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Compte rendu par Pier Luigi Tucci Nombre de mots : 3334 mots Publié en ligne le 2022-07-28 Citation: Histara les comptes rendus (ISSN 2100-0700). Lien: http://histara.sorbonne.fr/cr.php?cr=4309 Lien pour commander ce livre In the vast complex of the Imperial Fora, for a long time the Forum of Trajan (AD 107 - 112) has been the best archaeologically known component because it was first touched in 1811-14 by the French digs, then by the excavations of the first half of the 20th century and, after 1998, by the archaeological campaigns of the Sovrintendenza. As his short bio reveals, until 2021 the author of this book was Director of the Ufficio Fori Imperiali of the Municipality of Rome and took advantage of his own investigations conducted since the 1980s. His monograph, undoubtedly the peak of his scholarly career, consists of three chapters written in Italian (with English summaries) and four appendices. It presents what the author has already published in previous articles and books (e.g. Meneghini 1992, 1993 and 1999; Santangeli Valenzani - Meneghini 2007, 151-158; Meneghini 2009, 193-251) and aims at offering a complete picture of the Forum of Trajan in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. However, the analysis focuses on the medieval church of Sant’Urbano and the remains of few houses located in the middle of the Forum square. The subtitle mentions the 1998-2007 excavations but does not clarify that the volume does not cover the entire Forum. Only the author’s introduction reveals that the investigation is limited to the “sectors covered by gardens in the middle of its southern part” (p. xvii), that is, just the 11% of the Forum’s surface. The plan of the neighbourhood in the 18th century (Fig. 1.9, adapted from Ercolino 2013, pl. C) shows how much of Trajan’s monument has been left untouched. The Renaissance remains have been overlooked as well (they were demolished during the course of the latests digs) and, unfortunately, the author has not included the 2016-2020 excavation of a further sector of the Forum (more below), thus dismissing Santangeli Valenzani’s claim that this work is a “definitive contribution on the topic” (from the back cover).
Chapter 1 deals primarily with Trajan’s Forum in the imperial age, which is essential to understand the later transformations. The author publishes the plans by Canina, Lanciani, Gatti, and Gismondi (omitting Claridge’s) that place the temple of Divus Traianus and Diva Plotina beneath Palazzo Valentini, and implies that this location is mistaken. Indeed, he removes the temple from his six plans (Figs 1.1-3, 1.9, 1.79-80) and consequently does not discuss the northern sector of the Forum at all. In the past two decades, Meneghini has proposed so many alternative locations of the temple that it is no longer possible reviewing them rationally: now he devotes just six lines to this issue (cfr. La Rocca 2021). The temple, commonly located north of Trajan’s Column, was shifted to the opposite side of the Forum just before the 1998 excavation (La Rocca 1998, p. 153, fig. 17 and Meneghini 1998, p. 146, fig. 14, despite the claim that nobody had questioned its existence in the northern area: La Rocca 2021, p. 86). Then it was located next to the Forum of Augustus (the author envisioned several imaginary details: cfr. Giuliani 2012, pp. 25-26) and, after a temporary identification either with the twin library halls and Trajan’s Column, Meneghini deleted it from the Forum. In his view, the remains found beneath Palazzo Valentini belonged to a propylaeum or to Trajan’s Parthian Arch, although the surviving concrete foundations do not match the plan of a triumphal arch, suggesting that the temple stood precisely were everybody placed it until 1998 (Baldassarri 2021).
The Forum was almost intact until the 9th century, when the marble floor of its square was spoliated and a layer of mud 1 m high covered its area. In the 10th century one Kaloleus, belonging to the faction of the “lord of Rome” Albericus (932-954), built the original nucleus of a neighbourhood in the middle of the ancient square (Fig. 1.8), called the Campus Kaloleonis (hence the toponym Campo Carleo). Meneghini first associates this Kaloleus with house C1 (p. 157 and Fig. 1.7), one of the three dwellings brought to light; yet, fifteen pages later he claims “there is no objective evidence to support this” (p. 172). In the early 13th century another marsh characterized the south-east limit of the Forum, followed by building activity attested to by an archival document of 1263-64 that mentions houses and gardens related to the church of Sant’Urbano, built on land owned by the nearby church of S. Maria in Campo Carleo (already in Meneghini 1992). The later row houses incorporated remains of the previous dwellings and survived until the construction of the Alessandrino neighbourhood in the late 16th century. The author mentions the main building activity that took place in the following centuries, too, but discusses some periods (e.g. the Fascist era) quite superficially. Dealing with the investigations of the 1920s, he returns to the church of Sant’Urbano and, discussing recent scholarship, he goes back to the imperial age (note the criticism to Packer – p. 65 n. 171 – who mistook a series of medieval shafts with ancient holes for trees but, at least, highlighted the author’s misplacement of a Roman wall beneath Palazzo Valentini).
In Chapter 2, the actual report on the medieval and Renaissance constructions within Trajan’s Forum, the author deals exclusively with the remains of ground floors and basements of four blocks buried beneath the gardens of via dei Fori Imperiali. Block A corresponds to the Roman courtyard next to the Forum of Augustus but its 17th-century walls have not been investigated. Block B (Figs 2.7 and 2.9) preserves the remains of the rectangular hall already identified with the church of Sant’Urbano, some remains of which are still visible in the area. The author provides long descriptions of its building materials and techniques: for example, n. 10 at p. 77 consists of sixty lines attesting to the descriptive nature of this volume – I would have rather published the photo of the medieval arches of the hall before its demolition (Cederna 1979, Fig. 60). Block C, including the alleged domus solarata of Kaloleus, reached the site of the French excavation next to the Basilica Ulpia. The discussion of the few remains of block D is quite superficial, unlike the analysis of the various layers of the street between blocks C and D.
Chapter 3 should contain the author’s conclusions but is a mere recapitulation dealing (again) with the church of Sant’Urbano and adjacent houses. The main sectors of Trajan’s Forum and the Renaissance phases are completely absent, so that the author fails to provide a wider picture of the urban history of the monument. It appears that during the Middle Ages the square of the Forum witnessed a spontaneous growth of the urban tissue – yet, the author gives no explanation for the words campus, locus, and contrata – with diagonal and curvilinear paths that allowed connections between the Quirinal and Capitoline hills. What is missing is a discussion of how the neighbourhood functioned – one has the feeling that in the 10th century only Kaloleus lived there – and of its links with adjacent sectors of the city: e.g., the remains of Trajan’s Markets, the Torre delle Milizie and the Torre dei Conti, or the nearby Campo Torrecchiano. Because the Forum square was spoliated around 847, it would have been wise to comment on the (unlikely) reuse of its marble slabs in the floor of the late 13th-century basilica of Santa Maria in Aracoeli on the Capitoline hill (a suggestion by Viscogliosi 2000, 93). We are also told (p. 167) that the murus marmoreus mentioned by archival documents was not the ashlar wall delimiting the Forum on the south-east, as proposed from Lanciani onwards, but just a damp of marble chunks or a medieval wall made of marble fragments (stratigraphic units 5400-5463 in Fig. 3.8) but this, too, is just a guess.
The book has four appendices. The first presents a series of archival documents dating from 1004 to 1933 (but includes a medieval inscription carved on an architrave, too). It is unclear who transcribed the earliest notarial deeds and, unfortunately, there is no translation of their Latin texts into Italian or English. An interesting document dating to 3 December 1276 is missing (cfr. Ercolino 2013, p. 128), as well as a parchment that I found in the nearby monastery of Saints Cosmas and Damian, dated at 10 February 1317, attesting that Paulus Alberici de contrata Campi Carlei was granted a large estate located outside the city walls, with further information on the Forum area. The second appendix examines the ceramic materials excavated in a cistern next to the church of Sant’Urbano; the third investigates the discharges of production waste from the potters’ workshops near the same church and the fourth is a list of the relevant pottery. Unfortunately, the book lacks an index.
The Italian text and the English translation – the author of which is unknown – contain typos and unhappy wording. Just a few examples: in Chapter 1 we read “Appolodosro” (p. 3) and “clima antiriformista” (p. 17 n. 67) instead of “controriformista”. The summary is characterized by a mixture of English and untranslated words, for instance “Ammiano Marcellino” (p. 67), “Fasti Ostiensi” (p. 68) and “Coclide Column” (pp. 68 and 171); “arcades” is used twice (p. 67; also at p. 171) instead of porticoes and “trunks” indicates the column shafts (p. 67). I am not convinced by the word “reservoir” (p. 68) used twice for the marshy area of the Forum; note also “the area’s landscape begin” (instead of “begins”) and “Governorate” for Governatorato (pp. 68 and 71; also at p. 152). The “girls who wanted to be a monk” (p. 71) is a very strange sentence indeed. In chapter 2 I spotted the Italian “edifico” (p. 93) and “the foundations are made of a sack” (p. 153); I was also puzzled by the term “opera incerta” (p. 124), which can be acceptable for a medieval masonry but less so if translated into English with “opus incertum” like the 2nd-century BC masonry. In the summary of chapter 3, “forensic” (p. 172) is not the appropriate adjective for the Forum.
As noted above, there is little in the book that will be new to those who have read Meneghini’s other works on Trajan’s Forum; the only novelty is represented by the stratigraphic sections of blocks B and C. Because the Forum square is just a location that remains in the background, “The Building Phases of the Church of Sant’Urbano” would have been a more truthful title. Indeed, there is no word about the medieval and Renaissance cityscape of the entire monument, the knowledge of which has benefitted from other scholars’ research (cfr. Ercolino 2013 and 2020). Links to ongoing debates on medieval Rome are missing, too: there is no mention of Keyvanian 2015, the third chapter of which addresses Sant’Urbano (featuring on the cover of her book) from a political and architectural point of view. Likewise, the author has forgotten the important decree issued in 1162 by the reborn Roman Senate about the preservation of Trajan’s Column. In the early Middle Ages two major Christian basilicas were dedicated next to the Forum of Trajan: Saints Apostles to the north and Saint Mark to the west. Therefore, one wonders why the Basilica Ulpia, commonly identified as the prototype of early Christian basilicas, was not converted into a church whereas only minor religious buildings occupied the Forum area. Unfortunately, the author neither answers nor asks these questions. As for the medieval church of S. Nicolò de Columna, already attested to in the 10th century and using Trajan’s Column as its bell tower, a more convincing location can be found in Intra Sidola 2015 and 2016 (both overlooked by the author). The 1998-2007 excavation has simply confirmed the already known medieval phasing inside the Forum square. While the events that took place in and around the church of Sant’Urbano are analysed in detail, those that occurred elsewhere in the Forum are practically never cited. Apparently, the author is not interested in art history and spolia. His approach is somewhat narrow and disconcerting: although at least the first chapter should be a review of the main discoveries recorded in the area after antiquity, the author does not cite the Renaissance excavations (Lanciani 1989-1990). He overlooks the drawings of Antonio da Sangallo the Younger (who designed and built the church of Santa Maria di Loreto next to the Column of Trajan), too. Likewise, he does not mention the honorary arch demolished by the magistri viarum in 1526, along with the famous relief of the eagle displayed in the nearby basilica of SS. Apostoli and the marble block eventually reused for the pedestal of Marcus Aurelius’ equestrian statue.
One would have liked to know more about the author’s vision on the vexata quaestio of the definitive appearance of the archaeological site and the removal of via dei Fori Imperiali, which still runs above and across Trajan’s Forum. The dramatic transformation of the urban space after the latest excavations has resulted in a “completely disappointing layout” (Ercolino 2018, p. 106; Ercolino 2020, p. 60). Some remains of the medieval houses excavated in 1998-2007 are visible in the middle of the Forum’s square, since their ground level is slightly above the original one, but to any casual observer the site appears confusing and unconnected to the modern city. The excavators considered the post 15th century structures, which belonged to houses and shops that opened at a higher level, “without a specific typological interest” and demolished most of them (Bernacchio et alii, 2021, p. 350). They concluded that “thanks to their demolition the main goal of the dig has been reached, that is, the ‘restoration of the visual and physical continuity between the Forum of Trajan and the so called Markets of Trajan’” (Bernacchio et alii, 2021, p. 351). Such continuity, however, did not exist in antiquity, since the Forum and the Markets were two independent buildings, without any connection whatsoever.
It is not easy to offer an overall assessment of Meneghini’s volume. If the title seemingly promises a complete treatise on the Forum in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, the truth is quite different. The author discusses block B and the hall of the church of Sant’Urbano, the few remains of three houses and some walls scattered in the area, whereas other parts are analysed in a superficial manner or overlooked at all, without providing any justification for such marked differences. Moreover, the complete brick-by-brick or stone-by-stone documentation of the medieval walls is done rather mechanically: the author describes all the different materials and phases and yet he says almost nothing about the people who lived there in the Middle Ages. If on the one hand the 90% of the book is redundantly the re-publication of the same old material, on the other hand it is no longer up to date due the excavation of a long stretch of the Via Alessandrina in 2014-2020, under the supervision of Meneghini himself. Apparently, the latter completed the present book when the dig was over (pp. 72, 157 and 161) and a long preliminary article signed by him, among others, appeared in November 2021 (Bernacchio et alii, 2021). Unlike the presentation of previous archaeological campaigns (pp. 60 and 72), in this case Meneghini does not even mention the mayor of Rome who made the excavation possible and the relevant sponsor – the Ministry of Culture and Tourism of Azerbaijan. The choice of publishing a monograph on a monument that is still being excavated appears to be illogical and no doubt contributes in making it impossible to consider this book as the state of the art on Trajan’s Forum in the Middle Ages.
The publisher has done a great job and this volume, although not corresponding to what the title would lead one to believe, remains – with caveats – a useful contribution. It is generously illustrated with 248 drawings and photos of varying quality spread on 212 pages – but I would have avoided the memory picture of the author’s own friends (Fig. 1.74) to “illustrate” the first essay at Sant’Urbano in 1982. In conclusion, the book may disappoint the potential readers, given that it traces the building history of the church of Sant’Urbano and says almost nothing about the extraordinary universe of the neighbourhood(s) that overlapped the Forum of Trajan across the centuries (cfr. Ercolino 2013). Far from constituting a point of arrival for the study of the Forum in the Middle Ages (and even less in the Renaissance), Meneghini’s book is essentially the edition of a very little part of it. His report is informative but not intellectually challenging: there is no sense of debate and no conclusion. It is a welcome publication, but neither the last word on the subject nor a fundamental contribution to our understanding of medieval Rome.
Bibliography
Baldassarri 2021 : P. Baldassarri, Il Tempio dei divi Traiano e Plotina e i suoi disiecta membra: novità dalle indagini a Palazzo Valentini, BullCom, 122, 2021, 157-182. Bernacchio 2021 : N. Bernacchio et alii, Regione IV. Lo scavo del tratto settentrionale di via Alessandrina (2016-2020), BullCom 122, 2021, 342-352. Cederna 1979 : A. Cederna, Mussolini Urbanista. Lo sventramento di Roma negli anni del consenso, Rome – Bari, 1979, fig. 60. Ercolino 2013 : M. G. Ercolino, La città negata. Il Campo Carleo al Foro Traiano: genesi crescita e distruzione, Rome, 2013. Ercolino 2018 : M. G. Ercolino, Roma, archeologia e città, in C. Bianchini et alii, Dipartimento di Storia, Disegno e Restauro dell’Architettura. Ricerche 2013-2018, Rome, 2018, 105-106 Ercolino 2020 : M. G. Ercolino, Rileggere le tracce. Vicende urbane e architettoniche dal Campo Carleo al Quartiere Alessandrino, Studi e Ricerche, 13, 2020, 60-73. Giuliani 2012 : C. F. Giuliani, Archeologia oggi. La fantasia al potere, Quaderni di archeologia e di cultura classica 2, Tivoli, 2012. Intra Sidola 2015 : G. Intra Sidola, Il disegno delle trasformazioni della città storica: l’area della Colonna Traiana a Roma, in L. De Carlo (ed.), Metamorfosi dell’immagine urbana, Rome, 2015, 93-106. Intra Sidola 2016 : G. Intra Sidola, Sistemi per l’analisi storica e lettura delle fonti: il caso dell’ubicazione della Chiesa di S. Nicolò De Columna sulla base della pianta di Roma di Alessandro Strozzi del 1474, in G. M. Cennamo (ed.), Processi di analisi per strategie di valorizzazione dei paesaggi urbani. I luoghi storici tra conservazione e innovazione (Proceedings of the Conference, Rome, 29 January 2016), 187-196. Keyvanian 2015 : Hospitals and Urbanism in Rome, 1200-1500 (Leiden-Boston 2015), 138-197. Lanciani 1989 - 1990 : R. Lanciani, Storia degli scavi di Roma e notizie intorno le collezioni romane di antichità, vol. I (1000-1530), Rome, 1989; Storia degli scavi di Roma e notizie intorno le collezioni romane di antichità, vol. II (1531-1549), Rome, 1989. La Rocca 1998 : E. La Rocca, Il Foro di Traiano ed i fori tripartiti, RM, 105, 1998, 149-173. La Rocca 2021 : E. La Rocca, Prefazione. La topografia dell’area a nord del Foro di Traiano: sulle questioni irrisolte, BullCom, 122, 2021, 79-98. Meneghini 1992 : R. Meneghini, Roma. Ricerche nel Foro di Traiano. Nuovi dati archeologici e d’archivio riguardanti le vicende medievali del monumento e la chiesa di S. Maria in Campo Carleo, Archeologia Medievale, 19, 1992, 409-436. Meneghini 1993 : R. Meneghini, Il Foro ed i Mercati di Traiano nel medioevo attraverso le fonti storiche e d’archivio, Archeologia Medievale, 20, 1993, 79-120. Meneghini 1998 : R. Meneghini, L’architettura del Foro di Traiano attraverso i ritrovamenti archeologici più recenti, RM, 105, 1998, 127-148. Meneghini 1999 : R. Meneghini, Roma – interventi per il Giubileo del 2000. Scavo del monastero di S. Urbano al Foro Traiano: comunicazione preliminare, Archeologia Medievale, 26, 1999, 43-66. Meneghini 2009 : R. Meneghini, I Fori Imperiali e i Mercati di Traiano. Storia e descrizione dei monumenti alla luce degli studi e degli scavi più recenti, Rome, 2009. Meneghini - Santangeli Valenzani 2007 : R. Meneghini, R. Santangeli Valenzani, I Fori Imperiali. Gli scavi del Comune di Roma (1991-2007), Rome, 2007. Viscogliosi 2000 : A. Viscogliosi, I Fori Imperiali nei disegni d’architettura del primo Cinquecento. Ricerche sull’architettura e l’urbanistica di Roma, Rome, 2000.
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Éditeurs : Lorenz E. Baumer, Université de Genève ; Jan Blanc, Université de Genève ; Christian Heck, Université Lille III ; François Queyrel, École pratique des Hautes Études, Paris |
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