ROME
Numerous medieval buildings were destroyed as the monument was being erected; it changed forever the outlines of the Campidolio or Capitolino (Capitoline Hill), the heart of the ancient Rome and the most significant of the seven hills, upon which the city is built. The Capitoline Hill (now the seat of the Rome’s municipality) is a center of a religious cult from ancient times and a witness of the main events of the city’s history. In the very center of the hill Capitoline square is located (Piazza de Campidolio) built based upon an original design by Michelangelo in XVII century; at the time of Romulus, it was an asylum – a place of public festivities. In the ancient times, an acropolis with a main temple built in 509 B.C. and dedicated to supreme god Jupiter was here. From the western steep slope, which was called Tarpei Rock, criminals and traitors were thrown down. One can also see the ruins of the Jupiter temple. Capitoline Square, according to the great artist’s concept, is surrounded by three palaces: to the right there is the Conservatives Palace, to the left – the New Palace, and deeper into the square – the Senator’s Palace.
Capitoline museums are located in the palaces and include an art gallery and some of the most prominent ancient Greek and Roman sculptures. The collection of the Capitoline museums can be included into the number of the most ancient collections in the world open to public. The museums possess sculptures of highest value such as the Dying Galatian and Capitoline Venus. The art gallery keeps works of famous artists from XIV until XVII centuries such as Titian and Caravaggio.
In the center of the square the famous equestrian statue of Marc Aurelius is rising; the original of the statue is kept in the Palazzo del Museo Capitolino Gallery (the statue on the square is a copy). According to several sources, this bronze statue dates back to II century and was moved here in 1538 from Lateran by Pope Paul III in spite of Michelangelo’s project. It is believed that this equestrian statue that remained intact to this day depicts Emperor Constantine.
One can ascend to the square by a steep imposing stairway also built according to Michelangelo’s design, at the foundation of which two ancient Egyptian marble lions were put. This stairway has 112 steps, was erected in 1348 on a vow to mark the end of an epidemic – the black death, and is consummated by magnificent statures of Dioscuri, Castor and Pollux. Nearby, along a balustrade, there are Mario’s trophies, statues of Constantine and Constantine II and two mile posts from the Apia Road. The staircase leads to the Santa Maria in Aracelle Church, in which spellbinding atmosphere of the old times reigns. Among the outstanding pieces of art kept here are Pinturiccio’s frescoes The Life of Saint Bernardino (1486).
The Emperor’s Forums (Fori Imperiali) is the name of five forums built by Julius Caesar and his successors after the very first forum – the Roman forum – was fully built up. The bottom idea of building the Emperor’s forums was to magnify the Empire, to make the city more shining and at the same time to give its population an opportunity to gather in events of market trades, orators’ speeches and religious ceremonies. It was an entire ensemble of unusually vast spaces framed by a colonnade portico and occupying a space of up to 90,000 sq m.
The Caesar’s Forum (54-46 B.C.) – creation of Julius Caesar – was not spared by time. Descendants were also unable to keep the forum of his successor, Emperor Augustus; the ruins of Mars the Avenger Temple surrounded by columns on three sides are almost all that is left of the Augustus Forum (2-14 A.D.). Two big columns and a magnificent frieze are special features of Nerva’s Forum, which was elevated by an emperor who reigned only two years (96-98 A.D.), but the majority of the tourists give preference not to this forum and neither to the Vespasian Forum (71-75 A.D.) also called the Peace Forum, but to the Trajan Forum (107-113) – the most extravagant of all five. This is the latest and the most grandiose forum of Rome – a magnificent monument of the monumental architecture of Emperor Trajan reign created by architect Apollodor of Damascus. The forum was erected in 106-113 on the state funding that increased in a result of a victorious war against Dacia that had taken place several years earlier. The size of the forum was grandiose: 984 feet long and 607 feet wide. Above the Trajan Forum a column of Trajan rises elevated in the center of the Emperor’s Forum. To estimate the volume of work carried out at the excavation of the forum it is enough just to mention that the 40-meter column was entirely covered by dirt. This monument, considered by many the most prominent masterpiece of ancient Roman stone engraving, was erected in 113 to mark victories over Dacia, a militant tribe, inhabiting the major part of what is known today as Romania. Frieze with an intricate pattern 200 meters high spirals up the stock of the column, which is made of 18 marble pieces. Trajan’s statue was standing on its top; nowadays it is lost. In 1857, Pope Sixtus V ordered it to be replaced by Saint Peter’s statue. This column was supposed to serve as a tombstone for Trajan. Indeed, through a door at the foot of the column one could get to a hall where an urn with the emperor’s ashes was placed.
Located in a low place between Palatine, Capitoline and Esquiline Hills, the Roman Forum was during many centuries a place of the most important social events of the antique city. The Forum occupying a space of around 1,640 feet in the very beginning of its existence was a huge swamp later dried by constructing a big network of channels (one of which was the famous Cloaka Maximus) where all the waters flowing to the Tiber were collected. It seems that the name of the Forum originating from the place purposed for trade rows dates back to a time when on different hills there were still separate settlements sprouted from the word “foras”, that is a place beyond the settlement limits. After the city was united into one, the forum became an ideal center (and geographically almost the pivot) of Rome. From that moment on commercial activities gradually began to transfer to other places, and along the entire forum densely built up with temples dedicated to cults of the main deities and renowned deified Romans, basilicas, places for courts of law and commercial deals, the Sacred Road, Via Sacra, stretched, upon which on days of festivals festive processions moved and victorious troops marched with triumph. The forum is of note because of its commizium, where people gathered to select judges, the Curias where the seat of the Senate was and also arches, trophies and columns in memory of outstanding events. Among the trophies famous rosters of alien ships defeated in a battle that decorated Dei Rostri Tribune is of note. Orators made speeches from it, exciting the crowds: from here Cicero spoke against Catiline, and Antonius touched Romans with his eulogy on Julius Caesar’s death. It would be unjust not to mention its decorative elements such as triumph arches of Tiberius and Septimius Sever, a great number of statues, columns, as well as little chapels, fountains and other less significant constructions. But after the moments of splendor gradual decline followed, and at first the forum had to yield its place to new forums of the Empire epoch, after which it together with the entire Roman civilization shaken by the invasions of barbarians emerged into darkness of long Medieval Age. Today it is a museum of antiquity outdoors (480 meters long, 180 meters wide), excavations of which began as early as in XVIII century and continue to this day. Remains of temples, palaces, stadiums, houses and arches of those times remained on the ancient streets of the Forum. The most scenic view of the Forum is from the Tarpei Rocks on the Capitoline Hill.
After Romantic beauty of the ruins of the Forum and the Colosseum’s greatness ancient grandiosity of the Pantheon better than anything else portrays an antique city’s appearance. The Pantheon (Greek “temple dedicated to all gods”) is the only antique domed construction that remained in Rome almost intact to these days (43 meters high). The Pantheon was built in 128 at the time of Adrian on the site of a similar temple built in 27 by Marcus Agrippa (an inscription remains) but destroyed in 110 by a strike of a lightning. The Pantheon consists of 16 Corinthian columns 10 meters high supporting a roof with a triangle fronton. A portico with a gable roof serves as an entry into the central building of cylindrical shape divided by niches where some time ago statues of gods stood. In the interior a circle is inserted, the diameter and height of which are the same (43.3 meters). Light gets inside through holes in the dome. The dome of the Pantheon in its diameter is 1.4 meters bigger than the biggest temple of Rome – Saint Peter’s. Since VII century, it is the Pope’s possession and a Christian church (Santa Maria Rotonda). The building dedicated by ancient people to the Pantheon (all gods, statues of which stand in the temple’s niches) became the place of burial of the first king of Italy, Victor Emmanuel. Since 1870, memorial of all Italian kings and the tomb of artist Rafael Santi are located here.