Hostname: page-component-7c8c6479df-7qhmt Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-03-29T12:56:05.239Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

The Reception Halls of the Roman Emperors

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 October 2013

Extract

In his admirable paper ‘Ravennatum Palatium Sacrum’ (Det Kgl. Danske Videnskabernes Selskab. Archaeologisk-kunsthistoriske Meddelelser 3, 2. Copenhagen, 1941) Dr. Einar Dyggve has revealed to us the type of the emperors' reception halls—la basilica ipetrale per ceremonie—in the late Roman empire. Analysing in a masterly way the famous mosaic of S. Apollinare Nuovo showing the Palatium of Theoderic, the missorium of Theodosius, the literary evidence for the Magnaura of Constantine, and architectural material, such as the palace of Diocletian in Spalato, from the fourth, fifth, and sixth centuries A.D., he defines a highly monumental tripartite architectural complex consisting of a tribunalium, also to be styled atrium or basilica discoperta, with a triumphal arch at its upper end, then a triclinium behind the atrium, and finally a most holy innermost absidal room, a choir.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The Council, British School at Athens 1951

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Cf. the collection of plans and discussion in Krautheimer's, R.The Carolingian Revival of Early Christian Architecture’, The Art Bulletin XXIV (March 1942), 1 ff.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

2 H. P. L'Orange has made most inspiring and in parts excellent observations about Oriental influence, adding much of the greatest interest to our knowledge, but cf. my criticism of his ‘Domus Aurea—Der Sonnenpalast’ (Serta Eitremiana, 1942, 68 ff.) in Eranos Rudbergianus (Eranos XLIV (1946), 442 ff.). Replying in Keiseren pd himmeltronen (Oslo 1949), 53, the brilliant Norwegian scholar in my view altogether misses the point. I still believe with L'Orange that the revolving praedpua cenationum rotunda of the Neronian Domus Aurea (Suetonius, Nero 31 ) had Oriental ancestry and cosmic meaning. But I also still insist that L'Orange's far-reaching conclusions about the rest of the Domus Aurea are unfounded (cf. p. 28). Above all, I insist that L'Orange ought more fully to realise the importance of the evident Roman tradition in the Domus Aurea: rus in urbe (Martial XII 57, 21), the Roman villas, the architectural type of the porticus villa used for the main casino of the villa (cf. already Swoboda, H., Römische und romanische Paläste, 2nd ed., 1924, 51Google Scholar), the dome with revolving stars, described by Varro, , De r. r. III 5, 17Google Scholar (the fact is mentioned by L'Orange, loc. cit. Cf. Lehmann, , ‘The Dome of Heaven’, The Art Bulletin XXVII (March 1945), 19).Google Scholar The whole picture becomes dogmatic, one-sided, and unreal, if we do not observe the fascinating interchange between local and late imported elements, because of exaggerated interest for the latter.

I must emphasise, in. any case, that architectural tradition is one thing, use and meaning another. The fact that we have a luxurious dome, with ingenious imitation of stars and heaven, in the aviarium described by Varro, does not of course by any means exclude the possibility that the same features in the Imperial palace had a religious, cosmic meaning. In both cases the Oriental ancestry seems evident—the wooden domes in the Near East (cf. Lehmann, op. cit. i ff., and now Smith, E.Baldwin, The Dome. A Study in the History of Ideas. Princeton 1950).Google Scholar It is, however, necessary to observe how early such an achievement as the dome in question was introduced into Roman villa architecture, the main source, that is, of the Roman tradition of the Domus Aurea more than one hundred years later. The new influences from the Orient in Imperial times met with clearly exemplified and already rooted Hellenistic-Oriental achievements of the same kind in Italy. This should, of course, make us careful in our conclusions. The early appearance of wooden domes in Italy, stressed by Lehmann, is further of greatest importance for the whole history of that architectural type. In Italy domes, thanks to the Roman concrete, reached greater proportions and a monumental stability obviously unknown elsewhere or earlier. The Augustan domes of Baiae, and others also, show us how early this new, Roman, epoch in the history of domed architecture started. Without losing sight of the basic Eastern inspiration, we see here the Oriental legacy returning from Rome in a form amplified by its technique and by its grandeur, and of the greatest importance for what seem to be the original homelands.

3 Cf. my summary ‘Three Roman Contributions to World Architecture’, Festskrift tillägnad J. Arvid Hedvall (Gothenburg 1948), 59 ff. I am happy to see how many of the ideas discussed in my contributions, and quoted also in notes 5 and 7, I have in common with G. Rodenwaldt and B. Schweitzer; cf. especially ‘Die spätantiken Grundlagen der mittelalterlichen Kunst’, Leipziger Universitätsreden 16, Leipzig 1949.

4 Wendel, C., ‘Armarium legum’, Akademie der Wissenschaften in Göttingen, Philol.-hist. Klasse 19461947, 9.Google ScholarBudde, E. G., Armarium und κιβωτός, Diss. Münster 1939Google Scholar, fig. 44 ff. Cf. Schefold, K., Orient, Hellas und Rom in der archäologischen Forschung seit 1939 (Bern 1949), 162.Google Scholar

5 I have summarised literature and discussion in ‘Roman and Greek Town Architecture’ in Göteborgs Högskolas Årsskrift LIV (1948), 3.

6 Cf. Gjerstad, E., ‘Die Ursprungsgeschichte der römischen Kaiserfora’, and the literature quoted by him in Acta instituti romani regni Sueciae X (Opuscula archaeologica III, Lund 1944), 40 ff.Google Scholar

7 Cf. Rodenwaldt, , JdI LV (1940), 12 ff.Google Scholar, and—for earlier discussion—my ‘Roman Architecture from its Classicistic to its Late Imperial Phase’, Göteborgs Högskolas Årsskrift XLVII (1941). 8.

8 Phil. II 43, 110. Cf. Florus II 13, 91, Obsequens 67. That a gable over the entrance—such as the gods had in their shrines—meant consecration, is testified for instance by Cicero, , De oratore III 180Google Scholar, Bekker, , Anec. Gr. I 361Google Scholar, and others. It was a Caesar appeared as deus and dominus, when he received the Senate in the entrance hall of the temple of Venus Genetrix (Suetonius, Divus Julius 78). Cf. Wistrand, E., Eranos XXXVII (1939), 40.Google Scholar

9 See especially ‘Domus Aurea—Der Sonnenpalast’, discussed in note 2.

10 Lately in Keiseren på himmeltronen, 53.

11 For the date of the building cf. Robothan, Dorothy M., ‘The Midas Touch of Domitian’, TAPA LXXIII (1942), 132.Google ScholarBloch, H., ‘I bolli laterizi e la storia edilizia romana’, Bulletino Comunale LXIV (1936), 29 ff.Google Scholar See also Card Bourne, Frank, The Public Works of the Julio-Claudians and Flavians (Princeton 1946)Google Scholar, with Bloch, 's criticism AJP LXX 100.Google Scholar For the later history of the building cf. Tea, Eva, La basilica di Santa Maria Antiqua (Milan 1937.Google Scholar In the Pubblicazioni della Università católica del Sacro Cuore, ser. 5, vol. XIV).

12 Dyggve, , op. cit., 5, 54 and passim.Google Scholar

13 De mortibus persecutorum 7.

14 Boëthius, A., ‘Das Stadtbild im spätrepubli kanischen Rom’, Acta instituti romani regni Sueciae IV (Opusculo archaeologica I, Lund 1935), 182 ff.Google Scholar

15 For the latest discussion of this passage of Vitruvius' work cf. Pellati, F., ‘La basilica di Fano e la formazione del trattato di Vitruvio’, Pontificia accad. romana di arch., Rendiconti, vol. XXIII–XXIV (19471949). 153 ff.Google Scholar

16 Cf. already Hanell, K., ‘Zur Entwicklungs-geschichte des griechischen Tempelhofes’, Acta instituti romani regni Sueciae II (Lund 1932), 228 ff.Google Scholar