Text 2 The seven hills

I Read the text and say what you’ve learned about:

A The Palantine.

B The Capitoline.

C The Aventine.

D The Caelian.

E The Esquiline.

F The Viminal and Quirinal.

The Palantine. The origins of Rome, as of all ancient cities, are wrapped in fable. The Roman fable is of Romulus and Remus, twin sons of Mars, abandoned on the flooding Tiber and deposited by the receding waters at the foot of the Palantine. Suckled by a she-wolf, they were reared by a shepherd and grew up to found Rome, Romulus being obliged to execute Remus for disobeying one of the city’s first laws. The Etruscan bronze statue of the maternally ferocious wolf (late 6^th or early 5^th century B.C.; Capitoline Museum) is one of the greatest works among thousands of masterpieces in Rome. The nursing infants were sculpted and placed under the Etruscan statue in 1509.

The Palantine was a superior residential district by the 3^rd century B.C. Augustus was born there in 63 B.C. and continued to live there after he became emperor. His private dwelling, built about 50 B.C. and never seriously modified, still stands. Known as the House of Livia, for his widow, it has small, graceful rooms decorated with paintings.

The biggest and richest structure of all was created for Domitian (reined 81–96 A.D.), whose architect achieved feats of construction engineering not seen before in Rome. Parts of the lavish structure – the richly marbled, centrally heated dining hall of which is among the chambers visible today – were occupied by popes after there were no more emperors, and then the hill was abandoned. After some 6 centuries the great Roman families returned to the Palantine, planting 16^th century pleasure gardens and laid out one of Europe’s first botanical gardens.

The Capitoline. The seat of Roman government, the Capitoline is little changed from Michelangelo’s design and represents one of the earliest examples of modern town planning. The centerpiece of this piazza of three palaces is a bronze statue of Marcus Aurelius. It was believed to be a statue of Constantine, the first Christian emperor. The Palazzo Senatorio (Senate Palace) incorporates remains of the façade of the Tabularium, a state-records office constructed in 78 B.C. and one of the first buildings to use concrete vaulting and employ the arch with the Classical architectural orders. The palace of the municipal councilors, the conservatori, is on the south side of the square opposite the Palazzo del Museo Capitolino (Capitoline Palace), which, as a papal collection of Classical works offered back to the citizens of Rome by Sixtus IV in 1471, became the first public museum of sculpture in the Western world. The hill was the fortress and asylum of Romulus’ Rome. You will enjoy the Temple of Juno Moneta, the site of the Temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus, the largest temple in central Italy, the church of Sta. Maria d’Aracoeli, the home of «Il Bambino», a much loved miracle-performing wooden Christ child who is called to save desperately ill children.

The Aventine. Though considerably built over with modern houses and travelled by modern bus lines, the Aventine still bespeaks a Rome of the past, if not the Classical past. The repeated fires that swept the city destroyed all the republican buildings, and the Temple of Diana remains only as a street name. Under the 4^th century church of Sta. Prisca is one of the best preserved and maintained Mithraic basilicas in the city.

The Parco Savello, a small public park, was the walled area of the Savello family fortress, one of 12 that ringed the city in medieval times. A romantic gem is the Piazza dei Cavalieri di Malta, designed in the late 1700s by Giambattista Piranesi, an engraver with the heart of a poet and the eye of an engineer. To the right is the Knight’s Priory, residence of the grand master of the Knights of Malta. The sovereign military order continues its long history of international medical work.

The Caelian. Almost half parkland, the Caelian includes the public park of Villa Celimontana, a clutch of palaces in the Campus Martius, the six churches on the hill date from the 4^th to the 9^th century. There are the remains of the platform of the Temple of Claudius. Also on the hill is the extensive Military Hospital of Celio.

The Esquiline. Between the Esquiline and the Caelian, the end of the Forum Valley is filled by the Colosseum and the Arch of Constantine. The Colosseum is more correctly called the Flavian Amphitheatre. It was begun by Vespasian and inaugurated by Titus in 80 A.D. The oval stadium measures one-third of a mile around, with external dimensions of 615 by 415 feet. The 160-foot facade has three superimposed series of 80 arches and an attic story. The attic story bore corbels supporting masts from which royal sailors manipulated awnings to protect the 50,000 seats from the sun during the gladiatorial contests, combats with wild animals, sham battles, and, when the arena was flooded, naval displays. The nearby Arch of Constantine was erected hastily in 315 to celebrate a victory two years earlier. Almost all the sculpture on this splendid arch was snatched from earlier monuments: a battle frieze from the Forum of Trajan, a series of Hadrianic roundels, and eight panels from a Marcus Aurelius monument.

The matchless collection of antiquities of Museo Nazionale Romano (also called the Museo delle Terme) includes wall paintings from villas, mosaics, sarcophagi, and sculptures.

The Viminal and Quirinal. Like much of the Esquiline, the Viminal and Quirinal lie in the heart of modern Rome. Since the Middle Ages powerful Roman families built their homes in this location.

The Palazzo Colonna, at the foot of the hill near the Corso, is an art gallery open to the public; and its gardens, climbing the slope to the Piazza Quirinale, contain remnants of Caracalla’s Temple of Sarapis. The piazza has been graced since antiquity with two large statues of men with rearing horses, «The Horsetamer» or «Castor and Pollux». The Quirinal Palace built by Pope Gregory VIII in 1574 as a summer palace is very huge and its garden is five times as big as the building. From 1550 to 1870 the Quirinal rather than the Vatican was the official papal residence. In 1870 it became the royal palace of a new Kingdom of Italy and in 1948 was made the presidential palace. The Palazzo della Consulta (1734) was erected for part of the papal administration. The Palazzo Pallavicini-Rospigliosi buil by a Borghese cardinal in 1603 is still a private house. The Palazzo Barberini farther up the hill, constructed 1629–33 on the site of the old Palazzo Sforza, was occupied by the family until 1949. Part of the collection of the Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Antica is housed there. The 1700 pictures, most of them works by celebrated masters, were contributed by distinguished families, including the Barberinis.