Category: Announcements

A kind correspondent (R. Fassaert) has sent me an image of one of the plates in the new Atlas of Ancient Rome, featuring the huge temple on the Quirinal Hill in Rome, about which I have written a series of posts.  The temple was thought to be Aurelian’s Temple of the Sun; then a Hadrianic Temple of Serapis; and the authors of that Atlas propose that it was a temple of Hercules and Dionysius.

“Tab.192” includes a plan and section by a certain “G. da Sangallo”.  The image I have is low-resolution, but looks intriguing:

Of course it may be to some extent a reconstruction.  But where is it from?

In common with many other sources, the Atlas leaves the reader at a loss.  Engravings apparently magically appear.  But I wondered if anything might be online.

The author turns out to be Giuliano da Sangallo (or San Gallo), who died in 1516.  Italian Wikipedia has an article on him, from which I learn that he was a true renaissance man, who started with wood-carving and went into architecture and much else.

The notes tell me that manuscript of sketches is preserved in the Vatican in Ms. Barberini lat. 4424.  My friend J.-B.Piggin provides a link to the manuscript online, which is here.  It’s also now possible to save individual pages to file, which is most useful, as we shall see.

On first sight it did not contain what we were looking for.  But a further search for da Sangallo and the Quirinal^[1] led me^[2] to a really useful article at Academia.edu by Dr Cammy Brothers, precisely about Da Sangallo and the temple on the Quirinal hill.^[3]  This tells us that there are 7 drawings, all in the Barberini codex: on fol. 10r, 60r, 60v, 68v.  The plan and section are folios 65r and 65v.

But looking at the manuscript, the reader is puzzled.  Folios 65r and 65v are blank.  Fol. 10r contains nothing relating to the Quirinal temple.  68v is blank.  The page numbers are corrupt.

Like all these online interfaces, it is hard to use as first.  But it got easier as I worked with it.  I found, by scanning through the thumbnails, that the images of the section and plan are in fact folios 57r and 57v.  The top of 57r is a bunch of figures from the arch of Severus in Rome.  So here’s the bottom of that page:

I cannot make out the writing, however, even at maximum resolution, however.

Here’s the plan of the temple, on the next page, slightly edited.

Can any reader make out the writing?

Folio 60v does indeed show the pediment of the temple, before its demolition, on the left.

(One must deplore the vandalism of the circular Vatican logo across the picture, and I hope that the curators recognise how obnoxious this is, and remove it.)

It is perhaps likely that Dr Brothers did not consult the manuscript, but rather the reproduction by C. Hülsen (1910).^[4]  Maybe this had different folio numbers.

I cannot recommend too highly the article by Cammy Brothers. It is a treasure trove.  It contains reproductions of other drawings, and also calculations of the size of the monument as it then was.  It also contains computer-generated reconstructions.  In short it is a very useful article indeed, which I only encountered by accident.

The Barberini codex is not the only online item by G. da Sangallo.  Wikipedia also told me of a “Sienese sketchbook” (Taccuino senese), held at the Biblioteca degli intronati in Siena.  Rather to my surprise, this also proves to be online, although in a 1902 anastatic copy, at Google Books here.  But it had no material on the temple.

It all goes to show that, with a little effort, it really is possible for a non-specialist to locate these drawings.  How fortunate we are to live in the age of the internet!

Let’s finish with a striking image, not of the Quirinal temple, by Da Sangallo which I found on Wikimedia Commons.  Apparently it depicts the ruins of the Basilica Aemilia in 1480!

But once again this is actually from the Barberini Codex, fol.28r.^[5]

It is nice to make use of a Vatican manuscript from a hotel room.  This would hardly have been dreamt of, even a few years ago.

1. ^[1]“giuliano da sangallo quirinale”↩
2. ^[2]Via the German Wikipedia article on the temple of Serapis.↩
3. ^[3]Cammy Brothers, “Reconstruction as design: Giuliano da Sangallo and the ‘palazzo di mecenate’ on the Quirinal Hill”, Annali di architettura: Rivista del Centro internazionale di Studi di Architettura Andrea Palladio di Vicenza 14, 2002, 55-72. Online here.↩
4. ^[4]C. Hülsen, Il libro di Giuliano da Sangallo: codice Vaticano Barberiniano Latino 4424, I-II, Lepizig, 1910.↩
5. ^[5]Little as I like Wikipedia, I think I will add a note to the Wikimedia Commons page, if I can.↩

A correspondent, Rene Fassaert, has directed my attention to a 1910 two-volume item Monuments Antiques, which contains some architectural materials for ancient Greece and Rome.^[1]  It’s online in very high resolution at the University of Texas here.

On p.172 of the second volume (p.77 of the PDF), there is a splendid plan of the massive temple on the Quirinal Hill in Rome.  This very clearly relates the great stairwell down the hill to the existing layout of the Colonna gardens.

The plate also contains a reconstruction of the whole plan of the temple.  For some reason the original had this upside down, so I have corrected it.

Here it is.  As ever, click on it for a larger image.

Much of the area of gardens to the left of the plan is now part of the Gregorian University.  But the plan is still useful as a guide to what might be where.

UPDATE: I have had to reduce the size of the image, as the downloads were too much for my site bandwidth.  You can of course follow the link to get the full size original.

1. ^[1]Monuments antiques : relevés et restaurés par les architectes pensionnaires de l’Académie de France à Rome; / notices archéologiques par Georges Seure, 2 vols, 1910.↩

After posting my last, I went back and played a bit more with Google maps on the Quirinal hill.  And I found … something marvellous!  Here it is:

This is part of the arcades of the Southern wall of the great stairwell that ran from the vast temple on the Quirinal – of the Sun, according to some, of Serapis according to others – down to the plain.  It’s clearly visible in an old drawing by van Heemskerk:

And in this:

And here:

But who would have thought to see that sloping arcade now?

This morning I accidentally discovered the 3D feature of Google Maps.  If you search for the Quirinal Hill in Rome, turn on the Satellite view, and then hold down the control key, you can “fly” around the area.  Not every area of the world is filmed in this detail; but for the gardens of the Colonna palace, where the ruins of the vast temple of the Sun (or of Serapis) lurk invisibly, it is just amazing!

Here’s a screen grab that I made just now.  The southern wall of the great staircase that descended from the temple to the plain is on the left, the northern wall is further away, and the massive chunks of the pediment are on the terrace to the right:

Here’s another view, taken the same way, but looking from the other side:

These make it quite plain that the temple itself mainly stood where the scuderia or stables of the Quirinal Palace now stand; and also that the intrusion of the buildings of the Gregorian University into the stairwell –  a modern thing – is very unfortunate.  Also obvious is how the Roman buildings have been reused.

Rather marvellous.  But these screen shots give no idea, really.  Fire up Google Maps, and start zooming and flying around!

I’ve written a few posts now about the vast temple whose remains may still be seen on the Quirinal hill in Rome (but only if you know where to look, and can get into the gardens of the Palazzo Colonna).  Early engravers considered that this is the remains of Aurelian’s temple of the sun; German scholars of the early 20th century that it is the remains of Caracalla’s temple of Serapis; but the truth is unknown.

If you go to Rome, and walk over the Quirinal hill, as I have done, it is remarkably hard to work out just where it was.  So I was very pleased to come across a very useful map, on p.376 of Ernest Nash’s Pictorial Dictionary of Ancient Rome (1961).  Here it is:

The temple faced what is now the Quirinal piazza, and the long square box at the back is the stairways down to the plain.  Substantial remains exist of the outer walls of these staircases, which appear within the grounds of the Gregorian University, to the left, and the gardens of the Colonna Palace to the right.  I have never been able to get into either, I should add.

Nash’s entry is brief:

SERAPIS, Templum. The ruins of a building on the west slope of the Quirinal have been identified as the Temple of Serapis (CIL VI, 570), which was built by Caracalla in the VI Region (CodTop I, p. 107). Part of the ruins lies in the gardens of the Palazzo Colonna, and part in the Universita Gregoriana Pontificia. Until early in the 17th century, part of the rear wall of the temple cella was still standing, and it is known to us from numerous 16th century drawings as “Torre Mesa”, “Torre di Mecenate”, or ‘Frontispizio di Nerone” (s. Egger, Römische Veduten II, 86 88). A corner-piece of the marble pediment of the rear wall, and a fragment of the marble frieze, have lain in the gardens of the Palazzo Colonna since about 1630 when the wall was destroyed. A monumental double-stairway led down from the temple on the Quirinal to the Campus Martius; part of its enclosure walls and sections of four partition walls are still preserved.

A. Palladio, I quattro libri dell’architettura, 1570, I, pp. 64, 66; IV, pp. 41-47; A. Nibby, Rom Ant II, p. 715 f.; R. Lanciani, NSc, 1878. pp. 92, 369; L. Urlichs, RM III, 1888, p. 98; Ch. Hülsen, RhM XLIX, 1894, pp. 392-396; id., BCom XXIII, 1895, pp. 39 59; R. Lanciani, BCom XXII. 1894, pp. 297-307; XXIII, 1895, pp. 94-101; id., Ruins, pp. 428-432 (Bibl; p. 432); id., Storia II, pp. 154 f., 249 f.; III, pp. 203 205; IV, pp. 97 f., 155 f.; H. Jordan, Top I, 3, pp. 421 423; M. Marchetti, BCom XLII, 1914, p. 374; G. Cultrera, MemLinc 5, XVIII, 1923. p. 528 f.; Röm Gebalke I, pp. 73-84; Th. Ashby, The years work in class. studies XX, 1926-27, p. 103; P-A, pp. 487, 491 f; H, Kahler, RM LI1, 1937, p. 94 f.; G. Lugli, Mon III, pp. 279, 304-307; M. Santangelo, Quirinale, pp. 154-177; L. Crema, ArchRom, p. 521.

As we have seen, Palladio is definitely online, and doubtless most of the older items are too, although I have not looked.

Where Nash really scores is in a series of monochrome detailed photographs of the surviving walls of the temple stairwell.  I would really recommend consulting a printed copy – my copies are not very good quality.  But, such as they are, here they are:

The arch visible in the partition wall is also depicted in the views of the structure from the 16th century. This shows the northern wall to the left, the southern wall to the right (of which more in a moment), the now destroyed corner of the temple at the top right.  But it also shows the arches in the transverse, joining left and right.  How fascinating to know that these still exist!

The next photo must relate to the northern outer wall, but I’m not clear how!

It’s not quite clear to me where this “substructure” stuff is, except that it must be outside the northern outer wall of the staircase.  A bit mysterious, this.

The other side of the stairwell wall is also preserved, in the Colonna gardens:

This is more intelligible if we look at a couple of old drawings, which Nash helpfully reproduces:

An image that I found online shows that, prior to 1630, at least one of the temple columns was preserved.  I’m not sure who this drawing is by – if it is Giovanello, I did not see it in the copy that I inspected – but I found it here.  It also shows the fragment of the rear of the temple, the transverse arches along the back of the temple, and the southern outer wall of the temple.

The decoration of the pediment and frieze is clearly shown; and fragments of both are preserved, in blocks too massive to be easily destroyed, in the Colonna gardens:

Since these items are extant, there ought to be modern photographs.  The first is a view of the ruins from the “scuderie” of the Quirinal palace – the stables, which stand much where the temple did, via Wikipedia here.  The brick pillar must be part of the old Colonna palace shown in the drawing.

Here’s a picture from here (a great collection of photos of the Colonna gardens) of the southern outer wall, with part of the old Colonna palace depicted in the drawing above:

There are a few photographs from the Gregorian University of the North Stairway wall.  Here’s the first, via here:

Next up is the northern outer wall, plus the surviving transverse.  This looks towards the Quirinal palace, to the upper left.  Via here.

Wikipedia has a nice collection of modern photographs here.  But I think we should stop at this point!

Also indicated on the plan, very usefully, is the location of the now vanished Baths of Constantine.  I believe that some foundations of these may still be seen in the palazzo built over them.  But that’s another story!

I mentioned several times a fascinating drawing, of unknown origin, that I found on the web in very low resolution.  It depicts the remains of the vast temple on the Quirinal, as it was before 1630, together with the newly built Quirinal palace – today the residence of the Italian president.  But I was never able to find out where it came from, or read the lettering on the image.

Today, finally, I have managed to find a higher-resolution image.  This is to be found at Stanford University, among the papers of … none other than Rudolfo Lanciani!  The link is here.  Sadly they prohibit downloading, but I was able to get a better image than we have had before.  Click on it to expand.

The item is dated 1600 by the cataloguers: “Width: 380 mm x Height: 202 mm, date: 1600, medium: copper engravings (visual works), views, copper engraving, and incisione a rame, inventory numbers: 32674 and Roma XI.53.13”.

The lettering also becomes visible.  It is in two lines, the first in Latin, the second in Italian.  At extreme left is what looks like a monogram: AG.  As we have seen, this is Aloisio Giovannoli, and the date is actually 1616, and the title is “Il Quirinale con frontespizio di Nerone, Aloisio Giovannoli“.  Then we read:

A – Templum Solis pars II.  B – Palatium Quirinale.  C – Sacellum Pontificium a Srno. D. Nro. Paulo V Pont Max exaedificatum, ac maior eiusdem Palatii pars ad Meridie S. Agnes clam effertur in eius suburbium ad sepeliedum, in quo postmodum ei replum dedicatum est.

A – Tempio del Sol parte II.  B – Palazzo di Monte Cavallo. C – Capella Pontificale fatta di Nro Sig. Papa Paolo Quinto Pont. Massimo con la maggior parte del detto Palazzo a Mezzogiorno S. Agnesa e portatu alla sepoltura di nascosto in un suo campo doue hora e la sua chiesa.

It is then followed by “Foglio 61”.

Googling, I find that this is plainly part of a series by Aloisio Giovandolli, 1550(?)-1618, whose monogram was apparently ALO.G.  The BNF in Paris indicate that he published the following item in Rome in 1616: Vedute degli antichi vestigi di Roma di Alo Giovannoli in due parti [Texte imprimé] : la prima contiene mausolei, archi, colonne, e fabbriche pubbliche, la seconda rapprasenta terme, anfiteatri, e tempj. Comprese in rami 106. Parte prima [-seconda].  Physically it was “1 carte, 106 est. [1-44 ; 45-106] ; in-fol, oblong”.  They add “Alo Giovannoli publia en 1616 les ruines des vestiges de Rome. La biblioteca del Museo di Roma donne 1750 comme date d’édition.”

The book itself can be found online at Arache, at the University of Köln, at http://arachne.uni-koeln.de/books/Giovannoli1616.   And it can be downloaded at very high res (575 mb!), if you can work through the confusing menus (the trick is to click on the top link in the pop-up box and ignore all the stuff below).  Oddly the PDF is in reverse order.  But on p.94 of the PDF, large as life is … our plate.

Even better, plate 60 is another engraving of the temple.  I was unable to work out how to extract it from the PDF, but here’s a screen grab.  Looking from the west, as Giovanolli tells us.

On p.218 of the PDF is a map of Rome, with a list of monuments.

I wonder if I should email Stanford with this additional data?