Between the years AD 64 and 68, the Roman Emperor Nero constructed a huge personal estate that sprawled across Rome’s city center.  His construction campaign followed the Great Fire of 64, a catastrophic fire that burned a huge portion of Rome.  Called the Domus Aurea or the Golden House of Nero, the estate covered the Palatine, Caelian and Oppian Hills, extending through the valley of the Colosseum.  The famous amphitheater had not yet been constructed, so in that valley, Nero dug an artificial lake around which the buildings on his estate were artfully arranged.  The Roman historian Suetonius, writing half a century or so after Nero describes the Domus Aurea in this way:

In no one thing was he more prodigal than in his buildings.  He completed his palace by continuing it from the Palatine to the Esquiline hill, and called it first only ‘The Passage’ [or Domus Transitorium], but, after it was burnt down and rebuilt, ‘The Golden House’.  Of its dimensions and furniture, it may be sufficient to say this much: the porch was so high that there stood in it a colossal statue of himself a hundred and twenty feet in height; and the space included in it was so ample, that it had triple porticoes a mile in length, and a lake like a sea, surrounded with buildings which had the appearance of a city.  Within its area were cornfields, vineyards, pastures, and woods, containing a vast number of animals of various kinds, both wild and tame.  In other parts it was entirely overlaid with gold and adorned with jewels and mother-of-pearl.  The supper rooms were vaulted, and compartments of the ceilings, inlaid with ivory, were made to revolve, and scatter flowers; while a device of pipes sprinkled sweet oils upon the guests.  But of all these rooms, the principal banquet chamber was the finest, being made circular, and revolving perpetually, both night and day, in the manner of the celestial bodies…Upon the dedication of this stupendous edifice, all he said in approval of it was, that he had now a dwelling fit for a man.

It is that “principal banquet chamber,” said to be circular and said to revolve both day and night like the heavens that has interested both scholars and the general public.  In the past, that chamber has been understood to be (perhaps) the domed Octagonal Room (see above) in the dining wing of the Domus Aurea that remains on the Oppian Hill.

Yesterday, however, archaeologists announced a stunning new discovery on the Palatine hill, on its east corner and slopes, in the area of the Vigna Barberini or Barberini Vineyards (site pictured below). Preliminary excavations on the site, directed by Mariantoinetta Tomei and undertaken by a team coordinated by Francoise Villedieu, have unearthed a circular structures unequaled in Roman architecture.

At present only partially excavated, the structure is part of a much more extensive complex, probably a pavilion of the Domus Aurea that has remained unknown up to this time.  So far, only foundations have been uncovered, but beneath them was found a rotating mechanism and part of an adjacent space that may have been used as kitchens.

“This cannot be compared to anything that we know of in ancient Roman architecture,” Villedieu told reporters during a tour.

If, indeed, this is the revolving dining room of which Suetonius speaks, it had a diameter  of over 50 feet, rested upon a 13-foot wide pillar, and was furnished with four spherical mechanisms that likely powered by a constant flow of water that would have rotated the structure.

Angelo Bottini, the state’s top official for archaeology in Rome, reminded visitors that the ceiling of the rotating room mentioned by Suetonius also had  ivory panels that slid back and forth to shower flowers and perfumes on the guests below.

A recent stroll through the Eterna took us to the lovely Galleria Sciarra, near the Trevi Fountain, a lovely building constructed just after the unification of Italy in the late 1880s that originally served as a shopping center.  The architecture, frescoes, and glass dome of the Galleria Sciarra have just been restored and are looking drop-dead lovely, so we thought we’d share some photos and tell you a bit about this little gem.

Commissioned by Prince Maffeo Sciarra, the building was designed architect Giulio De Angelis and its interior was painted by Giuseppe Cellini, who covered the walls with the Sciarra family crest, portraits of 12 “modern” women sporting fancy hairstyles and beautiful dresses who serve as personifications of female virtues, scenes from the lives of ideal women, and Latin inscriptions alluding to the virtues to which women of the era were meant to aspire.

The 12 women personifying modern virtues are shown in the uppermost figural register (see photos above and below).  They are explained by Elizabeth Jones  in an article published on WantedinRome.com:

A Latin word identifies…(desired) virtues while an attitude, a gesture, an attribute helps to characterise them. Benigna spreads her skirt generously wide; Domina, mistress of the household, points a furled fan downwards with a commanding gesture; Amabilis gracefully extends her arms in welcome; Fidelis points her left forefinger to her faithful heart, an emblematic dog at her feet; Misericors is cutting her tresses and so, in compassion, is making a sacrifice of her crowning glory; Lusta brings her hands judiciously together; Pudica looks modest and Sobria has a high-buttoned neckline; Patiens gazes down resignedly at the two naked babies sprawled on her lap; Fortis, arms akimbo, bears up valiantly; Humilis in an apron holds out her arms in submissive surrender; Prudens fortifies herself against temptation by reading a book.

Below the 12 ideal women, in a second register surrounding the windows, are images that following the life of an ideal woman in the late 19th century.  The cycle begins with a young woman receives the attentions of a dashing dark-haired man (said to be a portrait of Gabriele D’Annunzio), continues through her marriage, the birth of a child, her blissful motherhood, her happy domestic life which includes a wonderful dinner scene,  her fulfilling relationship with her husband, and her generosity to the poor.

On pilasters below these scenes–painted at the ground level of the Galleria–are inscriptions from Roman poets.  Again, we turn to Elizabeth Jones for insight as to their meanings:

Below these scenes are four Latin quotations. A woman…educated in the classics would have recognised them. They are from Horace and Virgil, the two best-known poets of Augustan Rome…each quotation has a specific bearing on a scene above. Beneath the lavish wedding scene we have Horace, in unusually austere, proto-Rousseau mode, praising the noble savage Scythian woman:

The generous dowry she receives from her parents is virtue: she remains true to her vows and shuns men not her husband; adultery is a foul offence, its penalty death. (Odes III. 24. 21-24)

Under the mother and baby is Virgils encouragement to the child who is to bring back the Golden Age:

Begin, little boy, to recognise your mother with a smile. (Eclogue 4. 60)

A stanza from Horace underpins the scene at the dinner table:

A man lives well on little if the family salt cellar gleams, carefully polished, on his frugal table, and if fear and sordid avarice do not disturb his easy slumbers. (Odes 2. 16. 13-16)

Virgil is invoked to comment on the almsgiving scene:

Not ignorant of suffering, I am learning to succour the wretched. (Aeneid 1. 630)

The Galleria Sciarra is between Via M. Minghetti and Piazza dellOratorio.  Stop in to see the newly restored building the next time you’re in the area.  There’s no shopping there now, but there’s evidence of some sort of commercial activity, so we’re hoping to see it returned to its former livliness in the future.

Photos by Susan Sanders.  See her blog Rome With a View for more images of the Eternally Beautiful city.

Select members of the eCool team made a recent foray to Rome’s central mosque, located just a few stops on the train to the north of the city, on the slopes of Monte Antenne, near the Tiber River.  There were parts of the complex that we quite loved, so we thought we’d share some photos with you today.

The mosque project began in the 1970s, when the late King Fahd of Saudi Arabia complained to Italian officials about the lack of a mosque in Rome and offered to finance the construction of a Muslim place of worship.  Rome’s city officials took the king up on his offer and found a large plot of land that suited the purpose and that also satisfied the Vatican’s requirements that the mosque not be visible from St. Peter’s Basilica and that the minaret not rise higher in elevation than the dome of St. Peter’s.

Paolo Portoghesi was appointed chief architect of the project and almost spent two decades working on the building before it was dedicated in 1995.

In an effort to make the complex seem like a continuous part of Rome’s historic urban fabric, Portoghesi used traditional materials like travertine and brick and even went so far as to design a Campidolgio-esque fountain that greets visitors upon arrival. (See top photo)  We found that un-subtle reference to Michelangelo’s piazza on the Capitoline hill to be a bit-too-obvious of an attempt to achieve continuity between past and present and Christian and Muslim, but perhaps our judgment was biased by the fact that the water was off and the fountain seemed forlorn and empty.

What we loved were the intricately molded columns (they’re concrete) that look like trees and form inviting covered walkways through which Rome’s brilliant sun filters, creating interesting patterns.  And the dome!  Oh we loved the neo-baroque dome (also concrete) so clearly designed by a man who loves Borromini.

Police were called to Rome’s Ara Pacis Museum at dawn this morning to investigate an act of vandalism on the building’s extra-white exterior wall.  The side of the building facing the Mausoleum of Augustus was splattered with red and green paint, taking on a semblance of the Italian flag, and a bidet and several super-size packages of toilet paper were placed on the ground below.

No official word on who’s responsible for the act, though all eyes are turned to futurist performer and artist Graziano Cecchini, who has previously left his mark on the city by dying the water of the Trevi Fountain red and dropping thousands of balls down the Spanish Steps.  Cecchini remarked that he saw the painting on the Ara Pacis wall from afar and thought it a reminder of Rome mayor Gianni Alemanno’s promise (one year and one month ago) to tear down the building, the modernity of which he and many others find to be incompatible with the baroque and ancient surroundings.

Photos from La Repubblica

As peals of church bells rang out across the Eternal City this morning, Romans and visitors alike began making their way to the Pantheon for the celebration of the Pentecost Mass and the performance of a beautiful ritual that’s been going on for 1400 years in which a shower of red rose petals is dropped through the oculus of the ancient building and falls to the floor.

The Pantheon, as many eCoolers will know, was build by the Roman Emperor Hadrian between 117-125 AD.  It was dedicated to all the Roman gods and its 143 foot wide concrete dome must have put certainly on the must-see list for every ancient tourist to Rome.

In the year 609 AD — exactly 1400 years ago — the Pantheon became a Christian church   when the Byzantine Emperor Phocas gave it to Pope Boniface IV who rededicated to Santa Maria ad Martyres (St. Mary and all the Martyrs).

Thus, for almost a millenium and a half, the building has served as a Christian church with its big moment happening each year on feast of Pentecost, the fiftieth day after Easter, the day on which the Holy Spirit descended upon the Apostles and other followers of Jesus as described in the Book of Acts, Chapter 2 in the New Testament.

At the Pantheon each year, as at all Catholic churches, Pentecost is celebrated with a mass.  However, it’s what happens following the mass that is truly spectacular.  A team of firemen scale the dome of the Pantheon and sit poised above its oculus (the “eye” or opening at the center of the dome).

As the clergy leaves the church, the firemen throw thousands of red rose petals through the oculus and these flutter to the floor, a symbol of the Holy Spirit descending to earth.

Those who attend the mass ooh and awe as the flower petals cover the center of the building, then rush in madly to scoop them up, stuff them in pockets, or throw them into the air once again.

As many of you have probably discerned from this lovely photos, our trusty photographer, Susan Sanders, was there this year (as always). Upon her return to the compound, she showered the floor with the petals – it’s not quite the same as seeing them at the Pantheon, but at least we’re smelling sweet here today.

At first glance, you may have a bit of trouble deciding what you’re seeing in the photo above.  Read a bit further and look closely and all will become clear.

Photographer Susan Sanders has been out and about lately, traveling from one edge of the city to another on a quest to see and to study all of Rome’s contemporary architecture.  Just a few days ago she found herself at the church of Dio Padre Misericordioso, more commonly known as the Jubilee Church for the fact that it was commissioned by the Vatican in honor of the jubilee held in the year 2000 (for a view of the church, see below). Built by American architect Richard Meier, it’s form is defined by three huge cast concrete “sails” that arch toward the heavens. Glass walls between the “sails” allow light itself to be the element that defines the sacred space within.

What you can’t see in the photo below, is that there’s a gap of about 18 inches (or so) between the bottom of the outermost sail and the travertine pavement.  That gap is closed by glass, so that as you walk along the exterior of the church on its left side, the outermost sail appears to be floating in the air.

One of the interesting things about the Jubilee church is the fact that it’s located smack-dab in the middle of a suburban neighborhood called Tor Tre Teste.  It’s the center of an active parish, complete with a mini soccer (or calcetto) field behind it and neighborhood kids navigating remote-control cars across the smooth limestone pavement.  If there’s not a soccer game underway on the calcetto field when you visit, you’re sure to find kids kicking their balls against the side of the church — and its evidence of that most Italian of activities that Susan documents in her photo.

Remember that glass-covered gap between the outermost sail and the pavement?  That’s what you see in the photo.  Notice those round impressions on the glass?  Those are the imprints of soccer balls that have knocked dust off the glass before bouncing back to some neighborhood kid.  At first glance, the image appears to be a nicely composed abstraction, but with a bit of study one is reminded that the Romans are utterly adept at the task of integrating that which is iconic and beautiful into their everyday lives.

For more photos by Susan, visit her website: Rome With A View.

We’re pretty excited to have discovered the Tobu World Square, a theme park in Japan that has about one hundred 1:25 scale models of World Heritage Sites from across the planet.  Called “the largest copy park in the world”, Tobu World Square seems to be a wacky place — just the kind we really love. 

We’re totally digging the model of St. Peter’s and we’re particularly charmed by all the small people dashing about the piazza.  Is there a mini Pope in there somewhere?  And does the model of the Colosseum have mini gladiators?

To check out other supermodels of World Heritage Sites, click on over to the Tobu website.  You can spin the virtual globe and see some of the world’s most important monuments at a miniature scale.

All eyes are on Italy these days as rescue workers and government officials struggle to save earthquake victims and to determine the amount of damage caused by Sunday night’s shake-up.  Here at the eCool Compound, we spent yesterday thinking about those who lost loved ones and homes in the area around L’Aquila, where the quake was most intense.

This morning–after further tremors last night that were felt even here in Rome–we’ve arisen to the news that the majestic Baths of Caracalla were damaged in Sunday night’s earthquake.  The extent of the damage is not clear, but both the New York Times and The Telegraph have articles quoting Angelo Bottini, superintendent of archaeology, who says that the Baths “suffered some damage” but that no other antiquities were harmed.

We’ll keep you posted as we hear about relief and repair efforts as we’re sure that some eCoolers will want to do what they can to help.

On this Photo Friday, Susan Sanders brings us lovely images of the recently restored Turtle Fountain in Rome’s Piazza Mattei.

There’s a great legend about this fountain that suggests that it was constructed at the order of a prince of the Mattei family.  The prince was utterly enamored of a lovely noblewoman, but her father would not let them marry.  Eager to impress and to win the hand of his beloved, the prince invited both father and daughter to dinner in his palace overlooking Piazza Mattei.  While they dined, he had this fountain constructed in the middle of the piazza, and after dinner, when the prince showed off his accomplishment, the father of his beloved was so impressed by what the prince had managed to accomplish in just a few hours, that he agreed to allow the marriage.

It probably didnt’ happen that way, but that certainly doesn’t diminish its charm.

Truth be told, the fountain was built between 1581 and 1588 by Giacomo della Porta and Taddeo Landini, but the turtles were added in 1658 by Gian Lorenzo Bernini or Andrea Sacchi on Pope Alexander VII’s request.

For more photos of Susan Sanders, visit her website: Rome With A View.

Almost anyone who loves Rome will tell you that one of the city’s most compelling features is its abundance of water.  While tourists are wowed by gurgling fountains in charming piazzas (and rightly so), the city’s connection to H20 is much deeper.  From the murky Tiber River to colossal Baroque displays and from street-side drinking fountains to the ruins of ancient aqueducts, the history of Rome is written in water.

To find out more about Rome’s fluid history, we paid a visit to Prof. Katherine Rinne who teaches architecture at the California College of the Arts.  Katherine has spent years studying every aspect of Rome’s water system and is the director of a project called Aquae Urbis Romae, the goal of which is to increase understanding of the profound relationships that exist between water systems and urbanism in Rome.

We understand that you’re the go-to woman when it comes to questions about water in Rome.  Can you tell us a bit about how you came to be interested in the city’s watery past?

It will sound corny, but I saw “Three Coins in a Fountain” when I was really young – maybe 5 years old – and I instantly fell in love with the idea of Rome and with the Trevi Fountain.  Later I received 3 copies of H.V. Morton’s The Fountains of Rome as gifts over a period of about 15 years.  By the third time, in 1985, I finally realized that perhaps my friends knew something about me that I didn’t.

What kind of professional and/or academic training led you to this project?

I trained as an architect and then had the good fortune to work on really large-scale urban projects.  I was one of hundreds of young designers working on the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics (which allowed me to think of design at the scale of the city).  Later I landed a job with Johnson Fain Partners in Los Angeles, an architecture firm that tackled really large-scale projects.  One project was the Greenway Proposal for Metropolitan Los Angeles that identified and then used existing infrastructure as the backbone for a new integrated green infrastructure that would operate at the scale of the region.  By that time I was already interested in water in Rome, but I saw that I needed to address the regional scale rather than look at single fountains the way most architects do.

How did you come to know Rome’s water systems—past and present—so well?  Did you study maps?  Did you read books?  Or was it an on-the-ground kind of investigation that gave you such an impressive knowledge of aqueducts, drains, sewers, and such?

I spent four months walking Rome, street-by-street, day in and day out to document Rome’s water infrastructure as a way to begin this investigation.  For 8 to 10 hours a day, 7 days a week, I walked, took photographs, drew and made notes about anything and everything I saw that was connected with water – whether fountains, flood markers, nasone (street drinking fountains), aqueduct fragments, even dog fountains, etc.

On rainy days I went to various archives and libraries and read anything that might tell me more about Rome’s water history.  I did this before I knew what I was looking for.  I hadn’t formulated a research question yet. Later I spent 3 years in the archives of Rome pouring through dusty records of the Vatican and the Roman Council, etc. So it was a combination of physical research and archival research that allowed me to generate what I think are new questions about water and urban development.  I don’t think I could have conceived this project if I hadn’t come to it with the eyes of an architect who has actually designed infrastructure at the scale of the city and the region.

Almost everyone knows that the ancient Romans had an extraordinary system by which fresh water was brought to the city and visitors and residents can still see remains of the aqueducts that carried water in from the countryside. Can you tell us a bit about it? 

There was a lot of water available in ancient Rome – especially from 144 BC when the Aqua Marcia was completed until 537 AD when the invading Goth armies sabotaged the aqueduct system.  In total there were 11 aqueducts that served the entire city and the Roman Campagna.  But, still most people went to the public fountains for water.  For the most part, only institutions, Imperial facilities, and the wealthy had piped water.

Many of the aqueducts are cut in the Middle Ages, but not all, correct?

Actually only one ancient aqueduct, the Aqua Virgo, survived the Goth attack of 537 AD. But over the next 400 years or so, the Virgo and 3 other aqueducts were restored: the Claudia, the Traiana, and either the Marcia or the Alexandrina.  There is still debate about that last one.  None were restored to their former glory, but at least they provided water to the Janiculum, the Esquiline, the Caelian and the Campus Martius area.  But, by this time the Church maintained the aqueducts and what few public fountains that existed.  Also, a lot of the water went directly to monasteries which then acted as a type of distribution hub for the surrounding neighborhood.  But, by the 10th century, only the Virgo was still functioning, although fitfully.

If fresh water was hard to come by in Rome in the Middle Ages, what were the various methods by which Romans might access it?

Cisterns must have been common.  They could store rainwater that fell on the hard tile roofs, and it is entirely possible that every building would have devised some way to capture and store at least a small amount.  There were also wells.  Rome has a very high water table so it wouldn’t take much to reach it, at least in the Campus Martius.

The Aqua Virgo continued to supply some water to the low areas of the city near to the Trevi fountain. There are also quite a few springs in Rome, although most were probably privately controlled.  The Vatican even had a small aqueduct called the Acqua Damasiana that was built in the 4th century AD to bring water from a spring about a mile outside the Vatican walls.  That spring still continues to flow.

There were also Acquaeroli, water sellers, who went to the Tiber River to fill barrels with water which they then decanted for about a week and then sold from door to door on donkeys – somewhat like the Arrowhead delivery service of my youth.  Some of the water sellers were also allowed to collect water from the Trevi Fountain to sell.

We’ve heard you argue that the Renaissance in Rome really begins in 1570, when Popes Pius IV and Pius V restore some of the water supply.  Can you explain to us how that act changes Rome and how its effects might constitute a “Renaissance?”

First, without a pure water supply there was no way that Rome could support a large population.  Also, the water supply that did exist in the mid-sixteenth century was terribly polluted – so even though the Tiber supply is essentially endless, it was detrimental.  Pius V (who reigned from 1566-72) in particular was interested in creating a healthier environment for Rome.  He was pretty zealous.  For him that meant not only restoring aqueducts in order to improve water quality, but also getting rid of prostitutes to restore morality.  At a very basic level he saw these ideas as linked to the idea of “Renovatio Romae” – an effort to return Rome to her former grander and also to return moral authority to the Catholic Church.  To restore water was to restore Rome.

In 1570 the Aqua Virgo, which we now call the Acqua Vergine, was restored and provided water to the Campus Martius.  Then in 1587 the Acqua Felice (which reused ancient springs) was completed and brought water to the Esquiline, Caelian and Pincian hills.  In 1612 the Acqua Paola was able to serve the Borgo, Trastevere and the Janiculum.  Within a little over 40 years Rome, which had been little more than a glorified medieval city, was poised to become the most important and beautiful city in Europe.

How does Rome’s modern water system compare to its ancient system?

Well, all three early modern aqueducts – the Virgo, Felice and Paola – reuse ancient springs and follow (more or less) ancient routes.  The gravity flow technology is the same and, at least until the late 19th century, they served the same areas that they had in antiquity.  There are now 3 more aqueducts and they all utilize mechanical pumps to distribute water to high elevations like the Janiculum and the Esquiline hills.  But even there, much of the water still flows through gravity.

Sometimes Rome’s visitors and residents worry about all the water that’s flowing freely through the city’s fountains.  It certainly makes the city more beautiful and refreshes one on a hot day, but isn’t it wasteful?

Fountains like the Moses Fountain in Largo Santa Susanna and the Fontanone on the Janiculum were originally designed as central distribution points in that once the water left the aqueduct it would be distributed in conduits out into the city from these points.

While the water in Rome’s fountains is always flowing – it’s a gravity system – it isn’t necessarily as wasteful as you might imagine – especially in the Campus Martius, which is pretty flat.  The water performs a necessary function – it flushes the sewers.  You can’t shut the water off.

In the interest of water conservation Rome began to re-circulate the water in the Trevi fountain in the 1930s.  Now several fountains, including the Moses, the Fontanone, the Naiad Fountain in Piazza della Repubblica, and the Turtle Fountain in Piazza Mattei, among others, all use re-circulate water on a one-week cycle.  This explains why during the summer there are days when there hardly seems to be any water in the Trevi – it has evaporated during the week.

We understand you have a book coming out and we can’t wait to read it! Can you give us some details about it and tell us when to expect it?

Well, the working title is still a little boring “Water and Urbanism in Early Modern Rome”.  I’ve floated about 20 titles to the publishers and none of us are really satisfied yet.  Any ideas, anyone?

The book will be published by Yale University Press and is scheduled to come out next year.  It is a social, cultural, aesthetic, topographic and technological history of water and urban development between about 1560 and 1630.  In the book I look at some of the myriad ways in which the new water supply changed the city.  Some changes were major – like the re-population of the hills, and others seem minor – like the provision of laundry fountains so that women wouldn’t have to go to the Tiber River to wash clothes.  I look at water as a commodity that could be used to buy and sell favors particularly between the pope and the cardinals who served him.  I look at the ways in which technology and administrative functions were advanced in the process of developing a distribution system for the water.  I spend a chapter examining the role of the Tiber River in Rome’s history and another chapter on the roads and sewers and how they relate to the fresh water supply.  I think it will be a pretty expansive examination of the subject.  I’m excited.

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