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12.3 The Colosseum: Icon of Rome
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Roman Architecture
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The Creation of an Icon: The Colosseum and Contemporary Architecture in Rome
The Flavian dynasty of Vespasian, Titus, and Domitian. Vespasian linked himself to Divus Claudius by completing the Claudianum, distanced himself from Nero by destroying part of the Domus Aurea, filling in the artificial lake and replacing it with the Colosseum. Titus commissioned Rome's first preserved example of the "imperial bath type," characterized by grand scale, axiality, and symmetry.
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Diana E.E. KleinerDunham Professor of History of Art and Classics at Yale University
History Of Art
The greatest of the most famous building that was put up by the
Vespasian in the Flavian period [COUGH] was the so-called Colosseum.
Which he bagan in the year 70 AD, so contemporanious to the
To the construction of the Claudianum but it wasn't finished until after his death.
He died in 79, he was emperor for nine years died of natural causes.
It wasn't completed until his son Tides became emperor, and
Tides completed it and dedicated it in the year 80.
We see a view of the Colosseum from above,
a Google Earth image of the Colosseum, from above.
It was a very large amphitheater that could hold 50,000 people.
It was made of concrete, as we shall see. And this aerial view is very helpful
because it shows its relation it shows its scale, its size.
It shows that in Rome today it serves as a
kind of giant traffic circle, as you can see here.
The Romans love the Colosseum because it is an icon
of their civilization but at the same time they hate it
and they're always say it would, would that it we could
just get rid of it so that traffic would be smoother.
In this part of Rome.
And in fact there was a scheme a number of years ago now,
probably several decades ago by now, there was a Texan who
was actually interested in buying the Colosseum and bringing it to Texas.
To display on his ranch.
And fortunately, Italy gave some though to that but they decided,
obviously, that they were not going to part with the Colosseum.
And fortunately, it has stayed intact,
and I don't think the Romans would have been too happy about that at the end
of the day, despite the fact that they curse it out on a fairly regular basis.
But we see it here, and it's useful view because it shows it in conjunction
to so many of the other buildings
and complexes we've been talking about thus far
this semester, we're looking back from it
toward the later arch of Constantine that we'll
look at at the very end of the course, the Palatine hill in the upper left.
Roman
Forum beginning over here, with the Temple of Venus and Roma that
was done in the second century; we'll talk about that also later.
Here the great Via dei Fori Imperiali, designed at the behest of Mussolini.
And on the right side, of course, the Imperial Fora, with the Forum of
Julius Caesar and the Forum of Augustus That we have also looked at this semester.
So here, here you
see it here.
And then I'm going to show you once again the site plan of Nero.
Because it's important to know one of the most important
things to know about this monument is where it was sited.
And where sited shows us again how incredibly
shrewd Vespation was when it came to establishing
a political agenda and when it came to trying to court the favor of the public.
He decided to raise, we, I mentioned this before.
He raised to the ground nero d'avola Destroyed it.
Destroyed it, despite the fact that it had been done by
these great architects, despite the fact that it had revolving ceilings.
Would have been a really cool place for him to live himself.
Think about it. He and his dynasty.
But he decided to raze it to the ground
for political reasons to discredit Nero, and, and he
hoped to gain favor with the populace. And what he did smartly.
Was to say, What I am going to do with this property?
I'm going to return this property to the Roman people.
I'm going to build on it something that they would really like to have.
So what he does is he fills in the artificial lake, and he uses the area on
which the artificial lake was originally Located to build the Colosseum.
He puts the Colosseum right on the location of the artificial lake.
And the message is clear.
What did the Roman people want more than anything else.
They wanted another, they wanted an amphitheater.
Where they could go to a large amphitheater where 50,000
of them could pack in and watch animal and gladiatorial combats.
There is no better way to gain favor with the Roman populous
than to build a building like this, and to build it on
top of Nero's pleasureable artificial lake, pleasureable only for
himself, was a huge coup on the part of Vespasian.
And we see that happening here and right in proximity.
to the Temple of Divine Claudius.
Notice the fact also that the, the location
of the Colosseum very close to the Colossus.
The name of the Colosseum was really the Flavian Amphitheater,
after the family name Flavius, the Flavian
amphitheater, that's how it was known in antiquity.
But it is, it, it came quickly to be known as the Colosseum,
not because of it's colossal scale which is most people think, but because of
the Colossus, because of this statue Of of Zenador that stood nearby and
by the way, the other thing that Vespasion did was to have the features
of Nero erased on that portrait and to make them
into the more generic features of the sun god Saul himself.
So the statue continued to stand.
But it was fixed up it was redone, remade.
So it would look like Saul and not like Nero.
But again the Colosseum takes its name from that.
So if you were in any, we used to have a Colosseum here [LAUGH].
In New Haven. But if, if, if you
were in the future in any arenas that are called
Colosseums you'll know that, that name goes back to the colossal.
Of Nero the Colossus of Soul, not to the Colosseum itself ultimately.
Although I think those who named those arenas
were obviously thinking about the Colosseum in Rome.
So the location of this, of the Colosseum, extremely important.
And a, and a political statement on, on Vespasian's part and
we see the, this man, this Emperor of Rome Vespasian Very cleverly using
architecture to, to to further his own personal and political agenda.
This view, also, this plan, cross section and assymetric view that all come
form Ward Perkins are also very helpful in us getting a sense of this building.
And I think, you can see
very quickly That like all other amphitheaters,
it had an oval or elliptic plan.
It was built up with concrete, a series of barrel and an annular vaults.
And those, that elliptic plan included essentially radiating barrel vaults that,
barrel vaulted ramps and passage ways and a series of annular vaulted corridors.
That provide
lateral circulation and that are buttressed by the thrust of the seeding.
So it's a scheme that we know already from the amphitheater at Pompeii.
We know it also particularly well from the Theater of Marcellus in Rome.
The Theater of Marcellus in Rome was just down the street practically.
I'll show you an aerial view later to show you its proximity.
To the Colosseum, not right next to it but within striking distance.
And it clearly the experiments, the
architectural experiments of the Augustan period at
the theater of Marcellus were very
important in terms of this particular design.
It basically follows the same general scheme.
The major difference of course is that
since the theater of Marcellus was a theater.
It was semi-circular in plan, whereas
amphitheater architecture is always elliptical in plan.
And that is the case also for
the Colosseum.
If we look at the, I mentioned that there are annular vaulted corridors.
We're looking at the corridor on the first floor.
Of the Colosseum.
And you can see very quickly that it is of course made of concrete.
How else would you get these annular vaults that you see here.
They're very well preserved.
They're easy to study.
And you can see that those, those annular vaults rest on
great stone piers. These stone piers made out of travertine.
And you can see that extremely well in this particular view.
On the, that's the first floor.
On the second floor, however, we see something entirely innovative and that is
The introduction of a new form of vault that we haven't seen before.
This is the
so-called groin or ribbed vault.
Spelled exactly as you would think it would be, g r o i n.
A groin vault or the ribbed vault.
And you get when you, when you take two barrel vaults and make
them intersect, the angles that you get create this kind of groin vault.
And I show you a diagram here, which makes that clear, I think, to you.
And then a view of the second story corridors to show you these
actual groin vaults, these ribbed vaults that you see
here which are very interesting and add something, I think
to these structures and they become very, very popular
after they begin to be used in the Flavian period.
They become very popular and we'll see the
proliferation of groin walls from this time on.
So.
We talked, I talked at the beginning about what,
you know what, what is consu, what, what, what is,
are the innovations of Nero's domus aurea continued under the Flavians.
Well we know that they, the architects of Nero did not use groin vaults.
But they were very interested in the free flow of space
and that interest in the free flow of space continues here
as does experimentation with concrete, and we see it in the
use of these groin vaults on the second story of the Colosseum
in Rome.
When you visit the Colosseum in Rome today, you'll
note that it does seem quite stripped bare, unfortunately.
But it's important for you to be aware of the fact
that it too was highly decorated with so many other Roman buildings.
And we do have engravings that were made.
Engravings and paintings that were made when the Colosseum was in
better condition and when some of that Stucco and painted decorations
still existed.
And I show you two Drawings here that give you some sense of
that, and you can see that all the surface was covered with stucco.
And then with figural decoration, all of which was painted.
Both the the vaults themselves as you can see above, and the corridors
all of that a very elaborately decorated in ancient Roman times.
This is obviously
an exterior view of the Colosseum in Rome, the
exterior of the building is actually quite well preserved.
And I think as you gaze out at it, you certainly are struck by
the similarity of the scheme to the scheme of the Theater of Marcellus in Rome.
In this case, the Theater of Marcellus
appears to have had three stories, only two
of which are currently Preserved this had four
storeys, four tiers, as you can see here.
Again the structure itself is concrete, the facing is travertine.
We see these great arches, these great arcades, just as
we saw them in the Theater of Marcellus And then also
just like the scheme of the theater of marcellus columns that
are placed in between those arches on the first three stories.
The columns in between those arches on the first
three stories just as the theater of marcellus have
no structural purpose whatsoever.
They do not hold the building up as they would have in a Greek or Etruscan context.
They are, the building is held up by the barrel and the
annular, the barrel and annular vaults that are made out of concrete.
So these, these columns Have no structural purpose whatsoever.
And they are here, essentially, as the icing on the cake.
As ornamentation, or
decoration, but ornamentation or decoration that has certain meaning to it.
A meaning that certainly, Conjures up ancient Greece, because you
can see here that they have used all the Greek orders.
The Doric order, the Ionic order in the second
story, the Corinthian order, all of these are engaged columns.
The Corinthian order in the third story.
And then on the fourth story we see they use pilasters.
These are Corinthian
pilasters once again.
So Doric, Ionic, Corinthian, Corinthian again at
the uppermost part, columns that have no
structure that are used here as pure
decoration but decoration that again has ideological connection.
At the very top, you can see the detail of the pilasters.
Between them you see some Travertine [COUGH] excuse me, blocks,
that are brackets that stick out. Those were to support the wooden poles.
That you'll remember from our conversation about the amphitheater at
Pompeii supported the awning that was used when there was rain.
Two more views of the exterior of the Colesseum, a little bit closer up.
Where you can see very well here the Doric order in the first story.
Travertine facing.
The ionic order in the second story, and then the Corinthain engaged columns here
and the Corinthian plasters and then also the brackets extremely
well preserved. On the Panth-, on the Colosseum in Rome.
