive of current agendas. With its associations with ancient authority and ritual, as well as the municipal government in the city of the popes, the Campidoglio was a place of memory, or rather conflicting memories; as Kathleen Christian has eloquently pointed out, it was a site where civic and papal concerns and claims—sometimes competing, sometimes in balance—affected the course and nature of architectural or sculptural elaboration.5 Christian discusses an earlier period, but her characterization also applies to the sixteenth-century Campidoglio, seat of the medieval city republic, now increasingly hollowed out...

The volcanic aggregate of ancient Roman mortars from the Capitoline Hill: Petrographic criteria for identification of Rome's “pozzolans” and historical implications

Abstract We present a petrographic study of the pyroclastic-flow deposits used to produce mortar aggregates (Pozzolane Rosse, Pozzolane Nere, and Pozzolanelle), as well as dimension stones (Tufo del Palatino and Tufo Lionato) in ancient Roman times, in which we describe the characteristic textures and mineralogic assemblages of their juvenile fraction. This petrographic dataset is employed to compare and classify, through observation in thin section at the optical microscope, and complementary trace-element analyses, as well as EMP analyses on matrix glass on archaeological and bulk natural samples, the composition of the volcanic aggregate of 11 samples of ancient Roman mortars collected from several archaeological structures excavated on the Capitoline Hill. By means of the combined petrographic and geochemical identification criteria illustrated in this work, we recognize two main types of mortar aggregates characteristic of the Republican and Imperial ages, respectively, and a third type pertaining to the mediaeval epoch.

Experimental Dynamic Testing and Numerical Modeling of Historical Belfry

ABSTRACTThe experimental characterization of historical bell towers and wall belfries can provide important information for the calibration of numerical models as well as to implement proper restoration strategies. Within this framework, the presented study is concerned with the experimental dynamic assessment of an ancient belfry dating back to 1537. The structure is part of the “Santa Maria in Aracoeli Church” (Rome, Italy), an important heritage construction placed on the summit of the Capitoline Hill, close to the building that hosts the Major’s office. Several field tests have been conducted using accelerometers, and records obtained under different dynamic loading scenarios have been examined. Moreover, experimental accelerations have been elaborated to estimate the most important modal features of the structure and to validate a finite element model. Field tests have confirmed that severe vibrations are induced when the bells swing, and thus a slight reduction of the swing angle has been suggested in order to provide an immediate and inexpensive benefit to the structure. A new set of field tests demonstrates that the new swing angle is sufficient to reduce the induced vibrations while preserving the original sound.

Visions of power: Andreas Schlüter's monuments to the Great Elector and Friedrich III and I

When Friedrich Wilhelm the Great Elector (the Grose Kurfurst, reigned 1640-88) died in 1688, Berlin was under the cultural domination of the Netherlands.1 Friedrich Wilhelm had studied in the Netherlands in his youth, and in 1646 married Louise Henriette, a daughter of the Dutch Stadtholder Frederik Hendrik. Relations between the countries were close, and the elector was to visit the Netherlands frequently in later years. The nation was well informed about Dutch art. In 1651 Luise Henriette commissioned a statue of her spouse from Francois Dieussart (c.1600-61), which was installed in the Lustgarten.2 During Friedrich Wilhelm's reign, work by the most outstanding Dutch sculptors arrived in Berlin - among them, besides Dieussart, Artus Quellinus (1609-68) and Bartholomeus Eggers (c.1637-92).3 However, by the end of the century the aura surrounding Dutch art had faded. Friedrich III (reigned 1688-1713), aspired to higher things. He wanted Brandenburg's new foreign policy and military strength to find appropriate expression on the diplomatic level, and this could only mean enhancing the dignity of an elector by the dignity of kingship.4 The international prerequisites for this were not unfavourable, for in the Duchy of Prussia he ruled a domain that was no longer part of the Holy Roman Empire, and could thus attain the status of a kingdom - unlike the Margravate of Brandenburg.The way to the crown - finally accomplished in 1701 - was accompanied by an extraordinarily ambitious instrumentalization of politics in art.5 When at the start of his reign, Friedrich III wished to commission his own statue from Bartholomeus Eggers, it was because the sculptor - in the service of the Great Elector - had produced statues of his eleven predecessors for the Alabastersaal of his town palace, the Berliner Schloss.6 Soon the Dutch connection was not sufficient. The magnetism of ancient and papal Rome and of the France of Louis XIV was stronger. One of the artists brought in for the aggrandisement of Berlin was Andreas Schluter (1659-1714), appointed sculptor to the court of Brandenburg in 1694.7 Schluter had an unprecedented career in Berlin in his first years there, and was to create two monuments, one posthumously for the Great Elector (fig. 1)8 and one for his son, Friedrich III (fig. 12).9 In 1698 his post was only court sculptor, yet he was entrusted with the costly and complex reconstruction of the Berliner Schloss.10 Today, Schluter is renowned equally as both a sculptor and an architect.Andreas Schluter was born in Danzig in 1659, and trained there as a sculptor in stone.11 He may have found a post in the service of the Polish king, Jan III Sobieski, and moved to Warsaw. He might have been involved in the extensions to the royal residence in Wilanow, though to a lesser extent than the relevant scholarship has assumed. Wilanow was a melting pot, where King Jan III Sobieski united artists and works of art from many European countries.12 Schluter learnt a great deal there, and encountered an inspiring appreciation of Michelangelo's architecture at the court, where the leading architect, Agostino Locci, referred explicitly to Michelangelo's palaces on the Capitoline Hill.13 Schluter could have made his first visit to Italy during this period. In the early 1690s he worked on tombs for the Sobieski family, and was commissioned as a sculptor by one of the leading aristocratic families in Poland, the Krasin' ski, for the building of their new palace in Warsaw.It seems certain that he was engaged in Berlin for some projects that had already been settled, first and foremost among them the sculpture on the Lange Brucke (Long Bridge), which was then approaching completion.14 One of these was an equestrian statue (fig. 1). It says much for the farsightedness of the court that only a few months after Schluter's arrival, it hired an experienced bronze founder to cast the two monuments. His name was Johann Jacobi (1661-1726), born in (Bad) Homburg. …

Inversion comique ou critique satirique ? La vue du Capitole de Hieronymus Cock (1562)

Hieronymus Cock’s view of the Capitoline Hill, published in his 1562 series on Roman ruins, has long been considered a useful document by historians of art and architecture for the key historical and topographical information it contains on one of Rome’s most celebrated sites during the Renaissance. Beyond its documentary nature, which, as will appear, was essentially rhetorical, the view also offers much information as to how a mid-sixteenth-century Flemish artist might perceive Rome’s illustrious topography and celebrated ancient statuary. In other words, Cock’s engraving enables us to put into practice what may be called an “archaeology of the gaze.” Through previously unnoticed details, Cock invents a comical—verging on the satirical—vision of the antique sculptures proudly displayed on the famous piazza. Such an ironical reversal of Italian classical dignity is typical of the attitude of some contemporary Flemish artists, such as Pieter Bruegel the Elder, who was then close to Cock, and exposes the ambivalent position of some Northern European artists towards the classical tradition and Italian art theory. Finally, the analysis of other engravings of ruins by Hieronymus Cock where two emblematic characters—the draftsman and the kakker (the one who defecates)—appear side by side, sheds light on the origin and possible significance of these comical and subversive details.

Christopher Dawson's Influence on Bernard Lonergan's Project of "Introducing History into Theology"

THIS ARTICLE FOCUSES on Bernard Lonergan's project of bringing as its own field and specialty, into conjunction with Biblical, foundational, doctrinal, and systematic forms of knowledge. In this endeavor, he was deeply influenced by Christopher Dawson (1889-1970), British cultural historian and philosopher of history who was Catholic convert. (1) An examination of Dawson's influence offers broad context for opening historical dimension of Lonergan's contribution to Catholic theology and provides significant approximation and example of what Lonergan proposes in Method in Theology as critical history, or history as it explains the meaning going forward in tradition. I.1 Christopher Dawson's Method The initiation of Dawson's life-long work as historian of culture had its promising start during Holy Week 1909, when, at age of 20, while still student at Oxford, Dawson joined his longtime friend Edward Watkin, himself recent convert, for his first visit to Rome. Having attended Holy Triduum ceremonies at different basilicas, he was stunned by synergy of ambience of Roman pagan antiquity and living Catholic faith that he found there. He was already familiar, and agreed with Lord Acton's hypothesis that religion is key to history. There, in Rome, immediate sense of flow of historical existence awakened in him desire to serve important recovery of step-by-step process by which Christianity had transformed collapsing empire into new creation of Christian culture. Dawson was both familiar and impressed with Edward Gibbon's, Decline and Fall of Roman Empire, (2) and had keen appreciation both of Gibbon's style of writing and of his broad historical knowledge. (3) While rejecting Gibbon's claim that Christianity had been cause of collapse of empire, Dawson had not yet worked out his own upper blade for translating Acton's vision into practice in regard to Gibbon's claims. On Easter Sunday he climbed steps to church of Ara Coeli, situated on Capitoline hill, where Gibbon had stood when he was inspired to take up his project of history of Roman Empire. Christina Scott, Dawson's daughter, reports that there is note in her father's journal sometime late in 1909 recalling a vow made at Easter at Ara Coeli and that Dawson had been thinking of how vow might be fulfilled, noting that he had in meantime gotten great light on way it may be carried out. However unfit I may be, I believe it is God's will I should attempt it. (4) There would be four difficult years before Dawson would follow steps of John Henry Newman and his friend Watkin and enter Roman Catholic Church, being baptized on feast of Epiphany, January 6, 1914 by Fr. O'Hare, SJ, at St. Aloysius Church, Oxford. (5) By this time, Dawson's image for fulfilling his plan was taking shape as result of his research and reading that was part of his preparation of study of world civilizations and with intention of writing five-volume history of culture. By 1922 he had worked out theory of cycles of civilizations before having read Oswald Spengler's work, The Decline of West, with which he was to be in serious disagreement because of its failure to grasp dynamic interactions of different cultures. Dawson's own approach to theory proposed schema that would analyze dynamic interconnection of civilizations from 4000 B.C. to twentieth century. His conclusion was that civilizations were result of parent (often primitive) cultures, which had distinct stages of origin, progress, and maturity, leading, in turn, to emergence of new cultures. This heuristic had been identified by means of massive research that he had done for his first major book published in 1928, The Age of Gods: A Study in Origins of Culture in Pre-historic Europe and Ancient East. …

Petrarch's Rome: The History of the Africa and the Renaissance Project

❦I. On Easter Sunday 1341, in a ceremony that took place on Rome’s Capitoline Hill, Francesco Petrarca (1304–1374) was crowned with the laurel wreath. Petrarch owed this realization of a longstanding dream to a large network of friends, but also to the favor of King Robert of Naples. Robert submitted the poet to a three-day examen privatum in his residence, then formally declared him worthy to be crowned poet laureate. The powerful Roman Colonna dynasty also provided active support. As capellanus continuus, Petrarch (who had been ordained in the lower ranks of the Catholic priesthood) had been a familiar figure at the court of Cardinal Giovanni Colonna in Avignon since 1330. The examination by King Robert as well as the legal document containing the privilegium laureationis show that the Roman ceremony was clearly modeled on medieval academic protocol. Its intentions, however, point in an entirely different direction. The poet’s coronation speech, traditionally known as the Collatio laureationis, as well as the other pertinent documents clearly indicate that Petrarch intended to fashion the Capitoline honors into the grandiose inauguration of the new age he was hoping for—regardless of the medieval traditions to which these honors were indebted. Petrarch claimed that the ceremony was reviving a classical tradition that had been forgotten and neglected for more than twelve hundred years. At the same time, it was to signal the impending reformation of an exhausted culture by means of a return to the spirit of the ancients. This spirit, according to Petrarch,

Digital Roman Forum

From 1997 to 2003 the Cultural Virtual Reality Laboratory (CVRLab) created a digital model of the Roman Forum as it appeared in late antiquity. The notional date of the model is June 21, 400 A.D. The purpose of the modeling project was to spatialize information and theories about how the Forum looked at this moment in time, which was more or less the height of its development as Rome's civic and cultural center. The digital model includes over twenty features (buildings and major monuments) filling up the western zone of the Roman Forum from the Temple of Vesta and Temple of Antoninus and Faustina on the east to the Tabularium facing the western slope of the Capitoline Hill. Thanks to archaeological campaigns that started in the early nineteenth century and which continue to the present day, these features can be seen in Rome today and constitute one of the city's most important archaeological sites. Their state of preservation varies from fair to poor; and the ruins seen today represent a mixture of different phases in the life of the Forum. As a result, understanding the Forum is a challenging task not only for tourists but also for scholars. Almost as soon as the new excavations started bringing the ancient remains to light, archaeologists such as Canina, Huelsen, Gatteschi, and Gismondi started to create graphic and physical reconstructions of how the Forum might have looked at specific moments in time. The CVRLab digital model, created with the help of an international Scientific Advisory Committee, is the latest example of this perennial project. From the time the modeling project was conceived, the investigators intended to present their results to students, scholars and the general public. The digital model of the Forum can be viewed on various hardware and software platforms. These range from simple static views that can be displayed on a computer monitor to dedicated visualization theaters costs hundreds of thousands of dollars or more.

Notes on Diligentia as a Term of Roman Art Criticism

IT IS DIFFICULT TO READ Pliny Elder's discussions of art without noticing that he often praises skillful imitation of nature, expressing particular admiration for representations, similitudines, that deceive viewers into belief that they are looking at the real thing. Pliny tells us that realism (indiscreta veri similitudo) of a bronze dog licking its wounds, a sculpture once displayed on Capitoline Hill, was so impressive that its guards had to pledge their lives as a sort of insurance for it (HN 34.38). He marvels at a scene painting in which crows, deceived by image flew straight at representation (similitudinem) of rooftiles (HN 35.23). The Natural History is, in fact, filled with anecdotal accounts of artworks in which birds fly at painted grapes, horses whinny at paintings of their species, representations of athletes actually seem to sweat, and portraits are so lifelike that professional physiognomists can divine year of sitter's death.' Such anecdotes have dominated modern evaluations of Pliny's artistic judgment, often leading to conclusion that his understanding of subject is simple-minded and unsophisticated.2 Pliny did, however, evaluate works of art according to criteria other than their ability to deceive eye. In this regard, one critical term that repays closer examination is diligentia. The present study argues that diligentia characterized best artists, and that this quality was directly related to their ability to produce convincing likenesses, or similitudines. It also argues, however, that an artist's diligentia was not sufficient to make a work of art great. In Pliny's view, which appears to be shared by other Roman writers, an artist might be excessively diligens, and might on this account destroy other qualities that were desirable in a work of art.

Triumphus in Palatio

As one of the many tokens of its symbolic centrality in Roman cul? ture, the Capitoline Hill received the triumphator at the end of his ceremonial return to Rome. For centuries generals who had been granted a triumphus concluded the elaborate sacral procession through the city with a sacrifice at the Temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus, the god most intimately associated with this religious institution.1 The strongly local character of Roman cults made it nearly unthinkable to celebrate the solemn event anywhere else in Rome, but artistic imagination feels itself less bound by religious scruples. Two such ingenious revisions of the triumphal parade displace its endpoint to the Temple of Apollo on the Palatine Hill. Virgil imagines Octavian's great triple triumph of 29 b.c. taking place there, while other ancient evidence leads us to believe that the victor really proceeded to the Capitoline like countless imperatores triumphantes before him.2 The poet sets the celebration at the shrine of the deity credited with the victory at Actium, the shrine which Octavian built adjacent to his own house. The Palatine was becoming the imperial palace complex, the triumph a prerogative of the imperial family.3 When these developments had been fully realized, Nero in De? cember a.d. 674 staged an eccentric victory procession which likewise climaxed at Apollo's Palatine temple. As returning victor in the festi-

Women in Arcadia

Women in Arcadia Susan M. Dixon (bio) The first Italian academy to admit women was the Accademia degli Arcadi. Founded in 1690, the Arcadian Society was primarily an institution dedicated to the reform of Italian literature. For almost forty years after its founding, the heyday of the Society’s growth and activity, it fostered and promoted the poetic output of its female members. Arcadian women produced at least eight percent of the literature printed in the organization’s official publications. Even after the mid-eighteenth century, when the Academy’s prestige and presence in Italian society had waned, some of the shepherdesses or pastorelle, as the female members were called, were well known in literary circles. Maria Maddelena Morelli, better known by her Arcadian pseudonym Corilla Olimpica, was crowned as poet laureate on the Capitoline Hill in 1776. She shared this honor with two other poets: Petrarch, crowned in 1341, and Bernardo Perfetti, a fellow Arcadian, in 1725. 1 Little scholarly attention has been paid to this most uncommon quality: the considerable number of female Arcadians and their professional accomplishments. I believe this has much to do with the seemingly inconsistent and elusive nature of the Society. It was primarily a literary academy whose tenets called for a rejection of baroque conceits in favor of clear language, simple form, and an unexaggerated content. The women who were admitted were expected to be poets committed to this mode of writing. In addition, the Academy saw literary reform as related to larger societal reform, and it maintained a corollary goal to cultivate or sustain the study of the sciences—mathematics, astronomy, physics, jurisprudence and history—to that end. Its enlightened goals and rhetoric, however, seem to be contradicted by its courtly associations and habits. The secondary literature is polarized in assessing the institution either as frivolous and ineffectual, and under the machinations of the Papal court, or as effective in varying degrees at introducing enlightened ideas into an often censorious Papal Rome. 2 The women of Arcadia have been overlooked in the debate. In an attempt to encourage more research on the topic, this paper will outline the activity of Arcadian women. 3 Because the bulk of the information regarding the Society comes from the Society itself, the task is a bit problematic. The Accademia degli Arcadi officially represented its female members in two ways, as two very different kinds of Arcadian inhabitants. They [End Page 371] are both: pastorelle, whose literary accomplishments were as competent and deserving of publication as those of the pastori, their male counterparts; and nymphs, who instigated and played courtly games. This dual role seems further evidence of the complex and elusive agenda of the Society. The Academy’s attitude toward women was both egalitarian in recognizing their status as professional poets and traditional in its insistence on defining typical feminine behavior. During the first thirty-eight years of the organization’s history when the Society was under the custodianship of Giovanni Maria Crescimbeni, seventy-four women were admitted. 4 As the total membership in 1728 was 2,419, women then constituted just under three percent of its membership. While this percentage may seem small, it should be noted that after 1711, when significant numbers of Arcadians defected because of ideological differences, Crescimbeni instituted a campaign to increase the membership dramatically. Therefore, among the 2,419, there were many titular members, or members who met only the minimum requirements. 5 The population of writers and poets, that is, that portion of members with whom the women shared professional skills, is difficult to calculate given the records, but I estimate that women constituted about eight percent of that population. There were five ways to be admitted to the Academy, and one was reserved for women. Female candidates were nominated before the Collegio, a small elite deciding body within the Academy. The individual colleghi then cast their votes secretly. At least six memberships per year were reserved for female candidates. This method of accepting pastorelle was more guarded than others; for example, some nominations were put before the full assembled Adunanza and decided by acclamation. The secret balloting was enacted “to avoid prejudices,” presumably to counter the nominator’s...

Prediction of durability for outdoor exposed bronzes: estimation of the corrosivity of the atmospheric environment of the Capitoline Hill in Rome

The evaluation and control of the durability of bronze monuments exposed outdoors in urban environments are urgent and technically complex topics. The possibility of predicting the behaviour of a metal artifact in contact with water and polluted air in particular climatic conditions is of fundamental interest for both corrosion scientists and conservators. In the present paper, the results of an investigation into the corrosivity of the atmosphere on the Capitoline Hill in Rome are summarized, evaluated on the basis of the mass loss results of standard metallic specimens exposed in situ. The use of the technique of polarization resistance is proposed for the objective evaluation of the real state of health of bronze sculptures in terms of actual rate of corrosion in progress on the metallic surface. Particular attention is paid to the results obtained for the Marcus Aurelius equestrian monument, exposed on this site for the past five centuries.

Prediction of Durability for Outdoor Exposed Bronzes: Estimation of the Corrosivity of the Atmospheric Environment of the Capitoline Hill in Rome

Prediction of Durability for Outdoor Exposed Bronzes: Estimation of the Corrosivity of the Atmospheric Environment of the Capitoline Hill in Rome

TTV a common virus, but pathogenic?

News of yet another transfusion-transmissible virus has disturbing implications. Although at this stage the findings may still be no more than the hissing of geese on the Capitoline Hill, in their paper published today Peter Simmonds and his colleagues in Scotland confirm the global distribution of the TT virus (TTV), which was discovered in Japan over a year ago. 1 Nishizawa T Okamoto H Konishi K et al. A novel DNA virus (TTV) associated with elevated transaminase levels in posttransfusion hepatitis of unknown etiology. Biochem Biophys Res Comm. 1997; 241: 92-97 Crossref PubMed Scopus (1084) Google Scholar Makoto Mayumi and his group have already found that the virus genome consists of single-stranded, linear DNA and they suggest that TTV may be a parvovirus. 2 Okamoto H Nishizawa T Kato N et al. Molecular cloning and characterisation of a novel DNA virus (TTV) associated with posttransfusion hepatitis of unknown etiology. Hepatol Res. 1998; 10: 1-16 Crossref Google Scholar The lack of an outer envelope is consistent with this idea, but the buoyant density is considerably lighter, and the genome significantly larger, than expected for a parvovirus, and no sequence homology is evident with known members of the group. Detection of a novel DNA virus (TT virus) in blood donors and blood productsTTV viraemia is frequent in the blood-donor population, and transmission of TTV through transfusion of blood components may have occurred extensively. Clinical assessment of infected donors and recipients of blood and blood products, and assessment of TTV's aetiological role in hepatic and extra-hepatic disease, are urgently needed. Full-Text PDF Presence of a newly described human DNA virus (TTV) in patients with liver diseaseThe high prevalence of active TTV infection in the general population, both in the UK and in Japan, and the lack of significant liver damage, suggest that TTV, similar to hepatitis G virus (HGV), may be an example of a human virus with no clear disease association. Full-Text PDF

Quaternary fluvial-volcanic stratigraphy and geochronology of the Capitoline Hill in Rome

Research Article| August 01, 1996 Quaternary fluvial-volcanic stratigraphy and geochronology of the Capitoline Hill in Rome Walter Alvarez; Walter Alvarez 1Department of Geology and Geophysics, University of California, Berkeley, California 947202Osservatorio Geologico di Coldigioco, 62020 Frontale di Apiro (MC) Italy Search for other works by this author on: GSW Google Scholar Albert J. Ammerman; Albert J. Ammerman 3Department of Classics, Colgate University, Hamilton, New York 13346 Search for other works by this author on: GSW Google Scholar Paul R. Renne; Paul R. Renne 1Department of Geology and Geophysics, University of California, Berkeley, California 947204Berkeley Geochronology Center, 2455 Ridge Road, Berkeley, California 94709 Search for other works by this author on: GSW Google Scholar Daniel B. Karner; Daniel B. Karner 1Department of Geology and Geophysics, University of California, Berkeley, California 94720 Search for other works by this author on: GSW Google Scholar Nicola Terrenato; Nicola Terrenato 5Dipartimento Scienze dell'Antichità, Università di Roma “La Sapienza,” P. le Aldo Moro, 00185 Roma, Italy Search for other works by this author on: GSW Google Scholar Alessandro Montanari Alessandro Montanari 2Osservatorio Geologico di Coldigioco, 62020 Frontale di Apiro (MC) Italy6École des Mines de Paris, France Search for other works by this author on: GSW Google Scholar Geology (1996) 24 (8): 751–754. https://doi.org/10.1130/0091-7613(1996)024<0751:QFVSAG>2.3.CO;2 Article history first online: 02 Jun 2017 Cite View This Citation Add to Citation Manager Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MailTo Tools Icon Tools Get Permissions Search Site Citation Walter Alvarez, Albert J. Ammerman, Paul R. Renne, Daniel B. Karner, Nicola Terrenato, Alessandro Montanari; Quaternary fluvial-volcanic stratigraphy and geochronology of the Capitoline Hill in Rome. Geology 1996;; 24 (8): 751–754. doi: https://doi.org/10.1130/0091-7613(1996)024<0751:QFVSAG>2.3.CO;2 Download citation file: Ris (Zotero) Refmanager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search All ContentBy SocietyGeology Search Advanced Search Abstract In and around Rome, coastal and fluvial sediments influenced by Quaternary sea-level changes interfinger with accurately datable, highly potassic pyroclastic volcanic units. We describe the complex internal geology of the Capitoline Hill, for centuries a place of leading importance in ancient Rome and more recently a focus of archaeological research. Outcrops and many new drill cores reveal at least four cycles of valley cutting and filling, probably recording the history of the Tiber River in response to changes in sea level. Single-crystal 40Ar/39Ar dates on sanidine give ages of 518 ± 6, 413 ± 5, and 353 ± 2 ka for three prominent volcanic units filling separate paleovalleys. The Roman region offers the potential for direct age calibration of the Quaternary sea-level record. This content is PDF only. Please click on the PDF icon to access. First Page Preview Close Modal You do not have access to this content, please speak to your institutional administrator if you feel you should have access.

The Comitium in Rome from the Beginning

The Comitium in Rome from the Beginning

Civic politics in the Rome of Urban VIII

In this depiction of daily political life in Baroque Rome, Laurie Nussdorfer argues that lay persons managed to sustain a civic government under the increased papal absolutism of Urban VIII (1623-1644), who oversaw both sacred and secular life. Focusing on the SPQR (the Senate and Roman People), which was administered from the Capitoline Hill, she shows that it provided political representation for lay members of the urban elite, carried out the work of local government, and served as a symbol of the Roman voice in public life. Through a detailed study of how civic authorities derived their sense of legitimacy and how lay subjects manoeuvered in informal and disguised ways to block or criticize the papal regime, the author advances a new way of conceiving politics under an absolute ruler. As Nussdorfer analyzes the complex interactions between the lay administration and Urban VIII and his family, the papal administration, and Romans of the upper and lower classes, she also provides fresh insights into the actual practice of early modern government. She takes the plague threat of the early 1630s, the War of Castro (1641-1644), and the interregnum following the Pope's death as important test cases of the state's power in times of crisis.

The Cantharus and Pigna at Old St. Peter's

Renaissance drawings by il Cronaca and Hollanda show the Pigna (pine cone) and cantharus (or pool) of Old Saint Peter's enclosed by a tabernacle. According to arguments reviewed at the outset, the Pigna arrived at Saint Peter's in the eighth century. At issue are the presence of eight porphyry columns, provisions for a fountain, and marble slabs with reliefs of griffins. In the early medieval period, the colossal bronze carried three-fold significance: religious, political, and sepulchral. Religious meanings were attached to the pine cone in antiquity. The shape was employed by various cults as a familiar sign of rebirth. Political associations are traceable to the Delphic omphalos, which supposedly marked the center of the world. The idea of a hub became part of papal imagery and was echoed in Renaissance Rome by Michelangelo's piazza on the Capitoline Hill. Sepulchral connotations are implicit in the pine cone because tapered tombs were common in Mediterranean antiquity. In medieval Rome, such pyramidal tombs were called metae. Evidence of dating and conflated iconography comes from Charlemagne's palace in Aachen. A bronze pine cone installed there featured a base bearing representations of the Four Rivers of Paradise. When the Pigna was newly installed at Saint Peter's, the atrium in front of the church was given the name "Paradise." The drawings by il Cronaca and Hollanda depict decorations on the canopy featuring animal motifs, including bronze peacocks and dolphins. Both artists improvise details of the architrave; Hollanda shows a cross, and Cronaca renders motifs taken from the repertory of antique places of sacrifice. The Pigna at Old Saint Peter's marked the nucleus of the Roman Church and the burial place of St. Peter, the founder of Christian Rome.

Meetings of the Roman Senate on the Capitoline

The Roman Senate regularly met in the Curia in the Forum, but on certain occasions it assembled at other sites in the city for a specific purpose. We know that the body convened in the Area Capitolina around the great temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus on the first day of the consular year and for certain meetings related to questions of war 2. There were several other senatorial sessions on the Capitol, however, that do not appear to be directly related to either of these. It is important to examine these carefully and to try to determine what other reasons might have prompted the convening of the Senate on the Capitoline. The Capitoline Hill and its great temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus, Juno Regina, and Minerva was the symbolic, strategic, and religious heart of Rome. The Capitoline alone had survived the ravages of the Gauls, and it provided security for sacred objects, treaties, state records, and the Sibylline Books 3. An international agreement ratified there carried the sanction of Jupiter himself4. Foreign states allied with Rome regularly used as their opening approach to an important mission a request that the Senate permit their legates to bring gifts to the great temple and to sacrifice there 5. The custom of holding the opening Senate session of the year in Capitolio probably developed very early in Rome's history. Although there may have been a Curia Calata or Calabra on the hill from the period of the kings, there is no evidence that this was ever used for meetings of the Senate. With the establishment of the Republic, ritual and ceremony directed that the new consuls be inaugurated into office on the Capitoline where they would make their vows at Rome's greatest temple. They could also