While looking for material about the Meta Sudans, I stumbled across something which very few people know.
Most people will know that the Colosseum is named after a colossal statue of Nero that used to stand nearby. Originally cast in bronze and stood outside the Domus Aurea, it was changed into a statue of the Sun by the Flavians, and moved slightly to stand near their new amphitheatre.
The bronze status is long gone. But how many people know that the base on which it stood still existed well into the 20th century? I certainly did not! Indeed there are photographs of it. It was demolished by Mussolini, in the course of constructing the Via del foro imperiali.
Aerial view of the valley of the Amphitheatre with the base of the Colossus of Nero, the Meta Sudans and the Arch of Constantine in a picture from about 1895.
In the middle of the left hand side of the Colosseum is a dark rectangular base. This is where the Colossus stood. Note that the modern Via del foro imperiali is not on this photograph – it had yet to be built.
Next, a slightly fuzzy ground level photograph from the Wellcome Library, from about 1929:
Wellcome Library M0000104. Base of the Colossus of Nero, Coliseum, Rome, Italy. 1929
The hill behind the base is the Velian Hill, and it isn’t there today: Mussolini bulldozed it. If we stood in the same location today, we would have the Colosseum at our back, and a view straight down the Via del Foro Imperiali to the Victor Emmanuel monument in front of us.
Next a couple of photos of the base from different angles, from a montage found online here in a set of flash cards:
A look at the area indicates just what alterations Mussolini made. This photograph shows that the Colosseum actually stood in a hollow of the hills, approached from the Circus Maximus:
The whole area was rather different:
Mussolini certainly changed all that.
Some may wish to know what the Colossus itself looked like. We have a medallion of Gordian III, which we already used for the Meta Sudans, which shows the Colossus standing behind it (via here):
Medallion of Gordian III, ca. 240, depicting the Colosseum and Meta Sudans
Better than this is a depiction in a gem:
Amethyst gem (1-2nd c. AD) in the Staatliche Museen, Berlin. Antikensammlung inv. FG 2665: Bergmann 1993, 11, pl. 2.3. Via Albertson, p.106-7.
There is a useful 2001 article by Albertson on the Colossus which is available on JSTOR.[1] He calculates that the Colossus was about 100 feet tall (31.524 m). The statue had a radiate crown, was nude, with the right hip jutting to the side, and the right arm supported by a rudder, while the left leans on a pillar. A globe supports the rudder.
The National Geographic reconstruction of the statue and base looks fairly accurate, therefore (although the background should be the Velian Hill, as we have seen):
National Geographic reconstruction of the Colossus of Nero
On Wednesday I posted a selection of old photographs of the Meta Sudans, and asked why Mussolini demolished it. I then came across an article by Elizabeth Marlowe, ‘The Mutability of All Things’: The Rise, Fall and Rise of the Meta Sudans Fountain in Rome,[1] which answered some of these questions.
Meta Sudans. Du Perac (16th c.)
Here is an illustration by Lafrery (1593)[2], which, curiously, Marlowe attributes to Du Perac (whose volume does not contain such an illustration):
Meta Sudans. Lafrery, Speculum Romanae, 1593 (NOT Duperac). Via University of Heidelberg.
By the 19th century, the Meta Sudans was in a sad state.
Already in 1816, the architect Valadier had lamented the fact that the passage of time had produced ‘the most wretched ruins [disgraziatissime rovine]’ right in front of the ‘Famous Flavian Amphitheatre’. A major restoration campaign undertaken in mid-century can be understood as an attempt to address the problem of the Meta’s ugliness. The precarious, upper reaches of the cone were removed, the concavities of the former niches filled in and its jagged, timeworn surfaces smoothed, producing the stable (if somewhat dumpy) appearance of the Meta seen in numerous photographs and postcards of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
It is a pity that no reference is given for the “restoration campaign” – one would like to know more.
To continue:
The official commission of 1871 advocated the undertaking of ‘all those demolitions that will enhance the grandeur [imponenza]’ of the major monuments of Rome, with the aim of creating the ‘most scenic vantage points free from clutter or inconvenience [senza ingombro e senza disagio].[40] Under these conditions, the Flavian fountain could no longer compete with its erstwhile sibling, although it would take sixty years, and the force of Mussolini’s urban ‘sventramenti’ (disembowelings) to finally bring the axe down.[41]
The vestiges of ancient Rome, carefully selected and manicured, played an important role in Mussolini’s creation of a monumental city-centre worthy of grand, Fascist spectacles.[42] While planners had long recognized the need for an artery linking Piazza Venezia with the southern part of the city, the issue for Mussolini was less one of circulation than of symbolism. One should be able to stand at the Piazza Venezia, seat of the new government, and see the Colosseum, emblem of Rome’s glorious past. Like his Risorgimento predecessors, he believed that ‘the millennial monuments of our history must loom gigantic in their necessary solitude’.[43] Never mind the fact that the Velian hill, three churches and 5,500 units of housing stood in the way. All were demolished during the 1932 creation of the ‘via dell’Impero’ (now the via dei Fori Imperiali), a showcase of the Fascist appropriation of the past.[44] The mostly buried ancient imperial fora that flanked the route of the new boulevard were excavated, and the road lined with bronze statues of the emperors associated with the fora, along with maps chronicling the expansion of the Roman Empire in antiquity and in the Fascist era.
But Mussolini wasn’t finished yet. His new parade route was not to be limited to the via dell’lmpero, but would continue to the south, past the Colosseum, through the ‘Flavian piazza’ and the Arch of Constantine and down the via S. Gregorio to the Circus Maximus. The via S. Gregorio was thus widened, repaved, spruced up with Fascist dedications and rechristened the ‘via dei Trionfi’, to underscore the topographical and ideological parallels between this route and that of the ancient Roman triumphal procession. Most importantly, the Stele of Axum, Mussolini’s trophy from his newly conquered Ethiopian empire, was installed in 1936 at the new terminus by the Circus. …
The Meta Sudans and the colossal statue base were doubly doomed. Not only were they not very attractive, but they stood directly in the path of the central passageway of Constantine’s Arch, thus preventing parades from marching straight through. A photograph of a ceremony held just after the inauguration of the via dei Trionfi reveals all too plainly the awkwardness and asymmetries that ensued (Figure 2.6), and which prompted the Governatore of Rome, Francesco Boncompagni Ludovisi, to declare the ruins ‘a most serious embarrassment’. This skewed topographical relationship had been acceptable under Constantine, when the triumphal route had turned left just beyond the Arch and continued up the via Sacra through the Forum Romanum to the Capitoline temple. Much of this very route had been self-consciously retraced as recently as 1536, when Charles V made his triumphal entrance into Rome. But the Fascist parade route ignored the via Sacra, continuing instead up the full length of the Colosseum piazza, and only turning left once it reached the via dell’lmpero.
To make the piazza serve the function of ceremonial thoroughfare, the Meta Sudans, as well as the statue base, had to go. Both were razed in 1936, the year of the dedication of the Stele of Axum. On Mussolini’s orders, however, the memory of the decrepit structures was not to be entirely erased. The archaeologist A. M. Colini was given two years to investigate thoroughly the remains of the ancient fountain, and his findings were published along with two careful reconstruction drawings by the Fascist architect Italo Gismondi (Figure 2.7).[45] Moreover, like the police chalking around a fallen body, the contours of the monuments’ vanished forms were outlined in a lighter coloured stone on the surface of the newly repaved piazza …
41. A. Cederna, Mussolini Urbanista: lo sventramento di Roma negli anni del consenso, Rome: Laterza, 1980; D. Manacorda and R. Tamassia, Il Piccone del Regime, Rome: Armando Curcio, 1985.
45. A. M. Colini, ‘Meta Sudans’, Rendiconti della Pontificia Accademia Romana di Archeologia 13, 1937,15-39.
It is interesting to learn that the base of the Colossus survived this late.
It is also interesting to realise that the Colosseum actually stood in a hollow in the hill, until Mussolini cut through the Velian hill to make the Via del Foro Imperiali, and that ancient parades turned left at the Meta Sudans and advanced into the forum. The Via del Foro Imperiali distorts the whole shape of the ancient landscape, splendid as it is.
The function of the Meta Sudans is vividly described by Marlowe, and is well worth repeating here.
Independent of its historical referents, the fountain would surely have been a welcome gift in this bustling piazza. Due to a number of natural and unnatural phenomena occurring over the subsequent centuries (including Mussolini’s removal in toto of the Velian hill), the Colosseum valley is much more open and spacious today than it was in antiquity.
In the Flavians’ day, even without the Neronian structures, the constricted space within the valley’s steep walls must have felt oppressively crowded, particularly when thousands of agitated spectators were thronging towards, or bursting out of, the amphitheatre’s west entrance, or lining the streets to watch triumphal parades pass by along the via Saera.
It also must have been stiflingly hot for much of the year. The Meta Sudans seems to have been purpose-built not only to provide fresh, abundant drinking water from the spigots around its base, but also to cool the surrounding air. Its ingenious (though imperfectly understood) design somehow managed to raise water all the way up an inner pipeway in the cone, from which it burst forth out of a spherical finial and then flowed down the sides to collect in a basin below. The fountain’s great height would have widened the range of its cooling mists.
The sensual pleasures afforded by the Meta Sudans would have included the aural and the visual, as well as the tactile. While nothing survives of the fountain’s marble cladding, the depictions of the monument on coins minted by the Emperor Titus clearly show niches around its base (Figure 2.3), which presumably contained statuary. In fact, in the sixteenth century, Pirro Ligorio reports having witnessed the carting off to a private warehouse of the ‘marine monsters, heads of ferocious animals and images of nymphs’ from the area around the fountain.[19] These fragments may have been the inspiration for the Triton in the niche in Du Perac’s elegant reconstruction of 1575 (Figure 2.4)[20] Overall, the fountain must have been a most attractive landmark in the new Flavian piazza, and it is not surprising that many of the numismatic commemorations of the amphitheatre proudly display the Meta Sudans alongside it as an integral component of the Flavian building programme in the valley.
20. E. Du Perac. I Vestigi dell’antichita di Roma Raccolti et Ritrattl in Perspettiva con ogni Diligentia, Rome: Apresso Lorenzo della Vaschena, 1575.
A sestertius of Titus (80-81) showing the Meta Sudans
Curiously, there is a postscript to the story. It seems that some Romans would like to rebuild the Meta Sudans, or something like it on the site. The project is primarily a political one, unfortunately, designed to rally the left under the guise of attacking Mussolini. Since Mussolini is remembered fondly by a considerable section of Romans, it seems unlikely to proceed. But it would be nice to see it rise again, especially if done in a historically accurate manner.
There are some nice photos in the Marlowe article, unfortunately too poor to reproduce in the copy I have. One shows the Fascists parading past the half-removed Meta Sudans. Another the Colosseum from the air, showing the site of the base of the Colossus. It would be nice to have better images of both. But anyone who has searched for images knows what a hit-and-miss business it is!
The Marlowe article is very valuable, because it gives us such a clear picture of the technical value of the Meta Sudans in its original setting, and so much detail on why it was removed. I wonder if Colini’s article is online?
UPDATE: I find that a Google Books Preview of Aristotle Kallis, The Third Rome, 1922-43: The Making of the Fascist Capital, 2014, is online here.
[1]E. Marlowe, “‘The Mutability of All Things’: The Rise, Fall and Rise of the Meta Sudans Fountain in Rome”, in D. Arnold and A. Ballantyne, Architecture as Experience: Radical Change in Spatial Practice, Routledge, 2004, p.. Online at Academia.edu here. The whole volume is at Google Books here in a rather odd preview format.↩
[2]Speculum Romanae Magnificentiae. Via the splendid University of Heidelberg copy↩
It’s been a little while since I posted a picture of the Meta Sudans. This was the conical fountain at the end of the Appian Way, just outside the Colosseum.
At Wikimedia Commons today I found an old photograph, from the Bundesarchiv Bild library (no 102-12292) of Mussolini, from a podium outside the Colosseum. The Meta Sudans stands nearby, soon to be demolished at his orders. Here is the picture on Wikimedia Commons, which has a date of September 1931:
Mussolini (left on the podium) addresses Fascist supporters outside the Colosseum and the Meta Sudans.
But here is what seems to be the same picture at the Bundesarchiv site (complete with annoying and pointless “watermark”), with the date April 1926. This states, contra to Wikimedia, that it was taken after Mussolini returned from Tripoli, and says nothing about “youth” at all.
I do wish that I could find a source that explained why Mussolini had the ancient fountain demolished. For a movement that drew inspiration from Ancient Rome, doing so was a curious thing. Probably some Italian source will hold the answer, but these are not nearly visible enough online.
Here’s another photograph of the Meta Sudans, this time by Richard Brenan, Dungarvan, Waterford on a holiday in Italy c.1910. A copy is present on the Waterford County Museum site, although with a watermark. (I must say that the greed of repositories for fees, when they are paid to make material available by the public, is rather shameful).
Meta Sudans ca. 1900. Waterford County Museum, EB246.
This one I got from Twitter.
There are also some images available on coins, which are interesting. Here is a sestertius of Titus, showing the Meta Sudans to the left of the Colosseum:
A sestertius of Titus (80-81) showing the Meta Sudans
The same coin is depicted here:
Meta Sudans on a sestertius of Titus
There is also a medallion of Gordian III, ca. 240, via here, which depicts the Meta Sudans in antiquity:
Medallion of Gordian III, ca. 240, depicting the Colosseum and Meta Sudans
And a too-dark photograph of the medallion from the British Museum website (and kudos to them for putting it online):
Medallion of Gordian III, ca. 240, depicting Meta Sudans and Colosseum
The sestertius of Titus is common, and copies can be had on the market easily enough. This means that we have some good photos, made freely accessible online. On the other hand the medallion of Gordian is rare. This means that our only access is rather rubbish. Museums that hold copies don’t make good quality photos available. One has to ask: isn’t this the reverse of what should happen? If public owned museums hold things, they should be more accessible, not less?
Now something else. Here is an excerpt of the Bufalini map of Rome (1551) indicating the position of the Meta Sudans:
Let’s now have some more old photographs.
Here’s another old photograph of the Meta Sudans, from the other side, with the Palatine in the background and the Arch of Constantine to the left:
Here’s another one, this time around 1922, from here:
Meta Sudans and Arch of Constantine, around 1922
The next one, from here (which also has a bunch of other photos of the Meta Sudans), is looking towards the arch of Titus, and taken around 1880:
Meta Sudans, ca. 1880
And another from the same site:
Meta Sudans
And a third one, also from the same site. Note how the Meta Sudans lines up with the road to the forum?
Postcard of the Meta Sudans
Let’s end with a 16th century drawing by Du Perac, showing much the same view looking towards the forum.
Meta Sudans. Du Perac (16th c.)
It is remarkable that the monument looks basically the same as it does in the 19th century pictures. Du Perac has depicted it as taller and thinner than it was – it can hardly have got fatter since his time! – but it looks as if it was no taller in his day. The main damage to it, no doubt, occurred in the Dark Ages.
I do wonder if a complete set of documents exists in Italian archives somewhere. Is it conceivable that the demolition was not documented? Not really.
A couple of weeks ago Ste. Trombetti posted on Twitter another couple of finds about the Septizonium. This was a facade in front of the Palatine hill in Rome, erected at the end of the Appian Way as a kind of formal entrance to the palaces, by Septimius Severus. It was pulled down in the 16th century, at which time only one end was still standing, and the materials used for various building projects.
The first of these is a guidebook to the wonders of Rome, Francesco Albertini (1469-1530?), Mirabilia Romae, 1520.[1]
A rough translation: “About the Septizonium, and some epitaphs. The Septizonium is between the palace and the church of St. Gregory, of which there are standing three orders of columns high, not far from the Circus Maximus. Near this they say is the place of the tomb of the emperor Severus the African: concerning whom see Julius Capitolinus writes in the life …. (?) … Spartianus says the same” (not sure about the rest).
Another item by Sebastiano Serlio, “Il Terzo Libro delle Antichità di Roma”, 1544, p.82.[2] This has a diagram of the vaulted inside of the roof of the Septizonium, and measurements of the extent of the building then standing, made by the author, so is very valuable indeed. The south end is at the top:
Finally – and nothing to do with the Septizonium – here on Twitter is a drawing of the Meta Sudans fountain, also now vanished, by Giacomo Lauro, “Splendore dell’antica e moderna Roma”, 1641:
I think we may all be grateful to Mr. Trombetti for the time spent in these online archives, locating these.
Quite by accident these evening I discovered a photograph of the Meta Sudans which is different to the rest. It shows what look like troops marching past a half-demolished Meta Sudans. Presumably these are some of Mussolini’s black-shirts.
Here it is (from somewhere on this site – I got it via Google Images):
Fascists assembled around the half-demolished Meta Sudans.
Here is another shot again showing the Arch of Constantine, from here:
Fascists assembled near the Arch of Constantine in Rome. 1936.
Was the Meta Sudans demolished, simply and solely because it was so positioned as to block the blackshirts from parading up the road and through the Arch of Constantine, to the Colosseum, then left along the Via del Foro Imperiali to his office?
Ste. Trombetti has turned his attention to the Dutch Rijksmuseum in his search for old etchings and drawings of Rome. The search for this museum is here.
The first image is of the vanished Septizonium, from 1550, a drawing by Hieronymus Cock (Antwerpen c. 1518-1570). The majority of the image consists of some unfamiliar-looking ruins on the Palatine hill – are these really in the right place? -, but the Septizonium is on the left, although masked by yet another unfamiliar ruin. The image is online here:
Septizonium, 1550, by Hieronymus Cock. Via Rijksmuseum
Another image from 1551, by the same gentleman, is at the same site. But this makes me deeply wary. For although it is definitely the Septizonium, end-on, to the left, the stuff to the right must be the Colosseum, and it certainly isn’t that far forward! These are not photographs, and it bears remembering. Anyway the image is online here:
Septizonium: Septizonii Severi Imp. cum continguis ruinis. Hieronymus Cock, 1551. Via Rijksmuseum
At the Biblioteca Digital Hispania, search page here, we find a rather more convincing drawing of the ruins on the Palatine hill, with the edge of the Septizonium at right: “Palatini monti prospectus” (1560-1612?) by Hendrick van Cleve (d.1595) & Philippe Galle (d.1612)”. It’s here:
Ruinarum varii prospectus ruriumq. aliquot delineationes. By P. Galle and Hendrick van Cleve. 156-1612? Via BNE.
Meanwhile back at the Rijksmuseum, Dr Trombetti has unearthed another photograph of the Meta Sudans, the ruined Roman fountain next to the Colosseum that was demolished by Mussolini. It’s here:
1860-80, attributed to Giorgio Sommer.
But while searching for the item at the Rijksmuseum, I stumbled across this 1666 prospectus of the Colosseum, the Arch of Constantine, and … the Meta Sudans, twice the height of the photo and complete with a bulbous top. It comes from here:
Lievin Cruyl, 1666. Via Rikjsmuseum
If I extract the detail, it can be seen clearly:
Meta Sudans, 1666.
A google image search for “View of the Colosseum and The Arch of Constantine – Antonio Joli” brings up a great number of paintings and other artworks, many featuring the Meta Sudans. Let’s end with a Canaletto, no less, from here:
Canaletto – Colosseum and Arch of Constantine, Rome. 18th c.
Ste. Trombetti has had more luck today, this time finding images of the vanished fountain that stood between the arch of Constantine and the Colosseum.
The first item is an undated photograph on a German site – the “- here. It’s quite a splendid image. The site owners seem to be demanding money, the thieves. So I won’t upload it here.
At Cultura Italia here is an interesting image of people digging around the base of the fountain. It’s by Pinelli Bartolomeo, “Escavazioni alla Meta Sudante”, and made in 1831. Unfortunately the site only makes this small image available, and I’m not at all sure about the accuracy of anything in the sketch:
1831 – Excavations around the Meta Sudans
Next, a photographic negative! Also at Cultura Italia, here. It was taken between 1880-1910:
Negative of Meta Sudans, 1880-1910
And here, courtesy of Paint.Net, is a reversed, flipped, and auto-leveled version of the same:
Meta Sudans, image from negative, colours reversed, flipped vertically and auto-leveled in Paint.Net.
It shows the water channel in the heart of the fountain.
Ste. Trombetti has been busily searching the online site of the Spanish National Library, and posting the results on Twitter.
First of these is a view of the Septizonium, the vanished facade of the Palatine, built by Severus at the end of the Appian Way and demolished in the 16th century for materials to build New St Peter’s basilica. This shot is particularly valuable, as it is more or less end-on, from the south, and shows the main structure consisted of two parallel walls, connected at intervals, with the facade on the front. It can be found here (click to enlarge):
Italian, Anon. 1530-40?
Next up is an old photograph of the Colosseum, with a particularly nice image of the Meta Sudans, the fountain just inside the arch of Constantine. Its from here:
Vista Panoramica (1858-65)?
A detail shows the fountain clearly:
The same view is shown in an older drawing by Isidro Velazquez, made between 1792-96. Note that in this drawing the Meta Sudans is perceptibly taller, and appears to have a second stage atop the first. It’s from here:
Velasquez, Colosseum with Meta Sudans
Another image from the same period is an anonymous Spanish painting, “Anfiteatro Flavio, detto il Coloseo”, 1790-99. Here too the Meta Sudans appears taller, and with a bulbous top. From here:
The meta sudans was an ancient Roman fountain outside the Colosseum. It was demolished, atypically, by Mussolini in 1936 as part of his improvements to Roman road transport. By then it was in a sad state.
Two marvellous photos have been found by @ste_trombetti[1] on Twitter in a volume of photographs taken in 1860 by Altobelli and Molins[2], and now online at the Bibliotheque Nationale Francais (here). Here they are. The first from here:
The Meta Sudans was a fountain in Rome on the Appian Way, just inside the Arch of Constantine. Its remains were demolished by Mussolini to make way for a road. In old photographs it is usually photographed from the Arch of Titus, which makes it look more complete than it was. Today I found online another photograph from the other side here.
Today only foundations remain. I took care to look for them on my recent visit to Rome. There is a circle in the grassy area in front of the Arch of Constantine.
