FIRST ITINERARY

THE CAPITOLINE HILL, THE ROMAN FORUM,
THE PALATINE HILL, THE COLOSSEUM AND THE BASILICA OF ST. JOHN IN LATERAN
panoramic view itinerary description movie back next


No view compares with the one from the Orti Farnesiani, the superb garden created by the Farnese family on the ruins of the Palazzo of Tiberius, and whose panoramic terrace almost flows out above the Forum. No less inspiring is the panorama discovered from the immense terrace above the ruins of the Palazzo of Septimius Severus, from which one sees fused in a harmony of colours the Circus Maximus, the slopes of the Palatine, the outline of the Aventine basilicas, the immense Colosseum, the romantic churches and silent villas of the Celian hill, the imposing Baths of Caracalla and the thick green mass of the Passeggiata Archeologica, the turreted gate of St. Sebastian, the tomb of Cecilia Metella, the ruins of the Claudian Aqueduct and the Alban Hills, dominated by the peak of Monte Cavo and its grandiose park of "Latinity", where the inhabitants of the Latin League went each year to celebrate the Feriae Latinae in the Temple of Jupiter. The only ruins which allows us to reconstruct mentally a residence of the Caesars are those of the Domus Augustana of Domitian, consisting of a lower floor connected to an upper floor set back: the first including a series of rooms around an atrium with a great pond in the centre, the second, another series of rooms around a peristyle in which an edicola stood. And just as the Valle Murcia and Circus Maximus dominated the atrium of the lower floor, the peristyle of the upper floor dominated the atrium and pond of the lower floor. Only traces of the rich multicoloured pavement and ruins of a great pond remain of the superb imperial triclinium of the Palazzo dei Flavi, a famous work by Domitian's architect Rabirio. Yet in a singular way these few remains are sufficient to conceive of the extraordinary beauty which this striking room possessed. It was named for its magnificence Coeanatio Jovis, and was enormous and rich with supremely elegant, coloured marble. It opened in great arches onto a peristyle and was surrounded by porticos adorned with gardens and fountains and had wide lateral windows through which two huge oval ponds in coloured marble basins animated the banquets of the Imperial court. Beyond the triclinium are the ruins of the Temple of Jupiter or the Temple of Apollo. In a better state of preservation is the so-called Stadium of Domitian, next to the Imperial baths of Septimius Severus. Nothing is left of these sumptuous gyms and rooms constructed by Domitian and restored by Septimius Severus, to be later transformed by Teodorico. There are also important ruins of the Pedagogium, the institute for the training of imperial pages. Particularly interesting is the grafitti taken from the walls of the rooms of this building, one of which represents a donkey under which the following is written: work, donkey, as I have worked and this will make you rejoice. Another exceptionally important piece of grafitti is linked to the persecution of Christians in the first centuries of Christianity, and now lies in the Antiquarium of the Palatine, next to the Domus Augustana. Nothing is left of the proud pagan world of this young fool who 18 centuries ago scribbled on the wall of a school that should have educated him about the cult of truth and justice, offending the Son of God who died on a cross for the salvation of the human race. Ironically, all has fallen around this blasphemous grafitti and it remains in a solitary museum surrounded by the silence of dead things, testifying to the blindness and the haughtiness of pride!