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13.3 Domitian's Succession and Stadium (The Piazza Navona)
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Из курса от партнера Yale University
Roman Architecture
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The Prince and the Palace: Human Made Divine on the Palatine Hill
The Domitianic Arch (and Tomb) of Titus celebrating the Flavian victory in the Jewish Wars; the Stadium of Domitian, its shape now preserved in Rome's Piazza Navona, the Imperial Palace on the Palatine Hill, designed by Rabirius and featuring Domitian as dominus et deus, and the Forum Transitorium, a narrow space with undulating columnar bays announcing the beginning of a "baroque" phase in Roman architecture. First Quiz is located here!
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Diana E.E. KleinerDunham Professor of History of Art and Classics at Yale University
History Of Art
Titus aft Titus was succeeded, as I've already mentioned, by
his younger brother, Domitian whom you see in two portraits here.
A portrait from Munich on the left in military garb and then
a bustling portrait in Rome on the right hand side of the screen.
Domitian was born in A.D. 51, so he was only your age, about 19, when Titus
went off to the Jewish wars.
There was never any question that Domitian would succeed his brother.
Vespasian was in this for the long haul.
He created a dynasty and expected both of his sons, first Titus,
his older son and then his younger son, Domitian to succeed him.
So Domitian's eventual rise to power was never in question.
And yet Domitian was jealous of his brother, who
was very popular in Rome, as I've already mentioned, and
who had this great military victory on
which the Flavians based their claim to rule.
And Domitian was, was very jealous of his brother.
He felt out of the loop.
And so, when he succeeded Titus quicker than he
thought, because Titus died way before his time, in
his 30s, as you know, when Domitian succeeded Titus,
he came to power as a very embittered man.
And he never got over that bitterness.
And in fact, what we see Domitian doing is really reverting to the
megalomaniacal way of thinking of people like
Caligula and Nero. Exercising his imperial prerogatives to
the fullest and in fact, even insisting that he be
that he be addressed as “lord and god,” dominus et deus,
which I put on your monument list for you. Dominus et deus, that’s lord and god.
And he not surprisingly, given his bent, he, not surprisingly, moved
away from the public architecture that Vespatian and Titus had favored.
For Vespatian, of course, buildings like the Colosseum.
For Titus, the Baths of Titus.
The public architecture that had been favored by
his father and his brother, he moved back
to being interested in building palatial
architecture, essentially to his own glory.
And we're going to see that the
major monument that he commissioned was the imperial
palace on the Palatine Hill that had been began by Ca, by Tiberius and Caligula.
He completed that palace in the nineties AD.
Before we get to that, which will be our
main focus, today I would like, because it's extensive and
there's a lot to see.
I would like to say a, a few words
about another commission of Domitian, because he wasn't without
the desire to at least build some public buildings,
and I'd like to begin with one of those here.
This is a model of the so-called Stadium of Domitian.
A stadium, or race course that was used that was put up during
Domitian's reign.
We date it usually to the latter part of his reign,
92 to 96 AD, and you see that model again here.
And you can tell a lot about this building from both the scanty remains
but also from other, other evidence that allows us to be able to
reconstruct it relatively accurately. You see it here, these stadia
were hairpin in shape, as you can see, a straight end on one side, a curved end on
the other, a long, elongated, a kind of elongated
oval with one straight side as you can see.
It was put up in very similar fashion to theaters and to amphitheaters in that they
built a concrete hill, and lined that concrete hill with stone seats.
And then buttressed it with a wall, as you can
see here that was decorated just like the Theater of Marcellus
or like the Colosseum, with, in this case two tiers of
arches, two, two sets of arcades with columns in between them.
Those columns again having no structural purpose
whatsoever, just used as decoration for the monument.
And then the exits and entrances again
done very similarly to amphitheater or theater architecture
as we've discussed it thus far.
So the main difference is, it's not quite as tall as amphitheaters, for
example, or theaters, and just two tiers of columns, as you can see here.
And the main diff, the main difference in plan is that it's
a hairpin shape again with one straight side and one curved side.
Only a small one can see today,
and this is essentially underground, or what survives
of it is underground.
Although there's one section that can still be
seen, as I'll show you in a moment.
But what's absolutely miraculous is the fact that the actual hairpin shape
of the stadium of Domitian is preserved in its entirety in the shape of
one of Rome's most famous piazzas, and my favorite by far, the Piazza
Navona, which you see from the air here in a Google Earth image.
And you can see, again, the exact shape. The straight side, and the curved side of
Domitian's Stadium, still preserved in the, Piazza Navona in Rome.
it's, it's a wonderful piazza for those of you who've been there.
I'm sure you, you, you have enjoyed, your, spending time there.
For those of you who haven't, it really is
a mecca within Rome, and you can see, not only
is it a pleasant place to walk but also a
place to see great buildings, for example Francesco Borromini's Sant'Agnese
in Agone, and Bernini's Four Rivers, famous Four Rivers fountain
in the center of the piazza in dialog with one another.
And as we look at this from the air, and we look at the, at the
curved end of the Piazza Navona, you can see there's one street that you can take
out of that curved end. One small street.
If you take a left and then a left again,
you will see the remains of the stadium of Domitian.
I'm going to show those to you in a moment.
And if you stay in the center of the
Piazza near the Four Rivers Fountain and you go sort
of diagonally across from that you will end up at
one of the four best ice cream places in Rome.
I guess, I guess you can get some of the best gelato in Rome.
You can get
good gelato almost anywhere in Rome and in Italy,
but the very best this is one of those four.
Say something more about that in a moment.
Here are the remains of the of the Stadium of Domitian that can still be seen.
Very few tourists notice this, but it's well
worth looking at, because you can see the brick-faced
cement construction that served at, for the, that
was how the substructures of this building were built.
And I think
you can even see that from a distance here.
Made out of concrete faced with brick.
But the arcades and the columns that I
showed you before out of travertine, ashlar, a masonry
travertine, which was one of the last buildings actually
in Rome to be made of travertine ashlar masonry.
Just to, just to, to show you also that again,
just as we did when we were in Capri, I
showed you the bar Tiberio and its reference to Tiberius.
It's amazing what those who put up restaurants and bars and
so on around Rome, it's, it's amazing, it, it demonstrates the, the
strong sense of history that Italians have because, just the fact
that they recognize that, these are remains from the stadium of Domitian.
Everyone thinks of this structure as the Piazza Navona.
But the fact that they are well
aware of the fact that it was Domitian's stadium.
So that the wine bar across the street, and this is one that was just opened
in the last couple of years, the wine bar across the street is called the Domiziano.
The Domiziano after Domitian, because it's right
across the street from the stadium of Domitian.
With regard to ice cream, I take my gelato seriously, and I'm
sure all of you who've been to Italy feel the same way.
It's like, it's not like American ice
cream, not that American ice cream isn't good.
But it's, it's absolutely fantastic, and so
I will make some recommendations, this semester.
And this is the first one that I'm
going to make, because it's one of my favorites.
And everyone agrees this is one of the best ice cream parlors in Rome.
It's called Tre Scalini.
It's also a restaurant a restaurant you can pass on
like so many restaurant in the center of famous piazzas.
It's not the best but then you don't have to sit outside.
Although they will try to beckon you to sit outside because it costs more to eat
the ice cream outside than it does if you just walk into or walk through the door.
There are actually two doors, one on that side and one on this side.
Go right up to the counter, take a look at what's there, and make your order.
And I, the, the, my recommendation for this
particular gelateria is the tartufi, they are very famous.
This is
the best Tartufo in Rome, without question, if you like chocolate.
It's a, it's a chocolate bomb essentially, as you can see in these images here.
It is one big, well, fairly large very rich chocolate with big,
big, the biggest chocolate chips you ever saw on it and then
they, they put a dollop, I don't even like whipped cream, but
when it's panna, when it's panna on top of the tartufo, I go
the whole way.
So you, you have you have the panna on top of the tartufo and if, if you sit outside
and are willing to pay extra, they'll throw a pirouette
on top; if not, you have to forego the pirouette.
But I really highly recommend, whether you like
chocolate or you don't like chocolate, I've gone
with people who are not the kind of
chocoholic I am, who, who like this anyway.
So it's really a treat, and at least once when you're in Rome you have to indulge
in a tartufo at Tre Scalini.
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