The Imperial Fora, Rome - 18

by AM FineArtPrints

Title

The Imperial Fora, Rome - 18

Artist

AM FineArtPrints

Medium

Painting - Painting

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The Imperial Fora, Rome - 18 by Andrea Mazzocchetti

The Fori Imperiali constitute a series of monumental plazas built over the course of a century and a half (between 46 BC and 113 AD) in the heart of the city of Rome by the emperors.
On the other hand, the Roman Forum is not part of the old republican square, whose first settlement dates back to the royal age (6th century BC) and which had been for centuries the political, religious and economic center of the city, but which had not never a unitary character.
Under Caesar and Augustus, the construction of the Basilica Giulia and the rebuilding of the Basilica Emilia, which bordered the long sides of the square, gave the Forum a certain regularity.
Julius Caesar decided to build a large square in his name, which was inaugurated in 46 BC, probably still incomplete, and was then finished by Augustus.
Unlike the Roman Forum it was a unitary project: a square with arcades on the long sides and with the center of the back side the temple dedicated to Venus Genetrix, from which Julius Caesar claimed to descend through Iulo, the ancestor of the gens Iulia , son of Aeneas, in turn son of the goddess.
Caesar paid the land on which the new monument was to rise from his own pocket. Moreover, having been in charge of the reconstruction of the Curia, the seat of the Senate, after its destruction in a fire, he changed its traditional and ritual orientation according to the cardinal points, so that instead it was adapted to that of the new Forum.
The new piazza took up the model of the porticoes built around the temples that the most important and influential politicians of the last century of the Republic had been building in the Circus Flaminio area and had the same aims of personal propaganda and consensus research. However, the proximity to the old center increased its effect.
Octavian had promised a temple to Mars Ultore (ie "Avenger") on the occasion of the battle of Philippi of 42 BC, in which he and Mark Antony had defeated Caesar's killers and therefore avenged his death. The temple was actually inaugurated only after 40 years, in 2 BC, inserted in a second monumental square: the Forum of Augustus.
Compared to the Forum of Caesar the new complex was arranged orthogonally and the temple of Mars leaned against a very high wall, still preserved, which divided the monument from the popular district of Suburra. The arcades that stood on the long sides, opened to the shoulders in large exedras (covered semicircular spaces), destined to host the activities of the courts. They were also enriched by statues of real and mythological figures from the history of Rome and members of the Giulia family, with inscriptions listing their businesses, and in the central niches the groups of Aeneas and the statue of Romulus.
Also in this case the construction of the complex was linked to the propaganda of the new regime and all its decoration celebrates the new golden age that was to be inaugurated with the principality of Augustus.

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February 14th, 2019

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