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3.3 Sanctuaries and the Expressive Potential of Roman Concrete Construction
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Roman Architecture
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Technology and Revolution in Roman Architecture
The Revolution in Roman Architecture through the widespread adoption of opus caementicium (concrete) used for expressive as well as practical purposes.
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Diana E.E. KleinerDunham Professor of History of Art and Classics at Yale University
History Of Art
Even more, much more interesting in fact, is the building that I'd like to turn
to now. And this is the so-called Sanctuary of
Jupiter Anxur at Terracina. It dates, we believe, to 100 to 70
BC and it is like so many Roman buildings, spectacularly sited.
I had mentioned this on several occasions.
We looked at the Medieval Hill town of Corey
for example, where the Temple of Hercules was located at the very apex of the hill.
The Romans had an incredible knack for choosing
extraordinary locations on which to site their buildings.
Locations that made those buildings, that
accentuated those buildings, from a distance.
But also gave those who went to the
buildings amazing views out of, from those buildings.
This is one of those examples.
The Sanctuary
of Jupiter Anxur at Terracina.
The best view of this sanctuary is from the sea.
If you happen to be fortunate enough to be floating on a boat
somewhere near Terracina, that's a beautiful
place to float, you will see from
a distance, the great podium of the sanctuary of Jupiter Anxur
there, but you can also see it from the town which is where were situated here.
Were standing in the town,
couple of decent pizzerias right in front of us and we're
looking up at the hill, on which the sanctuary finds itself.
Now as you look up to that hill, all you can actually see
is all that's actually up there now, which is the podium of the sanctuary.
The temple is no longer there.
Although there's some evidence up there.
Some remains that give us a decent sense
of what that temple looked like in antiquity
but the podium is extremely well preserved and you see
it again magnificently cited at the top of that hill.
This is a restored view of what the podium would have looked like and you see,
what we know what the podium, what the podium does look like as we see it here.
And as it would have supported the temple on top and also a back columnar element
over here that was roofed, as you can see.
If we look at this plan in this restored view,
excuse me, we see several things that are worth noting.
One, that the temple itself is very much a traditional building.
And one that is very much in the tradition indeed
of the buildings, of the temples, that we've already discussed.
This combination of, of, of Etruscan plan and of
Greek elevation that we saw in so many of these.
You can see for example, they, and again there's enough evidence for
us to be pretty sure that this is what it looked like.
High podium, single staircase, emphasis on the facade, deep porch, freestanding
columns in that porch, but columns that seem to have encircled the monument.
So this combination of, and stone construction we think so
a combination once again of Etruscan and Greek elements for the temple.
You'll probably notice that the temple is slightly skewed.
The angle of the temple is skewed.
It's not straight on with the podium, which is very unusual for the Romans.
We'll see that the Romans were very interested
in everything being exactly as it should be.
Axial, symmetrical, both sides matching; it's very unusual for them to
skew something like this. Why did they do it?
It probably has something to do with either with something that was already
on the site some, some other buildings that force them to do this.
Or having something to do with the particular God who
was honored here on the, in the you know, the location
the way they wanted that to be in relationship to
Various elements of the rights or east-west or, you know, whatever.
I mean it was su-, the,
the, there was something that, that caused them to put
this in the position that they did, and you can also
see that it isn't, it, it has this back collonade behind
it, covered collonade behind it, but it isn't attached to it.
In any way, which is also unusual, as we'll see.
The podium, you see down here, made up of a series of arcades, and
you can see once again both axial and lateral access because just as in the
Porticus Aemilia, they have created smaller arcades in the side piers to allow
this kind of axiality in the structure, or movement through the structure.
In more than one way.
The podium is extremely well preserved as you can see, and extremely impressive.
It's an extraordinary place to go. It's a lot of fun to go there to see this.
It's off the beaten track
to a certain extent, but it is on the road between Rome and
Naples, so that when one is going from Rome down to Pompeii you
know, this is the sort of the thing one can stop and take
a look at under some other interesting things along the way as well.
We see here the great podium as it looks today.
It's made out of concrete.
You can see both the the large arcades
and then these lateral ones that I mentioned before.
in, in, the interior
face of the peers.
You can also see that they have used Opus incertum facing here.
These are regular stones all bunched together to create an attractive
appearance although this was probably stuccoed in antiquity and then they have
used a stone blocks to emphasize the juncture of, of each of
these walls but also to help give the building increased stability.
So this combination of stone, well, it's all stone, but this combination of blocks
of stone and a smaller office in
opus-incartum stones for the facing of the podium.
And here's a wonderful view, I think that shows
you a panorama through a number of these lateral arches
and gives you some sense of how carefully orchestrated
this was by the architect who is responsible for this.
It's never
too early for me to emphasize that the Romans were very concerned
with creating vistas and panorama from one part of a building to another.
From one part of a complex to another.
And they never, they never lost an opportunity to do that.
So that, as you stand and look through a series of these lateral
arches, you can see how carefully arranged that was to pay attention not only.
To the way in which the arches you can see them
in a series as you can see here, looking almost as
if they're diminishing in size, although they aren't really but also,
this idea of creating exciting visual experiences as you walk through something.
Not just to walk through it but to see something that really amazes
you and that fascinates you and that, that creation of vista and panorama,
both panorama out onto the country side from the hilltop
but also a panorama or vista through a building is something
quintessentially Roman and we'll see it turning up again and
again and again in, as a major objective of Roman architecture.
A view once again of the restored view of the sanctuary.
The sanctuary had below it a underground passageway
called a cryptoporticus and I put that word on your monument list for you.
A cryptoporticus that was used essentially for
storage for storage purposes for this sanctuary.
And believe it or not we actually have the
crytoporticus Still preserved and we can look at it.
and it's interesting because here too, we see the architects
using concrete construction, creating a barrel vaulted corridor in this
case with windows on the end and then a few doorways and some slip windows.
All of them arched as you can see here.
To allow light into the structure.
It was used, as I said for storage purposes.
Storage having to do with occult. And so on and so forth.
It's very important.
We're going to look at a couple of other sanctuaries as well to keep in
mind that these sanctuaries were meant they
were different than an individual temple in
a, in a forum inside an urban complex.
They were meant to draw pilgrims from a long, from far and wide.
Which is one of the reasons that they were placed in such prominent
positions on tops of mountains so that you wouldn't hesit, you know, if you
were driving, driving by, if you were going by in your cart or whatever
and, and saw this from a distance or coming by sea in a boat.
Seeing it from the distance you would be drawn.
It would be like a mecca,
that you would be drawn to.
So these sanctuaries were meant to attract large numbers of people to them
so they needed to provide not just the temple itself but other things.
And they often they were like malls.
They often included shopping areas, souvenir shops.
shopping, shopping stores for local specialties and that kind
of thing in order to encourage people to visit.
I'd like to turn to another, also very interesting sanctuary.
That was put up at around this time.
This is the sanctuary of Hercules at Tivoli and it was erected, we
believe, sometime between 75 and 50 BC in Tivoli.
It is an incredible place, it is not
so different from the Sanctuary of Jupiter Anxur in
its general intentions creating this this mecca for,
religious activity and also just a place that people would enjoy coming to,
and gathering together in, you know, in for social interaction we
see a restored view of what it looked like in antiquity.
It is similar to, and different from the Jupiter Anxur sanctuary.
Just like the Jupiter Anxur sanctuary, it rests on
a very tall on a tall and large podium,
as you can see, the temple doesn't stand in
isolation, but is raised up on this large podium.
You can see that it has a temple in the center, this
one, completely, you know, pushed up
against the back wall and completely straight.
So axial, and a- a-, created ax-,
an axial relationship to the podium.
The temple, we believe, was also one of these
traditional types of temples, with the tall podium, with
the staircase on one side, with the columns going
around at least three sides, deep porch, free standing columns.
In that porch, raised up on its all, on
its own podium and then the larger podium down below.
One of the features that we see here
that we did not see in the Jupiter Anxur sanctuary is the use of the
circular stair case here which adds drama to the design.
It's also on access with the staircase of the temple itself.
But it also serves as a kind of, it shaped like a theater a theater cavea,
we call it a cavea, the ceiling, C-A-V-E-A,
the cavea of a theater, it shaped just
like that as you can see here.
And we believe its purpose was not so much as a monumental entrance
way or monumental staircase although it served that purpose to a certain extent.
But also as a place where people could gather,
and could sit, and probably watch performances, religious performances
perhaps, or perhaps other kinds of performances, in front
of this in front of the Temple of Hercules.
And there may have been some kind of a stage building.
There was a wall here.
So there may have been also some kind of
stage building in front of that semi-circular seated area.
This is another, this is another restored view showing
you the same you can perhaps see that theatrical
area better here again serving as a dramatic staircase
but at the same time is a place for performances.
Could take place at this at this structure but
all the other features are apparent and I want you
to pay a special attention, special attention to the fact
that we have the temple pushed up against the back
wall; not one of the short back walls, but
while none of them are short here, but against the
long back wall as you can see, but pushed
up against it dominating the space in front of it.
We're going to see when we turn to Pompeii on Thursday, that this same
idea of pushing a temple against a back wall, is characteristic of forum design.
The design of meeting and market places, as it is, for, sanctuary design.
The sanctuary of Hercules at Tivoli has has, is, is, is preserved in part, and I
can show you one very interesting detail, which is what you see now on the screen.
We are looking at part, at, at we may
have, let me go back for a second just to...
Point this out, if you look at the back, if you look at
along the sides and the back, you will see that there are columns
above and then columns with art, with arcade, it's arcades and columns in
the first story and then columns on their own in the upper story.
So what I'm going to show you now is a section
of the lower story of the Sanctuary of Hercules at Tivoli.
And we can see that what we have here
is a very important combination.
It's the first time we've seen this today, of arches with columns interspersed.
Columns placed engaged or attached to the wall in between
These arcades, as you can see here. The construction is concrete.
The facing is a combination of stone. Look at the blocks, the ashlar blocks.
And the voussoirs, above the arches.
And Opis Incaretum work for the walls, as you can see here.
But the scheme of columns in between arcades, extremely important.
This is, this is, this is setting in place the kind of scheme
that we're going to see used for buildings like the Colosseum in Rome.
So extremely important. There's one detail here.
There's one detail about the columns though, I
wonder if anyone notices, that makes them different than
any other columns that we've seen thus far this term.
Does anyone see what that is?
They definitely don't, yes, a good point.
I thought that wasn't the one I had in mind but you are absolutely right and it
leads to a very, to an another point I
am going to make in the not to distant future.
They don't support anything.
They are used here.
The building is supported by the concrete construction.
The columns don't have any support role whatsoever.
They are, they are entirely For decorative purposes.
So, excellent point and still one more.
Look at the facing of the column. What does that tell you?
What is it? What kind of facing?
Opus Incertum. Opus Incertum, which means what?
The columns are made of concrete too.
The columns are not made out of stone but the columns in this instance,
it's unusual, but the columns in this
instance made out of concrete and also faced.
With opus incertum work.
A view again of the complex, just to make the point that as at the sanctuary
of Jupiter Anx-, Anxur, there is an underground passage way, a cryptoporticus.
But in this case, and you
can see it's underneath the left side of the sanctuar.
But in this instance, in this instance interestingly enough,
this isn't just a storage area, it's actually a street.
The ancient name for Tivoli was Tibur, T-I-B-U-R.
There was a street called the Viati Britina
that made its way from Rome to Tivoli.
And this this underground passageway was actually the street the street ran
underneath the Sanctuary.
That street or that part of the street
that ran under the Sanctuary can still be seen
today and you can see it looks almost like
you know an underground subway or something like that.
You can see barrel vaulted area with a
series of nitches over here probably for shops.
So that along the way you could stop and, and shop at the at beneath the sanctuary.
So an, a,
a street in this case that is part of the Via Tiburtina leaving from Rome to Tivoli.
