Tag Archives: Doric order

Un edificio romano e il suo riuso nella basilica di San Salvatore di Spoleto

Author: M. Cante

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The article presents the result of a research carried out at the end of the 1990s, connected with the documentation of all the Doric architectural elements reused in the construction of the Early Medieval basilica of San Salvatore in Spoleto (Holy Saviour). Despite the vast bibliography on the church, the problem of the original use and location of the ancient spolia has not been yet focused. In some studies the church was even considered a late transformation of a pagan temple. The original layout of the church, generally dated between the end of the 4th and the beginning of the 5th cent. AD, includes three naves separated by two rows of Doric columns surmounted by a straight lintel. Because of a fire, occurred around the 6th-7th cent. AD, the church suffered serious damages and the colonnades were almost completely destroyed. Subsequent restorations (second half of the 8th cent.) replaced part of the surviving columns, almost completely calcined and statically useless, with large masonry pillars, linking them with the remaining columns through arcades. The still usable architectural blocks were used for the construction of the pillars, where is thus possible to recognize Doric architraves, friezes and cornices. The catalogue of these architectural mouldings, reused mostly in the counter-façade and in the presbytery, was the start point of the research. Through the peculiar characteristics of the spolia it was possible to reconstruct the architectural order, and establish also the type of building from which they were looted, surely a public building. The presence of heart-shaped pillars and the related blocks of architrave/frieze that fit together determine an angle of 90° with decoration turned inwards, allowing to hypothesize the existence of a triporticus. The peculiarities of the architectural decoration of the Doric order lead to date the colonnades back to the Augustan period, or in any case between the 1st cent. BC and the first cent. AD. Hence the hypothesis that the arcades could be those that delimited the Forum of Spoleto and that were dismantled in the 4th-5th cent. AD to build the basilica of San Salvatore.

Nuovi dati sull’area occidentale del Foro civile di Pompei

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This paper aims to contribute to the compilation of a consistent periodization of the entire monumental complex of the civil forum of Pompeii, through the historical and architectural study of one of the least explored areas of the square located in the western sector, between the sanctuary of Apollo and the granary. The building, whose date is almost unknown, represents an important proof of the architecture built in tuff stone that characterizes one of the most significant phases of the entire forensic area. The architectural and structural analysis of the building in addition to providing important information about the evolution of the entire western sector of the forum, has led to the recognition of a local workshop in Nucera dealing with the manufacturing of the tuff, which was so active in Pompeii as in the neighboring centers. The analysis also offered preliminary but innovative tools allowing a systematic interpretation of the architecture of this period concerning both the city and its territory.

Lo hestiatorion dell’Asklepieion di Kos

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This paper resumes the text of the IV mimiamb of Herodas, which, set at the Asklepieion of Kos, tells of the visit at the sanctuary of two women and their sacrifice of a cock to the god. In his tale the poet describes the monuments and works of art encountered and admired by the characters, description that has been widely studied and analyzed especially with regard to the altar, with the statues made by the sons of Praxiteles, and the famous paintings on the walls of the pronaos of the temple. So far, however, no scholar has focused on the last verses of the poem, in which, after the sacrifice of the cock, the two women purposed to go and eat their meal in the nearby oikoi. Taking inspiration from the text of Herodas, the article will confirm the destination as a ritual banquet hall of the building immediately to the south of the temple, the so-called “building D”, generally known as abaton; towards it, in fact, the two women may have gone after sacrifice to eat their meal.