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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 31 October 2011
The article explores how, when and why Pirro Ligorio (c. 1513–83) chose to link a sanctuary dedicated to Minerva Medica, listed in the fourth-century ad Regionary Catalogues of the monuments of Rome as being on the Esquiline, with the late antique decagonal pavilion, near Termini, which had the second largest dome in Rome after the Pantheon. It establishes that the catalyst was the unearthing of several statues, including one of Minerva, in 1552. The fate of these finds is examined, as well as Ligorio's attempt to locate the mysterious Schola Medicorum on the same site.
Con l'articolo si indaga come, quando e perché Pirro Ligorio (ca. 1513–83) scelse di legare un santuario dedicato a Minerva Medica, citato nei Cataloghi Regionari del IV secolo d.C., che elencavano i monumenti di Roma come situati sull'Esquilino, con il padiglione tardo-antico decagonale situato vicino la stazione Termini, che aveva la seconda più grande cupola a Roma dopo il Pantheon. Il saggio stabilisce che il catalizzatore fu la scoperta di molte statue, inclusa quella di Minerva, nel 1552. Viene esaminato il destino di questi ritrovamenti e ugualmente il tentativo di Ligorio di individuare la misteriosa Schola Medicorum sullo stesso sito.
This is an expanded version of the W.T.C. Walker Lecture given at the British School at Rome in November 2009. I gratefully acknowledge the help of Marco Carassi, Silvia Orlandi, Domenico Palombi, Emanuele Papi, Federico Rausa and Giandomenico Spinola in the preparation of this paper.
1 See the ground-breaking study by Fagiolo, M. and Madonna, M.L., ‘La Casina di Pio IV in Vaticano. Pirro Ligorio e l'architettura come geroglifico’, Storia dell'Arte 15/16 (1972), 238–91Google Scholar.
2 See Canina, L., Indicazione topografica di Roma antica (Rome, 1831), 88–9Google Scholar, and Duchesne, L. (ed.), Le Liber Pontificalis, 3 vols (Paris, 1886–1957)Google Scholar, I, 249. Guidobaldi, F., ‘Il ‘Tempio di Minerva Medica’ e le strutture adiacenti: settore privato del Sessorium Costantiniano’, Rivista di Archeologia Cristiana 74 (1998), 485–518Google Scholar, at p. 492, pointed out that Famiano Nardini, in his Roma antica (Rome, 1666), 159–60Google Scholar, already had linked the pavilion with the ‘Palatium Licinianum’.
3 Nibby, A., Roma, nell'anno 1838, 4 vols (Rome, 1838–41)Google Scholar, parte antica, II, 328–39.
4 Rizzo, S., ‘Horti Liciniani’, in Steinby, E.M. (ed.), Lexicon Topographicum Urbis Romae, 6 vols [henceforth LTUR] (Rome, 1993–2000), III, 64–6Google Scholar, still discussed the structure in the context of Gallienus and dated the pavilion to the second half of the third century. On the Sessorian connection, see Colini, A.M., ‘Horti Spei Veteres, Palatium Sessorianum’, Memorie della Pontificia Accademia Romana di Archeologia 7 (1955), 157–77Google Scholar and, crucially, Guidobaldi, ‘Il ‘Tempio di Minerva Medica’’ (above, n. 2), 500–8. Guidobaldi's complaint (‘Il ‘Tempio di Minerva Medica’’, 517–18), in 1998, that Maddalena Cima still associated the pavilion with the Liciniani, Horti in ‘Gli Horti Liciniani: una residenza imperiale della tarda antichità’, in Cima, M. and La Rocca, E. (eds), Horti romani: atti del convegno internazionale Roma, 4–6 maggio 1995 (Rome, 1998), 425–52Google Scholar, has been ignored in Cima, M., ‘Horti Liciniani’, in Ensoli, S. and La Rocca, E., Aurea Roma: dalla città pagana all città cristiana (Rome, 2000), 97–103Google Scholar, despite citing Guidobaldi in her bibliography.
5 For example: Claridge, A., Rome: an Oxford Archaeological Guide (Oxford, 2010)Google Scholar, 390; E. Gatti, ‘Horti Liciniani: ‘Tempio di Minerva Medica’’, in Steinby (ed.), LTUR (above, n. 4), III, 66.
6 See E. Papi, ‘Schola Medicorum’, in Steinby (ed.), LTUR (above, n. 4), IV, 254; G. Spinola, ‘Schola Medicorum’, in Steinby (ed.), LTUR (above, n. 4), V, 287–8.
7 Much of the material of the excavations of Michael Stettler and Friedrich Deichmann in 1945–6 has been published by Biasci, A., ‘Manoscritti, disegni, foto dell'Istituto Archeologico Germanico ed altre notizie inedite sul ‘Tempio di Minerva Medica’’, Bullettino della Commissione Archeologica Comunale di Roma 104 (2003), 145–82Google Scholar. See also Biasci, A., ‘Il padiglione del ‘Tempio di Minerva Medica’ a Roma: struttura, tecniche di costruzione e particolari inediti’, Science and Technology for Cultural Heritage 9 (1–2) (2000), 67–88Google Scholar. Coates-Stephens, R., ‘Muri di bassi secoli in Rome: observations on the re-use of statuary in walls found on the Esquiline and Caelian after 1870’, Journal of Roman Archaeology 14 (2001), 217–38CrossRefGoogle Scholar, convincingly has questioned the conventional dating of the building phases. Also still useful are Giovannoni, G., ‘La sala termale della Villa Licininiana’, Annali delle Società degli Ingegneri e degli Architetti Italiani 3 (1904)Google Scholar; Caraffa, G., La cupola della sala decagonale degli Horti Liciniani (Rome, 1944)Google Scholar.
8 Ligorio's manuscripts run to over 40 volumes. One of the four accounts of the Esquiline pavilion comes from his codex in Oxford (Bodleian Library, MS Canon. Ital. 138, hereafter the ‘Oxford Codex’), an album compiled after his death of various fragments of his writings, ranging from his earliest extant antiquarian writings from the 1540s, through to a letter dated 1581. The other three accounts are from the eighteen-volume alphabetical encyclopaedia he compiled in Ferrara after 1568 (Archivio di Stato, Turin [henceforth AST], Cod. a.III.3.J.I–Cod. a.II.5.J.18, henceforth the ‘Turin Encyclopaedia’). Extracts from the four accounts are included in an Appendix and will be referred to in footnotes here as Extract 1, and so on. On Ligorio's manuscripts, see Vagenheim, G., ‘Les inscriptions ligoriennes: notes sur la tradition manuscrite’, Italia Medioevale e Umanistica 30 (1987), 199–309Google Scholar, at pp. 262–87. The reference to the verde antico columns is in Extract 2.
9 Two of the surviving fields of the dome have blocked-in arches and two others on the opposite side of the dome are known from graphic evidence before the 1828 collapse. These formerly were interpreted as windows (Giovannoni, ‘La sala termale’ (above, n. 7), 18), which would make them a startling innovation anticipating those in Hagia Sophia in Constantinople, but might also have weakened the dome. However, Rasch, J.J., ‘Zur Konstruktion spätantiker Kuppeln vom 3. bis 6. Jahrhundert’, Jahrbuch des Deutschen Archäologischen Instituts 106 (1991), 311–83Google Scholar, at p. 333 argued that the arches were in use only during the construction of the dome and filled in immediately afterwards.
10 Coates-Stephens, ‘Muri di bassi secoli in Rome’ (above, n. 7), 225, n. 17.
11 Eleven brick stamps have been found. Of the seven post-Diocletianic stamps, five were found at the base of dome. Lugli, G., Fontes ad Topographiam Veteris Urbis Romae Pertinentes, 8 vols (Rome, 1952–69), IV, 111–12Google Scholar; Biasci, ‘Il padiglione del ‘Tempio di Minerva Medica’’ (above, n. 7), 67; Coates-Stephens, ‘Muri di bassi secoli in Rome’ (above, n. 7), 223.
12 Coates-Stephens, ‘Muri di bassi secoli in Rome’ (above, n. 7), 225.
13 Biasci, ‘Il padiglione del ‘Tempio di Minerva Medica’’ (above, n. 7), 75–6, figs 9–10.
14 Biasci, ‘Il padiglione del ‘Tempio di Minerva Medica’’ (above, n. 7), 76, figs 8–10.
15 Palladio, A., I quattro libri dell'architettura (Venice, 1570)Google Scholar, IV, 39.
16 Extract 4. The Montano drawing is in Paris (Musée du Louvre, Cabinet des Estampes, Hb. 22.40. fol. 1r). The drawing is reproduced among the engravings made after his death: see Montano, G.B., Scielta di varii tempietti antichi I & II, 2 vols (Rome, 1624)Google Scholar, II, pl. 44. Another version is engraved in II, pl. 2. Both depend on Palladio's woodcuts in the Quattro libri. Montano is not responsible for the wrong locations given on the engravings, which were published posthumously: see Fairbairn, L., Italian Renaissance Drawings from the Collection of Sir John Soane's Museum, 2 vols (London, 1988)Google Scholar, II, 552.
17 See Extract 4, and Montano, Scielta di varii tempietti (above, n. 16), II, pl. 44.
18 Biasci, ‘Il padiglione del ‘Tempio di Minerva Medica’’ (above, n. 7), 78–9.
19 See below, p. 317. The second edition of Lucio Fauno's Delle antichità della città di Roma (Venice, 1552), fol. 111r, described the pavilion as Ionic, without specifying what features in particular made it Ionic. The first edition in 1548 (fols 109r–110r) omitted this detail.
20 Zorzi, G., I disegni delle antichità di Andrea Palladio (Vicenza, 1959), 17–22Google Scholar.
21 Renaissance drawings always show the exedrae as equal in size. The number of niches varies and they usually are alternately rectangular and semicircular in plan: see I. Campbell, Reconstructions of Temples Made in Rome from 1450–1600 (D.Phil. thesis, University of Oxford, 1985), 269–301, for a full discussion of the Renaissance drawings.
22 Extracts 1 and 2. The absence of extant fragments prevents corroboration of either of Ligorio's accounts. Extract 1 may be more credible, given that it was written while he was still living in Rome.
23 Palladio, Quattro libri (above, n. 15), IV, 40.
24 B. d'Overbeke, Les restes de l'ancienne Rome, recherchez avec soin, mesurez, dessinez sur les lieux, & gravez par feu Bonaventure d'Overbeke. Imprimé aux dépens de Michel d'Overbeke en 1709, 3 vols (reprinted The Hague, 1763), I, pl. 77. Montano included large external niches but almost certainly was depending on Palladio. The possible influence of the dome of the Esquiline pavilion on Brunelleschi's dome was noted by Mainstone, R.J., ‘Le origini della concezione strutturale della cupola di S. Maria del Fiore’, in Filippo Brunelleschi: la sua opera e il suo tempo (Acts of the International Congress on Brunelleschian Studies, Florence 1977), 2 vols (Florence, 1980), II, 883–92Google Scholar, at pp. 890 and 892, n. 23.
25 Biasci, ‘Manoscritti, diesgni, foto’ (above, n. 7), 148–62, 172–4; Biasci, ‘Il padiglione del ‘Tempio di Minerva Medica’’ (above, n. 7), 79–87. Ligorio referred to two fountains (Extract 4). Giovanni Battista Nolli (1701–56) mentioned a decagonal fountain ‘presentemente’ (‘currently’) in the middle of the central chamber: see de’ Rossi, G.B., ‘Note di ruderi e monumenti antichi prese da G.B. Nolli nel delineare la pianta di Roma conservate nell'Archivio Vaticano’, Studi e Documenti di Storia e Diritto 4 (1883), 153–84Google Scholar, at p. 177, and Borsi, S., Roma di Benedetto XIV: la pianta di Giovanni Battista Nolli, 1748 (Rome, 1993)Google Scholar, 382. This would seem to imply that the fountain was modern. However, a plan of the pavilion by a draughtsman of the Raphael circle, dating from c. 1520, has a decagon at the centre. This might be interpreted as a fountain, although it is more likely to represent part of the decoration of the dome, along with adjacent panels to the left: Chatsworth, Trustees of the Chatsworth Settlement, Album 36, fol. 17r. For a discussion of the meaning of diaeta, see Witte, A.A., The Artful Hermitage: the Palazzetto Farnese as a Counter-reformation Diaeta (Rome, 2008)Google Scholar, 44.
26 See Campbell, I. and Nesselrath, A., ‘Templum Solis, Templum Fortunae, Templum Neptuni. Un probléme de plan’, in Academie de France à Rome: la Villa Médicis, 3 vols (Rome, 1991), II, 41–53Google Scholar.
27 Biondo, F., De Roma Instaurata Libri Tres II.24 (Turin, 1527)Google Scholar, fol. 19.
28 See Guidobaldi, ‘Il ‘Tempio di Minerva Medica’’ (above, n. 2), 488, and the De Mirabilibus Civitatis Romae published in Valentini, R. and Zucchetti, G., Codice topografico della città di Roma, 4 vols (Rome, 1940–53)Google Scholar, III, 184. Jordan, H., Topographie der Stadt Rom im Alterthum, 2 vols in 4 (Berlin, 1871–1907)Google Scholar, II, 130–1, asserted that it was impossible that the ‘thermas ad Caluce’ could refer to the Esquiline pavilion because they were too far from the Sessorian Palace and suggested instead ruins immediately adjacent to Santa Croce in Gerusalemme. Guidobaldi, ‘Il ‘Tempio di Minerva Medica’’ (above, n. 2), 500–8, refuted that argument.
29 Biondo, Roma Instaurata (above, n. 27), fol. 19, and Suetonius, Augustus 29. See also Guidobaldi, ‘Il ‘Tempio di Minerva Medica’’ (above, n. 2), 489.
30 See, for example: Albertini, F., Opusculum de Mirabilibus Veteris ac Nova Urbis Romae, (Rome, 1510)Google Scholar [sig. Fii] (Valentini and Zucchetti, Codice topografico (above, n. 28), IV, 472–3); Fulvio, A., Antiquitates Urbis (Rome, 1527)Google Scholar, fol. 25v; Marliano, B., Urbis Romae Topographia (Rome, 1544)Google Scholar, 82; and Fauno, L., Delle antichità della città di Roma (Rome, 1552)Google Scholar, fol. 111v.
31 For a discussion of Italian Renaissance drawings of the pavilion, see Campbell, Reconstructions of Temples (above, n. 21), I, 269–302.
32 P. Ligorio, Libro di M. Pyrrho Ligorio Napolitano, delle antichità nel quale si tratta de’ circi, theatri, e anfitheatri. Con le Paradosse del medesimo auttore quae confutano la comune opinione sopra varii luoghi della città di Roma (Venice, 1553), fols 39v–40r. Online edition edited by M. Daly Davis (Heidelberg, 2008): http://archiv.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/artdok/volltexte/2008/562/ (last accessed 12.07.2011). ‘Tacerò io, che essi dicono, che quel Tempio decagono, che è su l'estremo dell'Esquilie verso la via Prenestina tra la vigna di M. Francesco d'Aspra, et di M. Cosimo medico, è la Basilica di Caio, et di Lucio: et nondimeno Vitruvio descrive la forma della Basilica non in forma Decagona, ma quadrata ò dupla ò sesquialtera, et col suo peripteros intorno, cio è circondata di colonne: senza che non si trova auttore, che dica, che la Basilica di Caio, et di Lucio fosse da Augusto edificata in quella parte, si come à suo luogo si dirà, et pur non si vergognano d'allegar Suetonio in confirmation della lor falsa opinione: il quale se ben parla della Basilica di Caio, et di Lucio, et non dice però in che parte ella si fosse. Ma hora per gratia di Dio si sono scoperte inscrittioni che dimostrano esser la detta Basilica quel Tempio di santa Maria Egittiaca presso ’l ponte Senatorio, ò vogliamo dir di santa Maria. Del cui edificio parlaremo dove sono disegnate le cose antiche.’
In the Oxford Codex (fol. 31r), discussing basilicas in general, he stated ‘Gli antichi edificorono le basiliche a guisa de tempii et de forma quadra …’. See Occhipinti, C., Pirro Ligiorio e la storia cristiana di Roma da Costantino all'Umanesimo (Pisa, 2007)Google Scholar, 20.
33 Campbell, I., Ancient Roman Topography and Architecture (The Paper Museum of Cassiano dal Pozzo: Series A — Antiquities and Architecture, Part 9), 3 vols (London, 2004), I, 216–18Google Scholar, no. 65. The inscriptions are genuine, CIL VI 1 897 and 898. In the Paradosse (fol. 45v), Ligorio said ‘Percioche essendosi cavato l'anno passato in questo luogo s’é trovato per lettere, che v'erano intagliate, che questa [the Temple of Portunus] era la Basilica di Caio et di Lucio …’, which allows us to pinpoint their unearthing to 1552.
34 Vatican City, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana [henceforth BAV], Cod. Barb. Lat. 4424, fol. 8r, reproduced in C. Huelsen, Il libro di Giuliano da Sangallo: Codice Barberiniano Latino 4424, 2 vols (Leipzig, 1910) (reissued Vatican City, 1984), as fol. 6r. Alberti, L.B., De Re Aedificatoria, book 7, ch. 4, ed. Orlandi, G. with Portoghesi, P., 2 vols (Milan, 1966)Google Scholar, II, 551.
35 See Valentini and Zucchetti, Codice topografico (above, n. 28), I, 106, 170.
36 C. Carlucci, ‘Minerva Medica, Tempio’, in Steinby (ed.), LTUR (above, n. 4), III, 255–6; Martini, C., Il deposito votivo del Tempio di Minerva Medica (Rome, 1990)Google Scholar.
37 Ligorio, Oxford Codex, fol. 11v: ‘Di quel tempio, il quale, è nelle exquilie, che hoggidi i moderni scrittori han discritto esser la basilica di Caio e Lucio: Il che è falsamente sententiato’. See Ashby, T., ‘The Bodleian manuscript of Pirro Ligorio’, Journal of Roman Studies 9 (1919), 177–201CrossRefGoogle Scholar, for a description of the contents; but on the dating, see Vagenheim, ‘Les inscriptions ligoriennes’ (above, n. 8), 273–6.
38 The ‘modern writers’ are identified in Extract 4, as Pomponio Leto, Flavio Biondo, Bartolomeo Marliani, Lucio Fauno and Lucio Mauro. However, Leto was innocent, as demonstrated by Rausa, F., ‘Pomponio Leto, Pirro Ligorio e la querelle sull'edificio decagono dell'Esquilino’, in Pomponio Leto e la prima Accademia Romana. Atti della giornata di studi (Roma, 2 dicembre 2005) (Rome, 2007), 219–35Google Scholar.
39 C.F. Giuliani and P. Verducchi, ‘Basilica Julia’, in Steinby (ed.), LTUR (above, n. 4), I, 177; D. Palombi, ‘Porticus Gai et Luci’, in Steinby (ed.), LTUR (above, n. 4), IV, 122–3. The identification of the porticus depends on the discovery of fragments of a huge inscription to Lucius Caesar in 1899 (G. Gatti, ‘Notizie di ricenti ritrovamenti di antichita’, Bullettino della Commissione Archeologica di Roma 18 (1899), 141–2). Nothing appears to have been known of it earlier, and no literary source links the porticus with the basilica. But Ligorio certainly seems to have been present at the excavations in front of the adjacent Temple of Antoninus and Faustina in 1546, when the Fasti Capitolini were found. The Fasti were inscribed on an arch now thought to have been the Parthian Arch of Augustus, which appears to have abutted the Porticus of Gaius and Lucius: E. Nedergaard, ‘Arcus Augusti (a. 19 d.C)’, in Steinby (ed.), LTUR (above, n. 4), I, 84. It is surprising that the inscription to Lucius was not unearthed at the same time, but if it had been it could surely not have gone unrecorded, not least by Ligorio.
40 See Salvatore, M., “terme Gordiane”, in Venetucci, B. Palma (ed.), Pirro Ligorio e le erme di Roma, 2 vols (Rome, 1998), II, 148–9Google Scholar, fig. 155. The section of the Imago is reproduced in Frutaz, A.P., Le piante di Roma, 3 vols (Rome, 1972)Google Scholar, II, plan XVII, plates 26–32, at pl. 28. It is also available online at http://www.bsrdigitalcollections.it/maps.aspx (last consulted 12.07.2011).
41 Extract 1. The only antique source to refer to the baths is the Historia Augusta: ‘Lives of the Gordians’ 32.7, without giving a location. Biondo, Roma Instaurata (above, n. 27), II, 17, fols 18r–v. D. Palombi, ‘Balnea Gordiani’, in Steinby (ed.), LTUR (above, n. 4), I, 160, gave the reference to Biondo but mistakenly called the church Sant'Eustachio. Sant'Eusebio stands in the Piazza Vittorio Emmanuele. Palombi also referred to the finding of an inscription at Santa Sabina on the Aventine recording the restoration of the Baths of Sura by Gordian III: L. Vendittelli, ‘Thermae Surae/Suranae’, in Steinby (ed.), LTUR (above, n. 4), V, 65.
42 Ashby (‘The Bodleian manuscript’ (above, n. 37), 182) failed to note that this is obviously Valerio Belli (c. 1468–1546). After his death, Belli's collection of antiquities was sold to Cardinal Madruzzo of Trent: Jestaz, B., ‘La racolta di Valerio Belli e il collezionismo Veneto contemporaneo’, in Burns, H., Collareta, M. and Gasparatto, D. (eds), Valerio Belli Vicentino 1468c.–1546 (Vicenza, 2000), 161–7Google Scholar. Its subsequent fate is not known.
43 On the sacrifice of cockerels to Aesculapius, see Veyne, P., ‘‘Titulus praelatus’: offrande, solemnisatio, et publicité dans les ex-voto Gréco-Romains’, Revue Archéologique 2 (1983), 281–300Google Scholar, at p. 285.
44 Extract 1. Again, why Ligorio should have suggested this is a mystery: the Ludus Matutinus is listed in the third region in the Regionaries rather than the fifth. Nor can the shape have been the cause. The oval plan of the Ludus Magnus was known only after the finding of fragments of the Severan marble plan of Rome behind Santi Cosmas e Damiano in 1562 (see Carettoni, G., Colini, A.M., Cozza, L. and Gatti, G., La pianta marmorea di Roma antica, 2 vols (Rome 1960)Google Scholar). Ligorio's Imago shows the Ludus Matutinus as a long two-storey rectangular portico and the adjacent Ludus Gallicus is also rectangular (see Frutaz, Le piante di Roma (above, n. 40), II, pl. 26). However, Fabio Calvo, in his Antiquae Urbis Romae cum Regionibus Simulachrum (Rome, 1527) showed the Ludus Matutinus as a collection of buildings bounded by a circular or oval wall in his representation of Region II. Pagliara, P.N., ‘La Roma antica di Fabio Calvo: tipi e stereotipi’, Psicon 8–9 (1976), 65–88Google Scholar, at pp. 74–5, identified the source of Calvo's image as a partial representation of an oval walled town in the Vatican Virgil (BAV, Cod. Vat. Lat. 3225, fol. 49r).
45 Frutaz, Le piante di Roma (above, n. 40), I, no. CXI, II, pl. 222.
46 Frutaz, Le piante di Roma (above, n. 40), I, no. XVI, II, pl. 25. Noted by Guidobaldi, ‘Il ‘Tempio di Minerva Medica’’ (above, n. 2), 487, n. 2.
47 For the Notitia and Curiosum, see Valentini and Zucchetti, Codice topografico (above, n. 28), I, 63–192. For the interpolated version, see Valentini and Zucchetti, Codice topografico (above, n. 28), I, 193–258.
48 BAV, Cod. Vat. Lat. 3427.
49 Valentini and Zucchetti, Codice topografico (above, n. 28), I, 170, 215; BAV, Cod. Vat. Lat. 3427, fol. [21r].
50 Panvinio, O., De republica romana (Venice, 1558)Google Scholar, 220.
51 Panvinio, De republica romana (above, n. 50), 235. Ligorio accused both Agustin and Panvinio of theft of his manuscript in the Turin Encyclopaedia: see Burns, H., ‘Pirro Ligorio's reconstruction of ancient Rome: the Anteiquae Urbis Imago of 1561’, in Gaston, R. (ed.), Pirro Ligorio: Artist and Antiquarian (Milan, 1988), 19–92Google Scholar, at pp. 24–5.
52 See Extracts 2–4. Lanciani, R., Storia degli scavi di Roma, 4 vols (Rome, 1902–12), III, 159–60Google Scholar, published Extract 2 in part. ‘Vinea Cosmi Medici’ appears directly next to the ruins on sheet ‘T’ of Leonardo Bufalini's 1551 plan of Rome: Frutaz, Le piante di Roma (above, n. 40), I, no. CIX, 4, II, pl. 193. Ligorio called Giacomelli ‘Medico’ in the Paradosse, fol. 40r. Giacomelli was Julius III's doctor: see Marini, G., Degli archiatri pontifici, 2 vols (Rome, 1784), I, 371–4Google Scholar. I must admit to some unease at the happy coincidence that a statue of Minerva Medica should be discovered on the property of a ‘medicus’.
53 Extract 2.
54 Most of the identifications Ligorio gave to the statues seem to be taken from the pages of Ligorio's treatise on ‘Sacred things and the images of the pagan gods’, Biblioteca Nazionale, Naples [henceforth BNN], MS XIII.B.3, which includes the following entries: ‘De Minerva Medica et Salutifera’ (10–11); ‘De Apolline Propheta o'ver del Sole Medico’ (79–81); ‘De Aesculapio Medico’ (285); ‘De la Valetudine’ (286); ‘Di Salus o'vero Hygia’ (286); ‘Di Hiaso’ (286); ‘Di Calonoe o'ver Bellezza’ (287); ‘De Romis’ (287); ‘Di Plutho’ (287); ‘Di Panhygia’ (287–8); ‘Di Aesculapio et de Minerva et del Sole’ (289–90); ‘Di Minerva Medica et di Salus et di Aesculapio’ (290–1); ‘Di Aesculapio et de la Musa’ (292); ‘Di Chirone centauro et di Achille’ (305); ‘Di Philyra’ (305); ‘Di Podalirio’ (421); ‘Di Macaone’ (421). It should be made clear that while Ligorio said here that the Temple of Minerva Medica was on the Esquiline (p. 10), he nowhere explicitly mentioned the decagonal pavilion or the statues found there, suggesting that the volume was written before 1552. The connections between the Minerva Medica, medicine and music were explored fully by Ligorio in his entry on music in the Turin Encyclopaedia (AST, Cod. a.III.13.J.11, fols 166r–169v, at 169v): … [i] Medici … con essa Musica guarirono delle infermita come se ne avanta Galeno Pergameno: et percio tenivano le Muse nel Tempio di Aesculapio et in quello di Minerva Medica’. The link was discussed by Fagiolo and Madonna ‘La casina di Pio IV’ (above, n. 1), 276.
55 The statues named on the plan do not agree entirely with those listed in the accompanying text (see Extract 2).
56 The two exedrae also only have five niches each, whereas on the three plans in the Oxford Codex (Figs 6, 8 and 9) nine are shown in each (compared to ten in the surviving north exedra), although in all cases he made them alternately rectangular and semicircular in plan rather than entirely rectangular.
57 On the dispersal, see Lanciani, Storia degli scavi (above, n. 52), III, 27–36; Falk, T., ‘Studien zur Topographie und Geschichte der Villa Giulia in Rom’, Römisches Jahrbuch für Kunstgeschichte 13 (1971), 101–78Google Scholar, at pp. 172–4; and Coffin, D.R., The Villa in the Life of Renaissance Rome (Princeton, 1971), 132–3Google Scholar.
58 Extract 2.
59 Haskell, F. and Penny, N., Taste and the Antique (New Haven/London, 1981)Google Scholar, 269; and de’ Ficoroni, F., Le vestigie e rarità di Roma antica (Rome, 1744)Google Scholar, 199.
60 There is a statue heavily restored as Hygeia, holding a snake, behind the nymphaeum at the Villa Giulia, whose provenance is unknown, and which may have escaped the fate of the rest of the collection; but there seem no means of proving a connection with the Esquiline pavilion.
61 F. Vacca, Memorie di varie antichità trovate in diversi luoghi della città di Roma scritte de Flaminio Vacca nell'anno 1594, nos. 16 and 17, published in Nardini, F., Roma antica, ed. Nibby, A. (Rome, 1820)Google Scholar, 11.
62 On Massari, see M.C. Giannini, ‘Massari, Francesco’, in Dizionario biografico degli Italiani online version (http://www.treccani.it/Portale/ricerche/searchBiografie.html; last consulted 12.07.2011).
63 Ligorio, Paradosse (above, n. 32), fols 39v–40r, cited at n. 32 above.
64 Aldrovandi, U., Le statue di Roma (Venice, 1556), 256–9Google Scholar.
65 Vacca, Memorie di varie antichità (above, n. 61), no. 17: ‘Appresso detta Vigna vi è un Tempio antichissimo di Caio, e Lucio, per corrotto vocabolo hoggi è chiamato Galluzzi; à canto ad essa molti dopo anni vi furono trovate molto statue maggiori del natural, una Pomona di marmot nero, erano state tolte le Teste, e le mani di Bronzo, vi era un Esculapio, un'Adone, due Lupe nella guise di Bacchi, una Venere, e quel bel Fauno, ch’è nella Galleria Farnese (che già fu mio), un Ercole, e un Antinoo, e quell più mi piacque vedere, due Accette, da una banda faceva testa, e dall'altra haveva il taglio a guise d'Alabarda …’.
66 Vacca, Memorie di varie antichità (above, n. 61), no. 16.
67 Vacca, Memorie di varie antichità (above, n. 61), no. 17. The ‘Pomona’ has been identified as ‘Aperia’ at Caserta: Rausa, F., ‘Marmi Farnese nel Giardino Inglese della Reggia di Caserta’, Bollettino d'Arte 100 (1997), 33–54Google Scholar, at pp. 46–7; and Rausa, F., ‘Le collezioni farnesiane di sculture antiche: storia e formazione’, in Gasparri, C. (ed.), Le sculture Farnese I (Storia e documenti) (Naples, 2007–), 15–80Google Scholar, at pp. 18 and 73, nn. 35–6.
68 Lanciani, Storia degli scavi (above, n. 52), III, 159; Aldrovandi, Le statue di Roma (above, n. 64), 256.
69 Aldrovandi, Le statue di Roma (above, n. 64), 257. On the Faun, see Rausa, ‘Le collezioni farnesiane di sculture antiche’ (above, n. 67), 18 and 73, n. 37. He believed it might be the statue now in London (British Museum, inv. 1864.10-2-21.1). Rausa (pers. comm.) also shares my suspicion that the two ‘Lupe[rcali) nelle guisa di Bacchi’ recorded by Vacca may be the statues of satyrs picking grapes now at Naples (Museo Archeologico, inv. 6331–2): R. Vincent, ‘Les antiques’, in Ecole Française de Rome, Le Palais Farnèse, 3 vols (Rome, 1980–1), II, 322–51, at p. 350.
70 On the wall, see Coates-Stephens, ‘Muri di bassi secoli in Rome’ (above, n. 7), 222–5. On the statues, see Cima, ‘Gli Horti Liciniani’, in Cima and La Rocca, Horti romani (above, n. 4), 443–50; Bertoletti, M., Cima, M. and Talamo, E., Sculture di Roma antica: collezioni dei Musei Capitolini alla Centrale Montemartini (Milan, 1999)Google Scholar, 188; Cima, ‘Horti Liciniani’, in Ensoli and La Rocca, Aurea Roma (above, n. 4), 102–3.
71 Extracts 3 and 4.
72 Extract 4. Veyne, ‘‘Titulus praelatus’’ (above, n. 43), 289, referred to the use of bronze plaquettes as ex-voto offerings to Aesculapius. See Suetonius, Domitian 18.2 for the story of the detachable titulus. For bronze plates on pedestals, see Fejfer, J., Roman Portraits in Context (Berlin/New York, 2008), 25–6CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
73 AST, Cod. a.II.2.J.15, fol. 48r: ‘trovata da Francesco d'Aspra et traportata dall'Esquilie ne la casa sua a san Mauto’, and Cod. a.III.13.J.11, fol. 34v: ‘… trovato nelle Esquilie nella vigna di Iacomelli’. Both inscriptions are included among the Ligorian falsae, in CIL VI 5 566* and 567*. The fact that Ligorio made no attempt to use them to bolster his arguments in identifying the pavilion demonstrates that he had no axe to grind by recording them, which makes one wonder why he would bother forging them.
74 Extract 2. Besides the associations with medicine of the statues, the shape of the exedrae may have influenced Ligorio's locating the Schola here: in the Turin Encyclopaedia, under the entry ‘Cyclei’, he associated round buildings with good health and said that doctors were among those who chose to meet in such places, which they dedicated to Apollo, Aesculapius and the latter's daughters: AST, Cod. a.III.8.J.6, fol. 160r (old foliation 161r); cited in Fagiolo and Madonna, ‘La casina di Pio IV’ (above, n. 1), 224.
75 AST, Cod. a.II.8.J.21, fols 89r–106v.
76 BNN, Cod. XIII.B.6, fol. 166v: ‘… Il Tempio di questa Dea fú à Roma nella regione Esquilina, second scrive Publio Vittore, il quale, forse, edificò Antonino Pio’. On the Naples manuscripts, see Vagenheim, ‘Les inscriptions ligoriennes’ (above, n. 8), 266–70.
77 I. Campbell, ‘Pirro Ligorio and the temples of Rome on coins’, in Gaston, Pirro Ligorio (above, n. 51), 93–121.
78 H. Mattingly and R. Carson, Coins of the Roman Empire in the British Museum, 6 vols (reprinted London, 1962–8), III, 424, plates 80.2 and 3.
79 BNN, Cod. XIII.B.6, fol. 176r and AST, Cod. A.II.8.J.21, fol. 281v: in both cases the reverse legend differs slightly from the British Museum examples: for example, Mattingly and Carson, Coins of the Roman Empire (above, n. 78), IV.1, 493, IV.2, pl. 68.9. The obverse legend reads ANTONINVS AVG, which Ligorio could have confused with Antoninus Pius, although Ligorio wrote about the confusion of the two in the Paradosse (above, n. 32), fols 424–42v, in the chapter headed ‘Della Colonna Antoniana’.
80 BNN, Cod. XIIl.B.3, p. 10:
DE MINERVA MEDICA ET SALUTIFERA
‘Minerva fu cognominata Medica, a cui Antonino Pio dedicò il Tempio in Roma nell'Esquilie … Questa Dea i latini chiamarono, come è nelle medaglie, Virtus, Salus Invitta, et Minerva Pacifera et Medica …’ (‘Minerva was surnamed Medica, to whom Antoninus Pius dedicated the temple in Rome on the Esquiline … This goddess the Latins called, as it is in the coins, ‘Virtue’, ‘Unconquered Health’, and Minerva Peacemaker and Doctor’): Fagiolo and Madonna in ‘La casina di Pio IV’ (above, n. 1), 275. Ligorio also made the more usual identification of Salus with the Greek goddess Hygeia, daughter of Aesculapius, in the same manuscript (BNN, Cod. XIII.B.3, p. 286), and referred to three reliefs of Aesculapius, Salus and Minerva Medica, which he said were found at San Gregorio Magno on the Caelian (BNN, Cod. XIII.B.3, p. 290).
81 Scriptores Historiae Augustae, Verus 7.2: The Scriptores Historiae Augustae, ed. and trans. Magie, D. (London/New York, 1922), 220–1Google Scholar: ‘Antiocham postequam [Verus] venit, ipse quidem se luxuriae dedidit. duces autem confecerunt Parthicum bellum, Statius Priscus, et Avidius Cassius et Martius Verus per quadrennium pervenirent et Armeniam vindicarent. partumque ipsi nomen est Armeniaci, Parthici, Medici. Quod etiam Marco Romae agenti delatum est’.
A coin with the legend L VERVS AVG ARM PARTH MAX MEDIC was struck in commemoration of the victory with Marcus Aurelius and Verus in a quadriga on the reverse (Mattingly and Carson, Coins of the Roman Empire (above, n. 78), IV.1, 597) but it does not appear in Ligorio's manuscripts, although he did record several examples of the commoner types of Marcus Aurelius and Verus with only ‘ARM’ and ‘PARTH’ in the legends, for example: BNN, Cod. XII.B.6, fols 199v and 202r, and AST, Cod. a.II.8.J.21, fol. 127r.
82 Scriptores Historiae Augustae, Verus 7.2.
83 Agustin, A., Dialogos das Medallas Antiquitatum Romanarum Hispanarumque in Nummis Veterum Dialogi XI. Hispano Sermone cum Latina Interpretatione Andreae Schotti Antverpensis (Lucca, 1774)Google Scholar, 68: ‘… he (sic) visto ciertos debuxos da Pyrrho Ligori Napolitano, conocido mio gran antiquario, y pintor, el qual sin saber Latin ha escrito mas de quarenta libros da medallas, y edificios, y de otras cosas’. The Dialogos were first published in Tarragona in 1587. Robert Gaston examined the question of Ligorio's competence in Greek and Latin and the use he may have made of Italian translations of the classics, and, in their absence, the occasional help of other scholars in ‘Ligorio on rivers and fountains: prolegomena to a study of Naples XIII.B.9’, in Gaston, Pirro Ligorio (above, n. 51), 159–208, at pp. 161–4. He also showed that Ligorio cited Julius Capitolinus (Gaston, ‘Ligorio on rivers’ (above), 163, 193 n. 18).
84 See Palombi, D., ‘Medici e medicina a Roma tra Carine, Velia e Sacra Via’, in Brandenburg, H., Heid, S. and Markschies, C. (eds), Salute e guarigione nella tarda antichità: atti della giornata tematica dei seminari di archeologia cristiana (Roma, 20 maggio 2004) (Vatican City, 2007), 54–78Google Scholar, at pp. 72–4; and Meneghini, R., Corsaro, A. and Caboni, B. Pinna, ‘Il Templum Pacis alla luce dei recenti scavi’, in Coarelli, F. (ed.), Divus Vespasianus: il bimillenario dei Flavi (Milan, 2009), 190–201Google Scholar, at p. 196.
85 CIL VI 3984 and 9566, IGUR 30 and 1673. All cited by Palombi, ‘Medici e medicina’ (above, n. 84), 73. Another reference to a ‘tabularius’ of the ‘Schola Medicorum’ is unfortunately among the Ligorian falsae (CIL VI 978*). It is found in BNN, Cod. XIII.B.8, fol. 225v, published by Orlandi, S., Libro delle iscrizioni dei sepolcri antichi (Rome, 2009)Google Scholar, 302. Ligorio reported finding it in a columbarium on the Via Ardeatina near San Sebastiano fuori le Mura; however, the last line is inconsistent with a columbarium inscription and must have been interpolated, preventing us from revisiting the question of its authenticity (S. Orlandi, pers. comm.). Agasse, J.-M., ‘Girolamo Mercuriale — humanism and physical culture in the Renaissance’, in Mercuriale, G., De arte gymnastica (Florence, 2008), 861–1,110Google Scholar, at p. 1,002, relying on Mercuriale's statement that the inscription was found at San Sebastiano (see p. 56), wrongly has speculated that the church was San Sebastiano in Pallara, on the Palatine.
86 In ‘Schola Medicorum’ (above, n. 6), 254, Emanuele Papi used the epigraphic evidence to argue for the existence of the guild, but Giandomenico Spinola in an addendum (‘Schola Medicorum’, LTUR, V, 287–8) argued that the ‘translata de Schola Medicorum’ inscription on a base in the Villa Wolkonsky is modern, and that the other occurrence, on the base of the Mattei Amazon in the Vatican Museums (CIL VI 29805), also could be modern. Subsequently, however, Spinola (Il Museo Pio-Clementino, 3 vols (Vatican City, 1996–2004), III, 48–9, and III, 481–3, GS 59) became more open to the question of the possible antiquity of CIL VI 29805. On other occurrences of ‘translata’ in the moving of statues, see Lepelley, C., ‘Le musée des statues divines: la volonté de sauvegarder le patrimoine artistique païen à l’époque thédosienne’, Cahiers Archéologiques 42 (1994), 5–14, at pp. 10–11Google Scholar.
87 Some capitalization, punctuation and accents have been added or altered for the purposes of clarification.
