Old Rome: A Handbook to the Ruins of the City and the CampagnaBurn, Robert
History
Old Rome: A Handbook to the Ruins of the City and the Campagna
Burn, Robert
Rome (Italy) -- Antiquities; Rome (Italy) -- Description and travel
The ancient Tuscan arrangement of the interior of temples remained after
this modification of their columns and capitals. The three ruins which now
occupy the most prominent place at the northern end of the Forum, the
Temples of Saturn, of Concord, and of Vespasian, all retain the plan
called prostylos by Vitruvius. The Temple of Concord is especially
remarkable for the union of a broad Tuscan cella with a narrow Greek
portico. An alteration peculiarly Roman was made in the cella of the
Greek temple. Instead of surrounding this part of a temple with rows of
columns, the Romans clothed it with pilasters, thus introducing the mode
of construction deservedly stigmatised by Vitruvius, under the name
pseudoperipteral (Fig. 4). This may be seen in the ruin commonly called by
the name of the Temple of Fortuna Virilis at Rome.
[Illustration: Fig. 1.]
The Greek Ionic order became known and employed by the Romans early in the
third century B.C. The Tomb of Scipio Barbatus shows the Ionic volute and
dentil mixed with the Doric triglyph and gutta. The Roman alterations in
the Ionic capital may be best seen in the pillars of the Temple of Saturn,
and in the second range of columns surrounding the Theatre of Marcellus
and the Coliseum. Specimens may also be seen in the basilica of S.
Lorenzo fuori le Mura, and in the church of S. Maria in Trastevere, which
have been transferred from the ancient temples. The distinctive Roman
modification was the position of the volutes diagonally instead of
laterally (Figs. 5 and 6).
[Illustration: Fig. 2.]
It is supposed that the first introduction of the Greek Corinthian order
into Rome was brought about by the barbarian act of Sulla, in transporting
the columns of the Temple of Zeus from Athens to the Capitoline Temple of
Jupiter. Of the remaining specimens of this order in Rome, the portico of
the Pantheon is the oldest. In that building the capitals appear somewhat
shorter and broader than in the later examples, at the ruins of the Temple
of Castor in the Forum (Fig. 7), and in the peristyle of Nerva’s Forum
called the Colonnacce.
[Illustration: Fig. 3.]
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