A conference held at the Palazzo Altemps in March 2013 summarized archaeological work carried out in the Campus Martius since 2005, in a series of collaborative ventures between the Soprintendenza Speciale per i Beni Archeologici di Roma (SSBAR), the German Archaeological Institute (DAI) and the Archaeology Department of La Sapienza University, Rome. In addition to fresh proposals for the integration of marble architectural fragments by members of the DAI (Marcus Wolf on the Montecitorio ustrina and the Cancelleria reliefs; Henner von Hesberg on a frieze from a well near the Chiesa Nuova), there was news of important new excavations carried out by the Soprintendenza Speciale. Building works inside the Istituto di Santa Maria in Aquiro, in piazza Capranica, enabled archaeologists to reinvestigate a colonnade formed of granite columns, already known to nineteenth-century topographers, the tallest of which still stands to a height of over 8 m (presentation by Francesca Dell'Era). Running east–west, the colonnade abuts the stump of an even larger column of cipollino, still visible in vicolo della Spada D'Orlando. This unorthodox, hybrid assemblage (assumed by Christian Huelsen to be post-antique) was here attributed to Hadrian's complex dedicated to Matidia — although its precise interpretation and even the orientation of the temple itself remained unclear.Footnote ¹ Excavations inside the northern entrance of the Palazzo Venezia, adjoining via del Plebiscito, revealed remains of a small bath complex and a fragmentary colonnade (estimated column height c. 5.80 m). The excavator, Fedora Filippi, illustrated in addition unpublished finds from works immediately west of here, in the sector of the palace bordering via degli Astalli, which had been carried out during World War II for the installation of an air-raid shelter. The corner of a slightly larger colonnade with underlying cryptoporticus had been documented in the excavation journal of E. Paoloni, kept in the archive of the Palazzo Altemps. Filippi also summarized the finds from trenches sunk during building works in the area of the Saepta: a long section (over 50 m) of the western colonnade was encountered under the Palazzo della Minerva and in the piazza beyond, with a travertine stylobate and a series of brick re-entrant walls faced in marble. In vicolo della Minerva, in a zone corresponding to the central space of the Saepta, remains of a stepped base or podium (‘pulpit’ was the word used by the excavator) were encountered, running for 12 m in a north–south direction. In the northern Campus Martius, Barbara Porcari recounted the important discovery of a first-century bc tomb during building works in the Palazzo dell'Unione Militare at the corner of via Tomacelli and via del Corso. The square monument, of which only the corner survived, was built of tufa and travertine, and perhaps had the form of a cenotaph, like that of Hirtius. A denarius of c. 100 bc, found in the underlying levels, served as a terminus post quem for this rare survival from the Campus Martius's late Republican funerary landscape.

At the same conference, Filippi gave the first detailed public presentation of the region's most significant archaeological discovery, the complex now identified as the stabula of the Red Faction of the Circus. This is the excavation referred to in last year's ‘Notes’, situated between the via Giulia and the Tiber.Footnote ² The block identified as the stables occupies an area of 1,160 square metres, and is formed of seven parallel bays or corridors (1.6 m wide) in which the rows of individual stable-units would have been installed; these presumably would have been formed of partition-walls composed of perishable materials. The complex was built in the Augustan period and featured rebuilding phases (including one dated by brick stamps to Hadrian's reign) down to the fifth century. The key find was a fragmentary inscription, perhaps of Severan date, bearing the letters russa. This therefore must be the headquarters of the Red Faction, lying some 350 m from the site of the Green Faction (Prasinum) at the Palazzo della Cancelleria.Footnote ³

The contribution of the La Sapienza team recalled a typically succinct and precise article published by the much-missed Lucos Cozza almost 30 years ago, calling for a concerted study and registry of archaeological remains lying unobserved in the cellars of central Rome's historic (and not so historic) buildings.Footnote ⁴ Much of the research communicated here had been carried out with the help of postgraduate students from the Dipartimento di Scienze dell'Antichità, who produced impressive new computer-generated reconstructions of the surviving substructures and (surprisingly substantial) standing remains of the Baths of Agrippa (Luisa Migliorati), the Theatre of Pompey (Gabriele Monastero, Valentina Iannone, Lauro Braccalenti) and the Temple of Hadrian (Alessandro Vella). Cairoli Fulvio Giuliani analysed the ‘Basilica of Neptune’. Finally, the discovery of unpublished documentation for demolition works carried out in 1871–5 in via del Piè di Marmo lent further weight to Guglielmo Gatti's hypothesis that the extremely robust, two-storey brick-faced concrete arches encountered on that occasion belonged to the double tetrapylon ‘Giano accanto alla Minerva’, drawn by Antonio da Sangallo the Younger, and represented the western entrance to the Isaeum (Luigia Attilia and Alessandra Ten, SSBAR).Footnote ⁵

A useful complement to the Palazzo Altemps conference came in a lecture given the following May at the British School at Rome by Riccardo Santangelo Valenzani, Monica Ceci, Valerio Canè, Alessandra D'Amico and Paola Romi concerning new discoveries in via delle Botteghe Oscure. The extension of the tram-line from largo Argentina to piazza Venezia called for fresh excavations in the area immediately north of the ancient Porticus and ‘Crypta’ of Balbus, which in antiquity was occupied by the Porticus Minucia.Footnote ⁶ Given the urgency of the works, ancient levels were not investigated; but a careful re-examination of structures already sketched by Gatti when the road was widened in 1941 produced important results regarding the Middle Ages. The medieval phase of the church of Santa Lucia de Calcarario now could be dated on the basis of its stratigraphy and construction techniques to the eighth–ninth centuries. Since the church originally belonged to the xenodochium (pilgrim hostel) of the Anicii, which according to the Liber Pontificalis was rebuilt by Pope Stephen II, the more precise date of 752–7 was proposed. The church in this phase had a triconch apse. A row of similarly-dated chambers lying directly in front of the building was identified as belonging to the service quarters of the rebuilt charitable institution.Footnote ⁷

Elsewhere in the monumental centre of Rome, the Colosseum continues to dominate the news.Footnote ⁸ In January 2013 it was announced that painted graffiti had been discovered in a service corridor of the third level. Symbols (phalli and portrait silhouettes) and letters, perhaps dating to the late antique period, overlay a ground of red-painted plaster, the whole covered in more recent tourist graffiti from the nineteenth century.Footnote ⁹ Graffiti of a different kind, probably relating to the Colosseum's construction phases, were illustrated at a lecture given to the Pontificia Accademia Romana di Archeologia by Cinzia Conti and Silvia Orlandi in December 2012.Footnote ¹⁰ Modern restoration of a ground-floor arch revealed that its travertine keystone bore red-painted letters of uncertain integration, perhaps relating either to the quarrying of the original blocks or dressing them in the monument. Comparable texts are known from elsewhere in the Colosseum — and, indeed, the aforementioned lecture by Filippi illustrated similar graffiti on the travertine arches of the via Giulia stabula, and referred briefly to large red-painted inscriptions on the podium of the Temple of Concord, discovered in an unpublished excavation carried out by the Soprintendenza Speciale, directed by Ida Sciortino.Footnote ¹¹ The Colosseum's director, Rossella Rea, also spoke of the little-known remains of an additional branch of the brick porticus that frames the Colosseum towards the Oppian Hill. The ‘new’ branch was discovered during the installation of toilets in the 1960s. Rea proposed that such a porticus, perhaps rising to two storeys, may have surrounded the amphitheatre on three sides, leaving only the prospect towards the Velia entirely open.Footnote ¹² On the Palatine, meanwhile, fresh from identifying the remains of the Temple of Luna, Andrea Carandini returned with claims that his team had discovered not only the Temple of Jupiter Stator but also the house of Julius Caesar (Domus Publica) in the same narrow trench sunk next to the supposed site of the Porta Mugonia.Footnote ¹³

2012–13 has been an unusually rich year for news of archaeological projects and finds in the suburbs. The discovery of a catacomb on the ancient Via Tiburtina, during works for a new electricity line, was reported in May 2012. Just 50 cm beneath piazzale del Verano, a network composed of a large central gallery (over 6 m high) and eleven lateral tunnels was explored by the SSBAR, under the supervision of Paola Filippini. About 20% of the 193 loculi had been opened in antiquity, allowing the bones to be studied, most of which proved to belong to male children. Unopened graves were sealed by tiles, with dice, small bells, hair pins and shells set into the mortar; one loculus bore a Chi-Rho in its plaster covering. The network appeared to date to the fourth century, although its full extent could not be revealed — it was thus uncertain whether it belonged to the catacombs associated with San Lorenzo fuori le Mura, or those of Novatian to the north of the Via Tiburtina.Footnote ¹⁴ About one mile further down the Via Tiburtina, between via di Portonaccio and via di Casal Bruciato, works on a new drainage system uncovered a 150 m stretch of the ancient paving flanked by tombs, with the possible remains of a mansio, the whole dating to the period from the first century bc to the second century ad.Footnote ¹⁵

In January 2013 newspapers reported that excavations carried out in conjunction with a new housing project on the via dei Laghi near Ciampino had discovered the remains of the villa of Valerius Messalla Corvinus.Footnote ¹⁶ The site (‘Muro dei Francesi’) had been known since the discovery in a vineyard in 1861 of an inscribed fistula of the proprietor (CIL XV 7849).Footnote ¹⁷ The new finds were made in the summer of 2012 and regarded an exceptional cache of ancient sculpture: seven colossal (over 2 m) statues of the Niobids, discovered in the villa's ancient piscina, where they apparently had fallen in an earthquake in antiquity.

Archaeological work carried out by the SSBAR on the Via Flaminia since 2007 was illustrated by Maria Piranomonte in a lecture to the Pontificia Accademia Romana di Archeologia in February 2013. This included the necropolis encountered during rebuilding works at the Stadio Flaminio, mentioned in our ‘Notes’ for 2008–9.Footnote ¹⁸ Likened to that of the Isola Sacra, the cemetery remained in use from the first century bc to the fourth century ad. On the opposite (west) side of the main road, in the grounds of the Villa Flaminia, a cemetery enclosed by a large boundary wall was discovered, between whose tombs a mass burial of fifteen young men was found. Dating to the second century ad, the bodies showed signs of having been executed brutally. Beyond the Tiber, at the sixth mile of the Via Flaminia (Saxa Rubra), a villa was discovered, occupying at its greatest extent an area of c. 26 ha. Originating in the third century bc, there was a well-preserved Augustan phase (mosaic floors, repaired in the late second century ad), and a bath-house of the second century ad, with habitation continuing into late antiquity. Interestingly, due to the vast number of nails discovered, the excavators supposed that the upper walls were constructed in opus craticum.

The conservation of ancient funerary monuments — and especially the costs involved — was much discussed in the last year. The catalyst for controversy was the decision by the SSBAR to rebury the fragments of the great mausoleum of M. Nonnius Macrinus, a temple-type tomb of the Antonine period discovered on the Via Flaminia in 2008.Footnote ¹⁹ Due to its popular sobriquet of ‘Tomb of the Gladiator’ (ever since the link was made between Macrinus and the protagonist of the Ridley Scott film), the publicity generated was considerable, and even led to much-trumpeted proposals that the actor Russell Crowe might be encouraged to fund the monument's reconstruction.Footnote ²⁰ Private enterprise has proved successful in the ongoing restoration of the Pyramid of Cestius (financed by the Japanese industrialist Yuzo Yagi), and in June 2012 an agreement was reached whereby conservation works at the Catacombs of Saints Peter and Marcellinus would be financed by a foundation set up by the First Lady of Azerbajan, Mehriban Aliyeva.Footnote ²¹ Two restoration projects financed in the more traditional manner are those of the Mausoleum of Maxentius's son, Romulus, aptly completed in time for the anniversary of the Battle of the Milvian Bridge in October 2012 following a four-year campaign by the Sovraintendenza di Roma Capitale, and the Mausoleum of Gallienus, also on the Via Appia (at the sixth mile), whose elaborate vaulting was reported to be in danger of collapse in early 2013.Footnote ²²

Of the welcome category of monuments reopened to the public, a prominent feature of past ‘Notes from Rome’, this year also saw important sectors of the substructures of the Baths of Caracalla made freshly accessible. Open to all visitors is a large stretch of the great central service galleries, running north from the caldarium in front of the southwest façade of the thermal block. Here are displayed some beautifully restored marble architectural decorations, including the gigantic figured capitals from the frigidarium carrying representations of personifications and divinities (Hercules, Bacchus, Mars and Venus). Open by appointment is the restored Mithraeum, situated beneath the exedra of the northwest precinct. This is the largest such cult space in Rome (23 × 9.7 m), paved with a black and white mosaic, and featuring a fragmentary petra genetrix altar and a faded fresco of a Mithras in a side niche. The so-called ‘fossa sanguinis’ (or perhaps a trapdoor for ‘spectacular apparitions’) in the centre of the hall is also visible.Footnote ²³ Another promise maintained (if only briefly) was the opening, for a temporary exhibition of contemporary art, of the ‘Sala dei capitelli’ on the Palatine. The Hadrianic cross-vaulted hall opens off the southeastern corner of the sunken garden stadium and preserves its elaborate painted stucco coffering. Architectural elements stored here include nine monumental Corinthian and composite capitals.Footnote ²⁴

At the Capitoline Museums, the latest exhibition in the Giorni di Roma series, ‘L'età dell'equilibrio’ (4 October 2012–5 May 2013), illustrated changes in sculpture over the course of the second century, using statues, reliefs and sarcophagi drawn principally from the Roman collections (Capitoline and Palazzo Massimo).Footnote ²⁵ Less familiar material was released from storage: an unusual relief of a Dioscurus in red marble with integrations in pavonazzetto, and the sarcophagus, skeleton and grave-goods of Crepereia Tryphaena, whose discovery on the Tiber banks in 1889 was so vividly described by Lanciani:

Other items seldom seen in Rome included exhibits loaned from Turin (the Marengo hoard with its silver bust of Lucius Verus), Dresden (the funerary relief of a butcher's shop, found in Trastevere in 1886) and Paris (the Louvre's enormous 2.5 × 4 m relief of a sacrifice scene from the Forum of Trajan).

An interesting new display relating to an important medieval monument was on show at the Vatican. The marble and mosaic frieze of the Lateran Basilica's medieval portico, dating to the years around 1200, was dismantled during the destruction of the porch in 1732. Subsequently, the cosmatesque elements were reused in a pavement. In 2009 some 31 fragments, for the most part denuded of their mosaic figured decoration, were rediscovered in a store room beneath the Belvedere's Octagonal Court. A conference held at the Vatican Museums in June 2012 illustrated the painstaking reassembly of the fragments, expedited by the cross-referencing of Giovanni Ciampini's illustrations of 1693 and the surviving fragments’ inscribed tituli identifying some of the key scenes. Two of these represented Vespasian's campaign in Judaea (Naves Romani Ducis hae sunt Vespasiani) and the baptism of Constantine (Rex Baptizatur et Leprae Sorde Lavatur).Footnote ²⁷

There has been some reordering of the displays at the Museo delle Terme. The Palazzo Massimo has placed on show four recently-restored fresco lunettes from a late first-century bc tomb at Morlupo, depicting the myth of Hero and Leander and other fluvial scenes.Footnote ²⁸ In the Epigraphic Department, rooms given over to didactic presentations for schools now house the famous epitaph of Lucius Cornelius, the architect of Lutatius Catulus (formerly in the cloister of San Giovanni Calibita on Tiber island),Footnote ²⁹ a fragment of coloured floor mosaic from the Baths of Caracalla depicting an athlete,Footnote ³⁰ a large polychrome floor mosaic from Santa Palomba on the via Ardeatina featuring the head of Medusa, and assorted sculpture (cinerary urns, two mutilated Flavian heads from the Forum Romanum). Aula XI has been reopened to the public, its late antique transformation into a cistern apparent from the cocciopesto lining of the floor and walls. It contains an enormous black and white floor mosaic of Hercules and Achelous discovered at Anzio in 1931.Footnote ³¹ To the display in Aula X has been added the Mars and Venus group borrowed in recent years by Silvio Berlusconi to adorn the Palazzo Chigi, the temporary penis inserted by the ex-prime minister tastefully removed.Footnote ³²

A question frequently asked by scholars and students on arriving in the city is where the fragments of the Severan marble plan may be viewed. Until this year, the answer was ‘nowhere’. Indeed, the last time substantial sections of the plan were on public display was in the 1930s, when the fragments mounted by Lanciani on the garden wall of the Palazzo dei Conservatori were removed to a new but short-lived home in the Antiquarium Comunale of the Caelian.Footnote ³³ The post-war period was the era of the marble plan's two fundamental publications, by the team of Gianfilippo Carettoni and by Emilio Rodríguez Almeida,Footnote ³⁴ when the fragments were removed for study to the attic of the Palazzo Braschi. Thereafter, the pieces remained in boxes in the storerooms of the Museo della Civiltà Romana, to be opened only for Stanford University's digital scanning project in 1999.Footnote ³⁵ In June 2013, four large sectors of the plan were restored to public display at the same Museo della Civiltà Romana, representing the Palatine (Domus Flavia and Area Apollinis), the Forum Romanum and Imperial Fora, the Colosseum (including the Ludus Magnus and Dacicus, with part of the Baths of Trajan), and the central Campus Martius (from the Saepta and Isaeum to the Porticus of Philip and the Crypta Balbi).Footnote ³⁶ The pieces are arranged in Hall XVII, at the four corners of Italo Gismondi's and Pierino Di Carlo's famous plastico of the city, representing the Rome of Constantine on the same 1:250 scale.