A one-day conference held at the American Academy in Rome in March 2015 documented largely unpublished archaeological discoveries made on the Aventine Hill over the last twelve years. Most of the contributions related to the everyday supervision, by the Soprintendenza Speciale per il Colosseo, il Museo Nazionale Romano e l'Area Archeologica di Roma [hereafter SS-Col] (previously the Soprintendenza Speciale per i Beni Archeologici di Roma), of modern building works in private and public contexts. Other papers illustrated material recently brought to light in the archives of the various archaeological superintendencies relating to excavations and demolitions carried out on the hill since the Unification of Italy.Footnote ¹ Most striking was the information concerning élite residences of the late Republic and Empire. Paola Quaranta and Alessandra Capodiferro illustrated the large Antonine domus Pactumeiorum discovered during the construction of Sant'Anselmo in 1892–6, which has now been re-encountered during building works in the modern monastery's western cloister.Footnote ² With the exception of a large cryptoporticus in opus reticulatum, which survives beneath the monastery, only pavement levels had escaped the nineteenth-century interventions. The earliest phases dated to the mid-first century bc (white mosaic with coloured marble insets). Traces of late antique repaving in opus sectile survive, plus one important find that had evaded past archaeologists: a small hoard of bronze coins dating to the later fourth century, representing yet more evidence for the abandonment of houses following the barbarian depredations of the Aventine.Footnote ³ The same speakers documented the fragmentary remains of a large domus lying next to, and at a higher level than, the famous ‘Casa Bellezza’ in via di Santa Prisca.Footnote ⁴ Of the earliest phase, only floor levels were investigated (a cryptoporticus was detected, but not excavated). An opus scutulatum pavement, with marble insets on a black ground, was dated to the first century bc. In the Severan period the building was rebuilt as an insula whose ground-floor rooms were elaborately decorated in a subsequent phase (mosaic floors, imprint of opus sectile pavements and traces of wall revetment). Finally, in the fifth century, a part of the building was adapted for use as a pistrinum: one room contained an oven and a latrine. Substantial remains of a late Republican domus in via Marcella were illustrated by Giulia Ciccarello. Five chambers of a semi-hypogean storey survive beneath a modern house, the whole quite similar to the aforementioned but better preserved Casa Bellezza. The bulk of the surviving decoration (white ground frescoes, stucco borders) dated to the second century ad, but traces of a slightly earlier phase were noted (frescoes, black and white mosaic pavements).

Quaranta also mentioned the discovery, during works for a private garage, of the scanty remains of a tower or bastion projecting from the stretch of the Servian Wall in via di Sant'Anselmo. A pottery deposit in close proximity (perhaps a dump related to the building of the walls) contained fragments dated as far back as the eneolithic period. Overviews were offered of the archaeological remains beneath Santa Sabina (Laura Acampora, Anna Sereni, Maria Carla Somma) and Santa Prisca (Priscilla Armellin, Miriam Taviani). A small (10 cm) fragment of a statue of Ephesian Artemis from the latter site, perhaps associated with the Mithraeum, was illustrated for the first time by Chiara Giobbe.Footnote ⁵ The archaeology of the Lesser Aventine was surveyed by Letizia Rustico and Roberto Narducci, who, with the help of speleologists, had also mapped the hill's extensive caverns, relating to the quarrying of pozzolana and tufa (those beneath via Josafat being particularly imposing). Capodiferro announced the intention to publish the important circular mausoleum lying undisturbed in the grounds of the Villa Pepoli behind the Baths of Caracalla. Often mentioned in overviews of funerary architecture and topography but never receiving any detailed study, the enormous monument (43 m in diameter) is built of concrete faced in opus reticulatum and travertine (now largely despoiled), and contains a circular funerary chamber with five rectangular niches, entered by a radial corridor.Footnote ⁶

In cases of rescue archaeology, especially when documented solely from antiquated reports lodged in archives, it is natural that any wider topographical or architectural detail on individual finds will seldom be forthcoming. Thus, a mass of random discoveries of black and white floor mosaics (under the Banca Nazionale del Lavoro in piazza Albania, and others recorded during the construction in 1949 of the Cistercian monastery between via Marcella and piazza Santa Prisca), sculptural fragments (including a piece of a rare ionic capital decorated with griffins from the Lesser Aventine, related by Sabrina Violante), white-ground frescoes, and an imposing brick structure revealed during demolition in piazza Albania in the 1930s (Paola Chini, on the basis of photographs) were briefly illustrated, but could not, in the current state of knowledge, be contextualized.

The most significant archaeological discoveries over the last year were made during tunnelling for the new Metro C at San Giovanni. Immediately outside the walls in via La Spezia an enormous water basin was partially excavated.Footnote ⁷ Dating to the first century ad and filled from a nearby stream, the structure measured 35 × 70 m, with a capacity of around 4 million litres. The discovery of fragments of a wooden water-wheel hinted at a complex irrigation system. Finds included wicker baskets, a three-pronged gardening fork, and even peach stones. The basin was part of an extensive agricultural establishment originating in the third century bc and probably extending to include the remains of ancient orchards discovered five years ago in via Altamura during earlier soundings for the metro.Footnote ⁸ It is intended that some of the finds and at least a part of the structure will be made visible from the new station at San Giovanni.

The year's most surprising discovery came from the same Metro C building site. In March 2015 it was announced that an astonishing 80 m stretch of the Aurelianic Walls had been uncovered in via Sannio, immediately west of the Porta Asinaria.Footnote ⁹ The remains had been concealed by an immense fill laid down to form an artificial terrace directly in front of San Giovanni in Laterano, when the façade of the church was rebuilt by Alessandro Galilei in the 1730s. Whilst the external face of the walls was refaced in brick during the same project, the internal side was simply buried, leaving a pristine stretch composed of two towers and eleven arches of the gallery to emerge 270 years later. A lecture at Roma Tre University by Ersilia Loreti, the director of the Museum of the Walls, illustrated the discovery, referring in addition to medieval frescoes found inside the monument. It is expected that the walls will remain visible when the new building works are finished. Generally, a state of uncertainty reigns regarding the new metro works, whose impact on the archaeology of the city has been a staple of past ‘Notes from Rome’.Footnote ¹⁰ Beyond San Giovanni the line will have an interchange with Metro B at Colosseo, after first crossing the Caelian, with a new station at via Amba Aradam. Thereafter, its course is uncertain. Whilst the intention remains to traverse the city with a final destination at piazzale Clodio in Prati, it is not now clear whether there will be any stations in the Campus Martius.Footnote ¹¹

Inside the city, works to convert the shell of a large eighteenth-century casamento in via del Tritone into a seven-floor department store revealed substantial remains of the largely unknown Augustan Regio VII. The first newspaper reports appeared in June 2014, and related to discoveries made between August 2012 and October 2013.Footnote ¹² In the space bordered by via del Tritone and via Due Macelli, an entire ancient city-block had been found, occupying an area of 4,000 square metres. The site is crossed by the arcades of the Aqua Virgo and a paved ancient road running for 200 m. The insula includes a bath complex with black and white mosaic pavements featuring marine and mythological subjects. Also mentioned in the reports was the discovery of opus sectile floors, capitals and inscriptions. A project to preserve the remains in the new edifice is awaited.

In May 2015 it was announced that the excavations at the Circus Maximus had retrieved important architectural elements from the Arch of Titus, which closed the monument's curved southern end.Footnote ¹³ One of the monument's plinths and column bases had been visible, in situ, since the works began in 2009, but having reached levels lying beneath the water table, archaeologists from Roma Capitale have now retrieved fragments of the attic and its trabeation, all of Luna marble. Three plinths of the north side of the arch have now been located, standing on a travertine pavement, and there is already talk of anastylosis (that is, restoration using as far as is possible the original architectural elements) being carried out in the near future.

In the suburbs, at Tor Marancia (corner of via Londra and via di Grotta Perfetta) an ancient road bordered by surprisingly early (c. fourth-century bc) tombs came to light during building works. The graves, lying just beneath the ancient ground level, clustered around one principal tomb that was found, unusually, to have had a timber cover.Footnote ¹⁴ Remains of villas were encountered at Tor Vergata and on the ancient Via Tiburtina in modern via de Lollis. At the former site, a large (500 square metres) private bath complex was found, dating to the first century ad.Footnote ¹⁵ The latter villa, of Republican date, was said to contain a ‘hypogean cavea’ as well as polychrome geometric mosaics.Footnote ¹⁶ On the Via Portuensis, an ancient way station came to light during road-widening works between via Belluzzo and via Majorana.Footnote ¹⁷ The remains, which were found to connect to the structures mentioned in the ‘Notes’ for 2009–10, included two bath complexes for separate use by men and women, a 2 m deep cistern, and a small shrine (possibly Christian) surrounded by a necropolis.Footnote ¹⁸ The structures were reburied after being briefly opened to the public, but it is hoped that the finds (a marble labrum, a Vespasianic inscribed cippus, ivory and bone hairpins, a mirror handle, make-up containers) will be displayed in a small antiquarium. Two modest local museums opened elsewhere in the suburbs this year. The Antiquarium Lucrezia Romana, situated in the eponymous road near Ciampino, contains finds (marble and terracotta statuary, architectural marbles, grave-goods) from excavations carried out in the surrounding Appio-Tuscolana zone over the last 25 years.Footnote ¹⁹ The new Museo di Casal de' Pazzi at Rebibbia is devoted to the prehistory of the city, or more precisely the Pleistocene. Didactic three-dimensional digital displays reconstruct the landscape of the surrounding Anio valley 200,000 years ago. Exhibits include fossils, mammoth tusks, flint tools and a human cranium.Footnote ²⁰

The welcome practice of restoring and opening monuments to the public has continued in 2014–15. The completion of the first phase of works to consolidate the Domus Aurea has led to its partial reopening for guided tours at weekends. The new itinerary includes the entire length of the great cryptoporticus and part of the western wing, neither previously accessible (the latter including the Stanza delle Civette and Pinturicchio's graffito signature). A conference illustrating the works was held at the Palazzo Massimo in November 2014. Before restoration of the pictorial remains can commence, the priority has been to address the problems caused to the structure by the overlying Colle Oppio park. The enormous weight of the soil (which increases dramatically during heavy rain) and the penetration of tree roots has caused considerable damage since the park was laid out in the 1920s. With this in mind, a new garden is being planned, starting from the sector above the Neronian octagon. Shrubbery and flowers are favoured over trees, and plants have been selected that require little watering and whose roots impact only lightly on the subsoil.Footnote ²¹ The archaeological discoveries made during the works, which include important information regarding the phases prior to the construction of the Domus Aurea, are to be revealed in a future conference and publication.

Elsewhere in the city, restoration works were related to the continuing commemoration of the bimillenary of the death of Augustus. The accessible areas of the House of Augustus were extended to include the suite of rooms in the northern branch of the lower porticus. Newly enclosed beneath a protective cover of weathering steel (which also accentuates the by now established theory that the house was buried for the construction of the Temple of Apollo), the vividly painted rooms identified as libraries flanking a triclinium were added to an itinerary that includes the rest of the residential complex, as well as the House of Livia. The Palatine Antiquarium has been rearranged and a new catalogue issued.Footnote ²² In addition to didactic video-projections, some new exhibits have been added to the old displays: small clay votives (of the third–second centuries bc) from the Magna Mater, sculpture from the palace (including the seated nymph and Muse from the Stadium), imperial portraits from the Atrium Vestae, and the ‘Palatine Palladium’, a fifth-century bc marble head of Athena, discovered in a storeroom in 1964. Also displayed is the painted fifth-century bc lustral basin from the excavations of the Curiae Veteres, mentioned in last year's ‘Notes’.Footnote ²³

In the Forum, a part of the Basilica Julia and adjacent stretch of the Vicus Jugarius has been opened to the public. The southern aisle and its row of tabernae, some with raised floor levels dating to the period after the Diocletianic rebuilding, may be visited. In the early tenth century a large (8 × 8 m) house was built against the basilica, fronting onto the Vicus Jugarius.Footnote ²⁴ Behind the Temple of Saturn, a complex stratigraphic sequence of structures is visible: archaic drains of cappellaccio are overlaid by a late antique ramp leading towards the Capitol, beside which are fragmentary remains of a two-storey courtyard building of the same date as Munatius Plancus's rebuilding of the temple (the offices of the Aerarium have been suggested).Footnote ²⁵ In view of the hoped-for reopening of the Forum Antiquarium (it has been ‘closed for restoration’ for about 50 years), sculptural pieces from the Lacus Juturnae were released from storage for a temporary exhibition in the Temple of Romulus: the statues of the Dioscuri from the fountain basin (last seen in the Età della conquista exhibition), a headless Apollo, and the altars and well-head, all discovered in Giacomo Boni's excavations of the site in 1900.Footnote ²⁶ The Lacus itself is now visible to the public from a walkway temporarily opened next to the Temple of Castor. Although it has not been displayed to the public yet, a new find was recently made in a drain on the Via Sacra: a marble head belonging to a large statue of Apollo.Footnote ²⁷

The Imperial Fora have been at the centre of a debate concerning the modern urbanism of the city — that is, whether or not to close definitively the via dei Fori Imperiali to traffic, allowing the complete excavation of the monumental piazzas, and so turn almost the entire centre of the city into an ‘archaeological park’.Footnote ²⁸ An additional question concerns the excavations carried out since the 1990s: how to display to the public the often confusing, multiphase remains that are at present scattered across the bottom of a series of unattractive and disconnected open trenches lying to either side of the via dei Fori Imperiali.Footnote ²⁹ An experiment with anastylosis has been effected in the Templum Pacis. The granite colonnade forming the precinct's western porticus is to be reconstructed, using the fragments uncovered in 1998–2000. Seven columns are to be recomposed and re-erected, with a section of the roof with its marble roof-tiles to follow. Two of the seven columns were (almost) ready in time for the annual political and media celebration of Rome's birthday on 21 April.Footnote ³⁰ Meanwhile, in the Forum of Trajan, it was announced that a similar experiment would be attempted with the upper storey of the nave of the Basilica Ulpia. Three cipollino columns are to be raised over the granite colonnade that was re-erected in the 1930s, thus reaching the building's original height of 23 m. The tauroctony (bull-slaying) architraves will be copied from the originals in the Munich Glyptotech, and part of the side aisle will be reconstructed also. The project is expected to take two years.Footnote ³¹ Additional architectural sculpture from the Forum (capitals, Dacians, and griffin and tauroctony friezes) was placed on show at the Markets of Trajan in the two large semicircular halls framing the large exedra. Upstairs in the same complex, a large cistern inserted in the ancient halls in the sixteenth century has been adapted to house an innovative display of the amphora collection of Heinrich Dressel.Footnote ³²

The National Museum at the Baths of Diocletian continues to inaugurate new galleries. The highlight of the year in this respect was the reopening, in October 2014, of the Cistercian cloister of Santa Maria degli Angeli (also known as the Ludovisi cloister, due to the former display there of the eponymous sculpture collection, now exhibited at the Palazzo Altemps). As was announced in 2011, the museum's complete collection of material related to the Sanctuary of the Arval Brothers at the Magliana has now been beautifully restored and imaginatively returned to display, together with the Ludi Saeculares texts of Augustus and Septimius Severus.Footnote ³³ The Arvals' inscriptions are arranged around the branches of the cloister as if on the arcades of the Dea Dia temple porticoes; some antefixes from the building are also exhibited; and casts of the texts now in the Vatican are included to complete the series. In addition to the fascinating nature of the texts themselves, the documents' continuous progression from the reigns of Tiberius to Diocletian allows a matchless opportunity to chart the changes in official script over time. The two great columns bearing the Ludi Saeculares inscriptions have been set up in the fourth branch of the cloister. Also on show are the sculptural finds (Antonine imperial portraits, a herm, an elaborate marble fountain) from the villa on the via Anagnina, whose discovery was mentioned in the ‘Notes’ for 2010–11.Footnote ³⁴

For the first time in decades, it is also possible to visit the enormous space of the natatio of the Baths of Diocletian.Footnote ³⁵ A walkway leads from the museum's newly-opened Aula VIII, allowing a complete stretch of the sequence of the façade niches to be seen, in one of which the great black and white floor mosaic depicting peacocks from the ‘Antiche stanze’ complex at Termini has been suspended (it was for many years displayed in the adjacent underground station).Footnote ³⁶ Elsewhere in the Terme Museum, some finds from the recent excavations at Gabii have been exhibited in the Epigraphic Department, all dating to the late sixth/early fifth century bc: acroteria from the ‘Santuario orientale’ (Typhon, a harpy), a bronze statuette of an augur, and a terracotta plaque showing a Minotaur and a large cat, from the building identified as a Regia.Footnote ³⁷ Across the road at the Palazzo Massimo, a temporary exhibition of ancient Roman calendars was timed to coincide with the aforementioned ‘Bimillenario Augusteo’ celebrations. The Fasti Praenestini from the permanent collections were augmented by the display of parts of the newly-discovered painted Julio-Claudian calendar from Alba Fucens, the stone Fasti Amiterni, and a fine terracotta panel representing the luperci, found in 1869 near the House of Livia.Footnote ³⁸

At the Capitoline Museums, the latest exhibition in the Giorni di Roma series was ‘L'Età dell'Angoscia’, which charted changes in portrait styles and religion from Commodus to the Tetrarchs.Footnote ³⁹ Material that related directly to the city of Rome included the Metropolitan Museum's astonishing nude bronze colossus of Trebonius Gallus, found in the early nineteenth century near the Lateran. An additional, interesting component was the sculpture relating to mystery religions, notably Mithras and Jupiter Dolichenus. The never-before-seen assemblage from the piazza Dante Mithraeum, excavated in 1874, was on display. Normally kept in the storerooms of the Montemartini museum, it consists of an inscribed tauroctony relief, two plaques featuring Mithras petrogenitus and Sol Invictus, and a fine tauroctony in the round. Also reassembled for the first time since seven pieces were displayed at the Aurea Roma exhibition of 2000 was the full collection from the Aventine's Jupiter Dolichenus shrine, comprising an eclectic collection of (mostly reused) statues of divinities and new-made reliefs of the Syrian god and his consort. Some unusual white-ground vault and wall frescoes from a Severan domus beneath the Palazzo delle Esposizioni also were released from storage at the (closed) Caelian Antiquarium. A section on funerary practice included some seldom seen frescoes from Ostia's Via Laurentina necropolis, excavated in the nineteenth century and since then languishing in the storerooms of the Vatican's Gregorio Profano: scenes included Orpheus and Eurydice, the Rape of Proserpina, and the Elysian Fields (this from the Palazzo Massimo stores). Also at the Palazzo dei Conservatori, the red marble Marsyas from the Villa delle Vignacce, mentioned in ‘Notes from Rome’ 2009–10, was briefly on show next to its white marble counterpart from the Esquiline, before being moved (by May 2015) to the Montemartini.Footnote ⁴⁰

At the Museum of the Crypta Balbi, the dense network of ancient streets behind the great exedra, open to guided tours, has expanded to include two newly-excavated spaces, a fullonica, and a chapel to Greek and oriental gods. The modest spaces, situated on the ground floor of an insula, functioned in the second–third centuries, the fullonica perhaps availing itself of urine from the nearby latrine for its industrial activity. By the fifth century the rooms had been transformed into kitchens, serving the workers of adjacent tabernae. The statuettes from the chapel's small alcove-altar are now displayed in the Museum, alongside the material from the Mithraeum: they represent Artemis, Meleagre, Aphrodisian Aphrodite, Dionysius and Isis.Footnote ⁴¹

The final new display inaugurated in 2014–15 is of less public nature, situated as it is in the residence of the British Ambassador at the Villa Wolkonsky. One of the last noble garden residences of Rome, built for the Princess Zenaide Wolkonsky in the 1830s and much added to in later times, the villa was purchased by the British government in 1951. Its collection of sculptural antiquities was assembled by the princess over the course of the nineteenth century from numerous sources: chiefly the antiquarian market, but also from ancient cemeteries at Porta San Paolo and the via Caelimontana, adjoining the villa grounds.Footnote ⁴² The collection has recently been restored, and the results were briefly visible to guests attending a ceremony to inaugurate the works in December 2014.Footnote ⁴³ A new display in the old greenhouse features the smaller pieces, including funerary epigraphy and sculpture, fragments of feldherm sarcophagi, a statue-base bearing the enigmatic inscription translata de schola medicorum, and a near-lifesize dancing satyr. The romantic garden, crossed by imposing arches of the Neronian branch of the Aqua Claudia and containing the three-storey columbarium of the architect Tiberius Claudius Vitalis, is home to additional restored antiquities, many still in the princess's original setting of the allée des morts and the allée des mémoires. Here are seen reliefs from the tombs of liberti, columbaria plaques, a small Athena Parthenos, and the marble feet of a Victory or Tyche alighting on a globe.