Il Blog

Aurelian Walls

Written by

Behind the Aurelian Walls, in Via Campania (50 m from residence Marignoli) there is a sculpture of Alexander the Great.

 

The Aurelian Walls were made build between 270 and 275 A.C. from Emperor Aurelian, because the old Republican walls were no longer sufficient to defend the city from the threat of barbarian invasions. The new circle of fortifications had a perimeter of about 18 km: a great work that is still considered one of the most significant about technology of the fortifications.

 

The design of the walls was built by military engineers and has a continuous set of towers and trait of wall. In later centuries there were many structural measures made to adjust the doors and walls to the changed needs of the city and especially to the new techniques of warfare that was honed over time.

 

After September the 20th 1870, date of capture of Porta Pia, Pope Pius IX moved the jurisdiction of the walls, doors and pomerium to the Italian government and thus to that of the Municipality of Rome. Under the direction of the Vespignani, who held the posts of municipal architect and adviser of the Commission of Antiquities and Fine Arts, were executed in modern times a lot of restructures.

In particular, the plan of 1883 led to the modify of the stretch of wall in the area adjacent to the Residence Marignoli because the area formerly occupied largely by the magnificent Villa Ludovisi was subject of booming construction industry.

It was therefore necessary, after 1896, perform a series of interruptions of the outer walls, to allow the connection between inner city and new suburban neighborhoods. Sections of walls were demolished in streets Veneto, Tuscany, Piedmont, Puglia, Abruzzo, Marche and Romagna. The beautiful stretch between the Corso d’Italia and Via Campania still retains traces of the tumultuous past of our city and deserves a thorough visit, to discover the details that show the various stages of architectural technology.

The boy who wrote poetry

Written by

On Piazza Fiume there is a statue of white marble in the little garden near the Aurelian Walls. It depicts a young man with a toga holding a scroll in his left hand. It is the funerary monument of Quintus Sulpicius Maximus, a poet dead when he was eleven, for studying too much for his love for the arts (the Muses). In 94 A.C. he participated in the third edition of a poetry competition with other fifty-two poets. His talent aroused wonder and admiration in his judges, and in his owners who disposed his liberation by legacy.

The poem that he wrote is transcribed in Greek language into the sides of the statue. The lower part of the statue is entirely reserved for inscription in Latin and Greek, wanted by his unhappy parents Quinto Euganeo and Licinia Ianuario.

For nearly two centuries, from 94 to 276 A.C. the statue remained in plain view on the place of burial. When the Emperor Aurelian had built new walls of Rome, the tomb disappeared into one of the two towers of the Porta Salaria. The monument came to light in 1871 when Porta Salaria was demolished for the expansion of the road. The original statue is on display at the Museum Montemartini in Via Ostiense, while on Piazza Fiume there is a copy.

Liberty in Rome: the Coppedé

Written by

Starting from the residence Marignoli, with a walk of five minutes (on foot) we arrive at Coppedè Quarter, named for the Florentine sculptor-architect Gino Coppedè who realized it between 1913 and 1921.

The long interruption of work during the First World War and the architect’s death in 1927 did not allow  to complete of the original project, which involved the construction of a real neighborhood and that today, remained unfinished, looks like a small charming place which attracts with its variety of styles of an historical epoch.

Do not miss because is a corner of Rome-less-famous, certainly not less beautiful.

http://www.arteliberty.it/roma9.html