Chapter 5:
Town Expansion in the Later
Middle Ages and its consequences
Introduction
Following our brief account of the degradation of some Roman
centres
following the end of Roman rule, we can now turn to the
more prosperous
period of the later Middle Ages, when urban
living began a permanent
revival. The survey is restricted to
Italy, because of the lack of useful
population figures for
elsewhere, and a relative shortage of documents.
However, this
is not to say that France did not undergo a similar
expansion
(Le Goff 1980, 59ff.), or that the Italian figures are
comprehensive
or easy to interpret. We simply do not know what
percentage of mediaeval
people lived in towns, or whether the
expansion of towns actually meant
an increased level of activity
in the countryside as well. A lower
population in cities could
indicate removal to the countryside, although
what seems to have
happened at Rome was an extremely small late antique
population
topped up by immigration from the countryside, particularly
following the Gothic invasions. The Gothic wars were the
beginning
of a period of crisis, and the abundant references to
wasteland in the
Longobard period (De Robertis 1948, 134f.) are
an indication of lower
levels of population - and, incidentally,
some token that both the
discovery and destruction of
antiquities in such a period were less
likely than in one of
population expansion.
Cipolla (1972, 36) estimates the
population of the whole
Italian peninsula as follows:
500
AD: 4,000,000
650 AD: 2,500,000
1000 AD: 5,000,000
1340 AD: 10,000,000
1450 AD: 7,500,000
Some areas, such as Tuscany, were much more heavily
populated
than others: it is estimated that in Florence and its
environs there
were, in 1318, about 25,000 families in the city
and 30,000 in the
surrounding countryside - calculations taken
from average sizes of the
family yield total population figures
of 116,290 and 139,500 respectively
(Herlihy 1967, 112-13). But
Florence was the fastest expander of all: the
new walls could
never enclose all the new building, and Villani describes
the
multiplicity of rich buildings and beautiful palazzi in a radius
of three miles around the city (Book 11.94) - although there
were
still large open spaces within the walls. Indeed, so great
was her rate
of expansion that she was to have no less than six
sets of walls in all,
from the Roman period to the late
thirteenth century (Pegna 1974).
Linking the Florence figures to
those for Pistoia, the conclusion might
be that the Tuscan
province had no less than 1,200,000 persons before
1250 - a very
large figure indeed, and one which would not again be
reached
until well into the nineteenth century.
If this was indeed the case, the
Tuscan countryside was more
densely populated in those centuries than it
is today - as were
many other Tuscan towns large and small: Fiumi, for
example
(Herlihy 1967, 112), has calculated that San Gimignano had 50
persons per square kilometre in 1227, 74 towards the end of that
century,
and 85 by 1332. Similar estimates can be made for Pisa
and Pistoia. In
1164, Pisa had about 11,000 inhabitants, a
figure which rose to about
38,000 by 1293 (Herlihy 1958, 36-7);
indeed, these figures are reflected
in the area of 114 hectares
enclosed by her walls in the late twelfth
century, and by the
185 hectares enclosed about a century later (ibid.,
42-3).
Clearly, then, Pisa was bigger than Florence in the twelfth
century,
for her second circle of walls built in the years
following 1172 enclosed
only 80 hectares. But Florence's third
set, finished by 1333, enclosed
the enormous amout of 630
hectares, to house a population of something
over 96,000. And as
Florence's star rose, so that of Pisa declined.
The most secure calculations of all, however, are reserved
for
Pistoia and her countryside, estimated from a wealth of
documents by
Herlihy (1967, table 3). The mediaeval prosperity
of this city took a
hard blow in the great plagues, and then
took a long time to reach its
pre-plague levels again; the very
large rural population suffered
somewhat less from the plague,
but the city became relatively more
important as a result of it
(Herlihy 1967, 77). As in the case of Pisa,
so for Pistoia there
is evidence of a sharp decline in rural population
from the
later thirteenth century (Herlihy 1958, 42), and a consequent
packing into the towns. Nevertheless, the evidence is still
difficult
to interpret. Thus it is known that, by 1428, many
churches (even urban
ones) were in ruins: but is the reason for
this state of affairs the tax
levies of the Florentine state, or
serious depopulation (Herlihy 1967,
242-3)?
However,
because we cannot be certain that country
population fluctuated in the
same way as town population, it
follows that such quantification as can
be produced cannot help
form any picture of the relationship between town
and country
prosperity and decline. Those figures we do have are more
than a
little deceptive, for they are frequently derived from
calculations
of the size of families, or the ratio between
adults and children, which
are built on sand, not rock. Génicot
(1964) emphasises this, and
calls for `meticulously careful
regional study' (1964, 22) to build
firmer foundations. Yet even
he admits that population did indeed grow
between the eleventh
and the thirteenth centuries, even in the
countryside; he cites
the extension of arable land during that period,
the work of
dyking and drainage in fenlands, and the making of the great
irrigation canal, the Muzza, in the Po basin where, as Menant
reminds
us, ditches sometimes were the only form of
fortification used (Menant
1982).
In contrast
with such areas of rising prosperity, mediaeval
Rome presents a gloomy
picture, and its population level is
unclear at any period. In the fourth
century it may have
contained half a million, and then oscillated:
Mazzarini (1951,
223ff.) believes that the 141,000 recipients of the dole
in 452
must indicate a population of half a million - a drop of 50 per
cent on the agreed population of 5 BC (cf. Russell 1958, 93).
The
final figure depends on how the sums are done: thus figures
of
compensation paid to pork purveyors for losses in transit
(legislation of
367 AD) could mean a population in that year of
about 1,000,000 (cf.
Mazzarini 1951, 230ff.); and Mazzarini
believes that the population
slumped to 400,000 in 417 and went
up again to 480,000 in 452 (further
calculations in Hodges 1983,
48ff., and Hermansen 1978 for the earlier
Empire). The
population shrank to perhaps under 100,000 by the time of
Gregory the Great (when the city was in a state of degradation:
Krautheimer
1980, 62ff.), and Cassiodorus remarks that Rome in
the sixth century was
smaller than before (Variae 11.39).
Hodges (1983, 73f.), positing
urban collapse and `a dramatic
mercantile recession', wonders whether the
monasteries in Dark
Age Rome `were simply isolated communities within an
otherwise
depopulated landscape. The same questions can be posed for
Lucca, Pavia and Ravenna'. By the twelfth century, there may
have
been only 35,000 inhabitants - small enough to allow the
areas of Forum,
Palatine and Capitoline to survive into the
later Middle Ages
substantially intact, while areas like the
Campus Martius were almost the
only `abitato' throughout the
Middle Ages (Krautheimer 1980, 245ff. for
plans and lists;
272ff. for eleventh-century expansion). It was thanks to
this
survival that the first archaeological treatises on the city,
the
Mirabilia, could appear in the twelfth century (Gregorovius
1972, vol 3,
77ff.; 162ff.). By 1400 the population was probably
down to about 18,000;
and the first census result of 1527
records only 55,000 - after a century
of growth (Krautheimer
1980, 231-2; 359f. for a review of the various
opinions).
The Building of Town Walls
If
the vitality and expansion of the rural population can be
vaguely
quantified by such extensive working of the land, and
its progress
measured by a study of wages, rents and prices,
then the vitality of
Italian towns can be more accurately
measured by the new rings of walls
necessitated by their
expansion - although the vigour with which this was
prosecuted
would vary according to the original size (for France, cf. Le
Goff 1980, 198ff.). Walls were also remade, of course, for even
more
pressing reasons, and much earlier than the later Middle
Ages: see
Berengarius I's diploma of 904 permitting the
rebuilding of the wall at
Bergamo, as well as other measures to
keep off the Hungarians
(Schiaparelli 1903, 137, doc. 47). Even
earlier, the Longobards had had
to rebuild the walls of
Benevento, with a smaller perimeter, because
Totila had razed
them completely in 545 (Rotili 1979, 36f.). In Gaul and
Britain,
similar building took place, frequently on the remains of Roman
defences where possible (Turner 1971): at Winchester, the
mediaeval
wall either refaces the Roman one, or is built on its
footings (Cunliffe
1962).
The tell-tale
signs of a growing population and its effects
on living-space are
frequent, and some towns seem to have been
tightly packed within their
walls as early as the ninth century
(cf. Mengozzi 1931, 90ff. for a
discussion of the suburbium in
Italy); in some areas, such as Lazio,
there was often a small
population and much open space until the later
twelfth century
(Toubert 1973, 663). Town walls, and their towers, were
convenient for setting a new house against, or for living in:
sections
of the walls of Rome (and many other Italian cities)
are inhabited to
this day. At Lucca, one house is recorded as
hard up against the wall in
893 (Sommella 1974, 39, note 8); at
Rieti, one tower in the walls is
documented as being inhabited
in 817, when Farfa was given `our house,
which we have on
(super) the walls of the city, and the tower with the
old house
at its top' (Giorgi 1879, doc. 230). This must surely mean more
than that the house used the wall as a convenient lean-to.
English
parallels suggest that the practice may have been a way
of defraying
building costs (Turner 1971, 88f.).
The making of new walls (a task which frequently takes
many
years to complete) can mean nothing other than a filling of the
available development space within the old wall, or its setting
aside
for such development, and sufficient economic stability
and social will
to build a more extensive set. As intimated,
however, there is always the
possibility that walls were built
`in anticipation of growth that is
never realised' (Miskimin
1969, 21); this was the case at L'Aquila, `a
city not full of
citizens, but with certain areas marked out in hope for
the
future' (AIMA 6.526E). It was also true at Arezzo, where the
statutes of 1327, reflecting the building of the new walls, not
only
refer to sheep `outside the city of Arezzo and indeed
inside the circles
of new walls and outside the old walls and
suburbs of that city', but
also invite new inhabitants to settle
precisely `outside the old walls
and inside the new walls of the
city' (Camerani 1946, 1, nos. 30 and 48).
Even at Florence,
the 1284 walls were by no means full of houses even by
the later
fifteenth century - or, for that matter, by the late eighteenth
century.
From a
survey of thirteen Italian towns, it is clear that the
main period for
the building of new walls stretches from 1050 to
1400, with a decided
peak between 1150 and 1250 (Miskimin 1969,
22, graph 1); in Northern
Europe, we will find a time-lag of
about 50 years. There are, of course,
earlier examples as well:
Pisa built new walls about 1000; Turin enlarged
her's during the
eleventh century; Modena expanded by 1071; both Brescia
and
Bergamo built two sets of walls sometime in the twelfth century;
and Bologna built three sets in all (Fasoli 1960-3, fig. 1).
Lucca
had a `Villanova' by at least 1073, when it is documented
(AIMA
1.489D). But the big expansion dates only from the
mid-twelfth century
- Piacenza in 1139, Pisa again in 1156,
Cremona in 1169-87, Florence in
1172, Milan in 1176, Modena
again in 1188, Bologna in 1200, Lucca in
1203, Treviso in
1212-15, Mantua in 1242, Parma in 1250, Lucca again in
1260, and
Florence again in 1254-84 (Sznura 1975). The same period sees
the founding of new `infant' communities by their prosperous
`mothers'
- Asola (from Brescia, 1183); Villafranca da Verona
(from Verona, 1185);
Castelfranco Veneto (from Venice, 1189);
Orzinuovi (from Brescia, 1198);
Castel San Pietro (from Bologna,
1199); Cittadella (from Padua, 1210);
and, in the course of that
new century, Pavia founds Stradella, Castel
San Giovanni and
PonteCurone. The list could be greatly extended (Lavedan
1974,
101ff.).
The
conclusion to be drawn from this review of building
dates is that, to put
the matter at its lowest, a great amount
of earth was being turned over
and moved in the northern parts
of Italy in the later twelfth and the
thirteenth centuries (cf.
Menant 1982); and when one adds the building or
extension of
monastic settlements (often on antique foundations) in the
countryside, and the necessary drainage and irrigation work,
many
antiquities must have been found by pure chance.
It is important to note that
these periods of land movement
and construction represent a complete
break with the tradition
of earlier mediaeval centuries. Despite the lack
of accurate
figures before the eleventh century, all the documentary and
archaeological evidence indicates population levels much reduced
from
those of Imperial times, so that people lived amongst and
therefore to
some extent protected the ancient monuments. What
is more, even though
some growth of population took place in the
Renaissance period, this was
from the low base figure following
the Black Death and, in terms of cubic
metres of earth moved,
must have been inferior to the mediaeval
expansion.
The next
great period of population expansion was in the
sixteenth century, and
certainly brought to light many antiquities:
Vasari records how, in 1554,
the famous chimera was found `while
making ditches, fortifications and
walls at Arezzo'; and not
only the chimera but also fragments of bronze
and many
statuettes, which they came across when looking for the
monster's
tail, which had been broken off (Pallottino 1977, 4;
documents relating
to the discovery are in Cristofani 1979,
11ff.). Cittadini (1853, 118f.)
is more precise: the statue was
found ten braccia underground near the
Porta S. Lorentino,
together with a full-size statue of Pallas, and `two
beautiful
bronze statues a braccia high with an Etruscan inscription on
one leg'.
Decline in the Fourteenth Century
It was, perhaps, this
packing of the towns during the later
thirteenth century which
exacerbated the more or less
devastating effects of the great plague
epidemic of 1347-51.
This event proved to be a watershed in population
levels all
over Europe. Its effects on the rural economy of much of
northern Europe (particularly the relatively well-documented
case
of England) are apparent: there was great depopulation of
the
countryside, a shortage of labour, and soaring prices. In
Italy,
particularly in Tuscany and the valley of the Po, its
results are less
easily determined simply because the hinterland
had not been feeding the
towns with the full range of necessary
commodities since the twelfth
century (Miskimin 1969, 72). This
factor had two crucial consequences,
the latter of which was
also in evidence in parts of France and Germany.
First, the
agricultural community does not appear to have been totally
devastated by the population decline; secondly, town-dwellers -
merchants
and nobles - began to invest in the land, a commodity
which was
relatively scarcer in Northern Italy than elsewhere in
Western Europe.
But what was the effect of the plagues on
population levels? Did they
immediately axe a high population?
Did they, perhaps, help make available
both land and property,
sparing the healthy of child-breeding age, while
killing off the
old and the frail? Or were population levels in effect
declining
well before the mid-fourteenth century? There is, indeed, some
evidence of declining population, and of soil exhaustion and
declining
incomes, for the early fourteenth century (Génicot
1964, 22).
Ironically, such decline hit the
trade-oriented and prosperous
cities more than it did those that sought
all their sustenance
from close at home. Venice and Genoa are cases in
point. The
Venice Arsenal, where the merchant fleet of the Republic was
built, founded in 1104, was tripled in area in 1303, and further
extended
in 1325; but the next great enlargement was only in
1473 (Kedar 1976,
16). Similarly, Genoa's mole was lengthened in
1300, and again in 1328,
after which it retained its size until
1461; likewise the basin, built in
1276, and expanded about
1300, was not expanded again until about 1416.
The throughput of
tonnage at both ports supports the same pattern of
decline.
Evidently, then, the fourteenth century saw a crisis in trade
which was but exacerbated by the plagues, which militate against
a
purely Malthusian analysis of events (Herlihy 1967, 112ff.).
In Tuscany,
therefore, most of the cities received various blows
in the course of the
fourteenth century from which, at least in
terms of population, they
never recovered: only Florence went
from strength to strength and, even
then, only from the later
fifteenth century.
In Lombardy, investment in land
may have begun even earlier,
for there are signs of fourteenth- as well
as fifteenth-century
prosperity (Miani 1964); and although some of this
left the land
little dug because it concerned the raising of livestock
rather
than of crops, there was much land improvement as well,
particularly
from the 1430s (ibid., 577). In this, of course,
the population was
following much older customs, for the first
Milanese canal was begun
under Hadrian, and there is evidence
for irrigation canals in Lombardy
from the mid-twelfth century
onwards (Dowd 1961, 150-1). As we might
expect, such a sound
economic infrastructure ensured a great amount of
building
activity in the fifteenth century (ibid., 155) - a period when
other centres were struggling with low population levels.
But if economic historians seem
generally agreed that
population levels were indeed much lower in 1400
than they had
been in 1300, (for whatever mix of reasons), they are not
agreed
about the consequences. What happened to trade after 1400? Did
cities like Florence move from mass-interest to speciality
goods?
Did the supposed gains in agriculture make up for a
decline in trade? Was
there, indeed, a depression in the
fifteenth century? The sides of the
argument seem to the
outsider to be evenly matched: Lopez and Miskimin
(1962)
underline increases in destitution, a radical slowing down in
town expansion, the impossibility of obtaining agricultural
statistics,
and the gap between cultural prosperity and economic
stagnation. Cipolla,
on the other hand (1964), chastises the
`stagnationists' for their
inability to recognise that the
economy remained flexible and dynamic,
thanks not only to
technological innovations but also to a higher average
individual income; in his turn, he is criticised for not
producing
figures to support his case. Even Cipolla agrees,
however, that probably
the population of Europe `by the end of
the fifteenth century was not
remarkably superior to that of the
end of the thirteenth' (1964, 523);
and his general position is
interpreted by Miskimin as accepting `a
decline of 30 per cent
to 40 per cent subsequent to the Black Death with
recovery
remaining incomplete until 1500' (ibid., 529).
From our point of view, one
consequence of such problems is
certain: the rate of wall-building
declined sharply after 1400.
`The decline in the rate of expansion of
walls between 1400 and
1550 to roughly 30 per cent of the rate attained
during the
previous 300 years strongly suggests that no demographic
"renaissance" paralleled the contemporary cultural phenomena'
(Lopez 1962, 416). The picture for the countryside can be
complemented
by Herlihy's study of rural Pistoia (one of the few
areas for which
evidence is available), which shows that `the
population decline in rural
Pistoia in the late Middle Ages was
of catastrophic dimensions. The population
of Pistoia's
countryside in 1404 was less than a third, only 29 per cent,
of
what it had been in 1244' (Herlihy 1965, 231). If a similar
decline
occurred all over Tuscany, we might expect the rate of
discovery of
antiquities to decline also.
A Hypothesis: Population, Prosperity and Antiquities
Can such general pointers help us in our study of interest in
antiquities, and of the conditions which might help in their
discovery?
Not directly, perhaps, because economic
considerations cannot be used
wholly to explain cultural
developments, although perhaps they can
sometimes occasion them.
We do know that the basic conditions for
discovery were right,
for we have plentiful evidence of continuing
habitation of Roman
settlements, including mediaeval expansion over the
Roman site
(pictorial survey in Morini 1963, 72ff., 126ff.). What is
more,
the large population in Tuscany, with its economic prosperity
and hence surplus disposable time and income, provided fertile
ground
for an interest in art. This prosperity clearly continued
into the
Quattrocento, although by then the slow rate of
population expansion was
sufficient only to repair some of the
ravages of the plague. The pressure
on land, and therefore
possibilities of chance discoveries of
antiquities, was thus
proportionately less than that during the great
expansion of
1150-1300. Indeed, the Romanesque period is well-named, for
such
a wide-ranging re-use of antique fragments would not occur again,
except in the Rome of the Popes (where fragments are almost
invariably
re-cut). A second chance, as it were, is presented to
antiquarians of the
sixteenth century - another period of
expanding population, if not of the
foundation of new towns.
From
these considerations (and from others which will be
discussed later in
this book), I suggest the following
hypothesis:
For
sites which have continuous or near-continuous
occupation from antique
times onward, a connection might exist
between population levels,
prosperity, and the discovery and
perhaps appreciation of antiquities.
After a period of
population reduction in late antiquity, and concomitant
reduction of the inhabited area of cities and of building, a
revival
occurs not earlier than the tenth century (cf. Delogu
1979 on Campania;
Bozzo 1979, 15, states that at Genoa the
re-use of antiquities coincides
with the rebirth of the city
itself in the twelfth century). Thus the
rising population from
the eleventh to early fourteenth centuries,
whether living in
town or countryside, had more Roman antiquities
(statues,
reliefs, architectural members) at their disposal than did the
Early Renaissance. The act of town expansion required much
building
stone, and expansion across Roman public buildings
intra muros and
cemeteries extra muros provided it - as well as
quantities of statues and
reliefs.
The Significance of the Hypothesis
Why is
this hypothesis important? First, because it displaces
part of Vasari's
account of the development of the Renaissance:
he believed that
antiquities were not freely available then, as
when he writes of
Donatello that `He deserves the greater
commendation, because in his day
antiquities had not been dug
out, such as columns, sarcophagi ...'
(Life of Donatello):
he was wrong, for Donatello had access to all
the main types of
Roman art (Greenhalgh 1982). Secondly, because it
offers a
down-to-earth and non-stylistic explanation for the nature of
Romanesque art in Italy and elsewhere: can it be coincidence
that
it is in cities with antique monuments where contemporary
artists turn to
the antique in the Middle Ages - such as Auxerre
or Rheims (Adhémar
1939, 273ff.), or the cloisters of
Saint-André-le-Bas at Vienne, or
of Saint Trophîme at
Arles? Thus Panofsky's suggestion (1970, 63 n.
5) that the
Antique Master at Rheims could have seen imported statuettes
might be reworked into a hypothesis that full-size antique
statues
were found on site during building work at Rheims;
perhaps the
antiquarianism of Nicholas of Verdun, which is
usually seen as the result
of foreign travel (Griessmaier 1972),
results from work seen nearer to
home (bearing in mind the Vix
Krater). Thirdly, the hypothesis might be
extended into the
field of politics: the rise of the communes in Italy,
taking
place as it did at a period of population expansion, perhaps
took so kindly to antiquities to symbolise their new-found power
not
only for abstruse ideological reasons, but also because
suitable
antiquities appeared in the very process of that
expansion. However, that
antiquities were considered politically
essential is shown by the
behaviour of one city without an
antique heritage: that very model of the
parvenu, Venice, set
about manufacturing herself an antique and Byzantine
heritage in
the thirteenth century (Demus 1955) because such was the
behaviour of cities she admired and wished to imitate.
We should not underestimate the
wealth of finds available to
the Middle Ages on sites of Roman origin.
Rome provides the most
striking (if the most exceptional) example: for as
a direct
result of the post-Risorgimento programme of new building and
urban expansion, it was possible to assemble in the short space
of
about twenty years a collection of classical sculpture (now
the Museo
delle Terme) which is comparable in quality and range
to that assembled
by the Vatican over several hundred years -
and this when the city had already
been used as a builders' yard
for several hundred years.
If the basic hypothesis is sound,
how might it help in
studying the traditions of interest in the antique -
traditions
which are already well established through stylistic analysis
and comparison? Its down-to-earth nature is perhaps easier to
explain
than any purely intellectual theory. For if artists only
turned to the
antique for intellectual reasons (and I am the
last to deny that art is
indeed an intellectual activity) then
there are embarrassingly difficult
questions to be answered. How
were their desires generated? Were
antiquities always freely
available, to be used or neglected according to
whim? Did not
the intellectuals, so to speak, know a good thing when they
saw
one, or do we still believe that the Dark Ages were as dark as
Petrarch
believed them to be, with antiquities above ground but
ignored? Were the
waves of revival and relapse matters purely of
the mind? Alsop (1982,
340) would be helped in his
investigations into collecting, for example,
if he re-framed his
statement that it was Rome (with Papal building
projects from
the later fourteenth century) where statues were
discovered, and
the cities of northern Italy which registered `a relative
slowness to absorb the Renaissance', and focussed instead on the
history
of earlier expansion in those same northern cities.
Furthermore, the hypothesis helps
with one of the most
puzzling features in the development of Renaissance
art - namely
the time gap between the birth of a classicism based on
antique
principles from about 1400, and an interest in the collecting of
antiquities which begins in earnest only after the mid-century.
In
other words, although Donatello, Masaccio and even Ghiberti
are
exceptions to the general trends in early Quattrocento
Florence in that
they do make use of antiquities and of the
traditions of Giotto (for
which reasons Vasari brings them to
prominence in his account), it is
only much later that concern
for the antique becomes of general interest
to artists. Cannot
this `curve of interest' be related to the decline and
rise of
population, and hence of movement of the soil, in the fourteenth
and fifteenth centuries? Is this not just as convincing an
argument
for the retention of or regression to `retardataire'
artistic styles as
the experience of the Black Death, from which
Meiss (1964) draws
religious rather than demographic arguments?
In order to test the hypothesis, I turn now to a
series of
towns where an apposite written or archaeological record
survives,
and sketch their fortunes through the Middle Ages in
order to explain the
circumstances and results of population
expansion.
Expanding Towns and their
Antiquities:
Population Increase and Lithomania
After the fall of the Empire, the
classical buildings in many
towns were sometimes still of use, suitably
repaired from
generation to generation. Indeed, if we accept Brown's
arguments
(1980, 19-21), late Antiquity (particularly in the East) was in
some areas a period of vigorous building, not to say
`lithomania',
later to be described as `the besetting sin of
great bishops'. This may
indicate a population rise in some
cities: `in the fifth and sixth
centuries, as in the Northern
Europe of the late thirteenth century, we
have the sense of
great buildings made possible by a weight of population
pressing
dangerously on the available resources' (ibid., 21). In others,
we may suspect delusions of grandeur equivalent to the
over-expansion
sometimes found in the later Middle Ages.
Frequently, such late antique
buildings are made with spolia,
which we also find incorporated into the
town walls. By the late
10th century, we find "Ruthena" as a
toponym at Pavia, and then
elsewhere (Pellegrini 1974, 470) - suggesting,
perhaps,
locations of ruins (and therefore building stone) within cities.
By the later Middle
Ages, once any `slack' in habitation area
had been taken up, more and
more people would be forced to
settle outside the walls and build there,
turning countryside
into suburb, and often necessitating the building of
another
ring of walls to protect them. In many cases, the demolition of
old walls provided not only material for new ones, but also
inscriptions
and parts of monuments `in the very entrails of an
enormous structure',
as Jullian has it (1897/90, 2.281); in
others, the very expansion could
obscure as well as reveal
antiquities: Szekely (1973, 341) notes that the
twelfth century
urban expansion in Hungary `is the time then the Late
Roman
architectural legacy gets lost, becomes buried finally.' In
Western
Europe, does lithomania produce a similar scarcity of
materials? We have
seen antiquities used as markers in mediaeval
land deeds, but whether
such markers survived the searches for
building materials of the
cathedral builders is a moot point.
Monuments which fell down because of
decay or earthquake
(cf. Petrarch on the effects of the 1349 earthquake
in Rome: Rer. Fam. 11. 7) provided convenient supplies of
materials.
Consequences of Expansion:
the Discovery of
Antique Cemeteries
Extensive
building works require the shifting of large
quantities of earth, and
generate the need for large amounts of
building stone. The demolition of
smaller town enceintes (now
rendered useless by an expanded population)
would provide much
useful material, some of which would no doubt consist
of re-used
antiquities anyway. But more importantly, Roman custom had
prevented intramural burial, thereby encouraging cemeteries
which
lined the roads outside the walls and usually started
quite close to
them. Roman cemeteries could therefore have been
uncovered in the course
of such expansion. (This hypothesis may
be false for antique towns where
the known burial sites are
distant from the old walls; thus most of the
burial areas at
Vicenza are distant from the walls, and it would be
circular to
argue that those nearer the walls were dismantled during
mediaeval expansion of that city). The earliest example of such
a
process on record is Caesar's rebuilding of Corinth, to
establish a Roman
colony there; in the course of building, some
of the cemeteries of the
Greek city were discovered, and the
antiquities therein fetched high
prices on the Roman art market
(Wace 1949, 28). We may conclude that the
location of many
antique burials was known to the Middle Ages: compare
the late
fifteenth century relation of how Ovid's tomb (supposedly at
Tomis) was situated `before the city gate in a place of much
resort'
(Trapp 1973, 45).
Indeed,
in some cases the preservation and re-use of such
funerary antiquities
began in late Antiquity, because
Christianity began by focussing its cult
of martyrs at sites
extra muros. But with the growing fashion (from
perhaps the
seventh century) for burial within the holy ground of
intramural
churches, yet more ground within the original city walls would
be dug over. To this can be added the gradual removal of
cathedrals
to new locations, frequently intra muros (Violante
1966).
The discovery of antique
cemeteries occurred in many
centres. At Benevento, the erection of the
Rocca dei Rettori
revealed Roman tombs which lay underneath, just as the
funerary
monument by Porta Somma was sometimes taken for a castrum
(Rotili
1979, 34f.). Walls needed an encircling ditch, and some
of these were
very broad and deep, as at Perugia (Nicolini 1971,
747ff.). In the case
of Siena, ditch-digging seems to have
itself uncovered cemeteries: this
must be the implication of the
reference in a document of 1003 to land
outside the walls being
bounded on one side by the `marble ditch'
(`fossato Marmorajo':
AIMA 5.537C). At Parma, a comparison of the
churches shown by
La Ferla (1981, 19) to be in existence in the new
suburbs by
1100 (and, indeed, `built over more ancient burial places':
ibid., 14), with the harvest of inscriptions from the area
recorded
in the CIL, indicates not surprisingly that it is those
near gates
and cemeteries which were built with such spolia
(particularly the
Cathedral and S. Croce, just outside the
eponymous gate).
That antique funerary antiquities
were indeed discovered is
surely evident from the popularity of
`cemetery' antiquities in
the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, from
lions (cf. Nochles
1966; or Calvani 1980, who notes the re-use of four
Roman lions
on the Fonte Branda at Siena) to funerary figures (as at
Pavia:
see below, p. 00). The same would apply to altars, at least some
of which survived to inspire mediaeval artists: thus to J.
Richer
(1965, 34f.) it is clear that the altar in the Musei
Capitolini,
depicting Amalthea feeding Zeus, was available to
the sculptor of the
Months for Ferrara Cathedral; the comparison
(with the panel of a goat
feeding a child) is a close one, which
even imitates the shape of ancient
altars.
A further
indication that the hypothesis is reasonable comes
from cities which did
not expand until much later: there, the
finds of course remained underground
until new prosperity
arrived. Thus Rota (1804, 92f.) writes of Bergamo's
eighteenth-century expansion: `from the oldest part of Borgo S.
Lionardo
were uncovered various urns from the time of the Roman
Empire; here and
at Pignolo, and near the parish church of S.
Grata, were found many
sepulchral marbles of the same period -
certain proof that these areas
were once uninhabited.' The author
then points out that in this locality
was erected the first
Cathedral; and that he had read in a `writing' of
930 that there
were then many tombs in that area.
Consequences of Expansion: the Farming of New Land
Nor need the chain of action and reaction be
restricted to the
development of urban population, for an expanding urban
population would require large food supplies, which would in
turn
require the working of even larger pieces of land - areas
which, perhaps,
had remained unworked since late antiquity
because there had been no
economic imperative to cultivate them.
Much the same argument could be
used for the drainage channels
which are so necessary in many parts of
Italy, providing
`excavations' of much greater depth than those provided
by the
scratching of a mediaeval plough. Examples will be given
of
materials found while digging ditches or foundation
trenches; but I know
of no mediaeval accounts of antiquities
found during canal digging. The
earliest full account of this
subject is by Camillo Silvestri
(1645-1719), whose Istoria
Agraria del Polesine di Rovigo has yet
to be published
(Zerbinati 1974-5). This manuscript deals largely with
works for
drying out the land, and for flood protection against the Adige
and the Po; it displays a wide knowledge of antiquities, and is
rich
in drawings of objects found in such work, from pots to
inscriptions.
That similar finds were made in the Middle Ages is
suggested by the
accounts cited below. Indeed, many
local antiquarians (such as Della
Croce 1698, 288ff. at Trieste)
recount everyday finds in the fields and
suburbs.
How can the hypothesis be tested?
If we are to investigate whether it is
true that interest in
antiquities waxes and wanes according to changes in
city
population and prosperity levels, then we must study antique
cities
which have certain characteristics: they will be walled,
and set in a
place of sufficient strategic importance, or
fertile land, to ensure
their continuing attractiveness in later
centuries. They must not,
however, have become so attractive
over the last seven or eight centuries
that all traces of the
antique past have been obliterated, for then there
would be no
comparanda: Pavia is an example of such a city, for it had a
vigorous life after the fall of the Empire, and is distant from
quarries
(Tozzi 1981, 4f.).
Cities
which have not expanded substantially since mediaeval
times are also
useless. In this category are Cividale del
Friuli, the ancient Forum
Julii, and a Longobard centre of great
importance, with extensive cemeteries
extra muros (Brozzi 1968,
and fig. 2); or Spoleto, where many finds were
made between the Roman
and the mediaeval walls, and incorporated into
later buildings -
the 1599 view of the city emphasises how many churches
were set
in the interstices (Di Marco 1975, 70, 89ff.). Another
is
Gubbio, of which Fra Maria da Venezia (RIS 21.4, 98) writes:
`outside
the gate of SS. Agostino and Peter were found and are
still found many
beautiful ruins, monuments and other remains in
stone, out of which the
new church of S. Domenico in Perugia was
made by Benedict XII, and other
buildings in Gualdo, which used
to be called the city of Todinaci.' Yet
another is Ravenna, for
her walls (built in the years following 1255) are
on average no
more than 30m outside the Roman set - a slight expansion
probably explained by the growth of lean-to houses, gardens and
orchards
(cf. Gobbi 1982). Ferrara is slightly different:
probably only a
way-station in Roman times, it received walls in
the seventh and eighth
centuries but, although these used Roman
paving stones, no sculptures or
monuments were incorporated in
them (Petitucci 1974). Modern finds
emphasize
the riches in such centres (Giuntella 1983).
Other towns which can help us only by inference are those
where the expansion occurred only in
or after the Renaissance,
usually at the hands of military architects
(who must, surely,
have been more likely than anyone else to find
antiquities:
witness G. da Sangallo's discovery of rich cemetery deposits
in
1534 when digging the foundations of the Fortezza da Basso in
Florence:
Pegna 1974, 192). In France also, several walled towns
retained their
importance into the modern era, after having
their defences updated. One
such is Soissons, where the enceinte
was enlarged in the years following
1550, during which operation
`while digging the town ditches, several
walls and remains of
old buildings were found'; and the builders went
scavenging for
materials near Saint-Crespin-en-Chaye, `all the more so because
the common belief was that in that place there had been a
Chateau
of alabaster - and indeed, the remains of a Chateau were
found, which we
must assume to have been very fine and grand,
for they found there a
great quantity of marble, jasper and
other valuable stones, from which it
had been built. They also
found small squares and stones no bigger than a
farthing: these
were of glass, and of stone glazed in different colours.
They
also found several medals, and images of goddesses'
(contemporary
account in Enaud 1979, 327ff. and n. 18).
Equally useless are towns those which contracted
during our
period, like Volterra, which has Etruscan walls which cover
about three times the area of either the mediaeval or the modern
city
(cf. Schneider 1975, 267); or, in France, like Autun, which
did not fill
its Roman enceinte until at least the seventeenth
century (Duval 1962).
Such contraction was infrequent in Italy,
but Florence and Herdonia are
exceptions (La Ferla 1981, 6).
Again, modern prosperity without excavation generally
means
either the obliteration of antique remains, or great difficulty
in getting to dig them - and then only in the form of rushed
rescue
digs, before car-parks are turned into tower blocks. It
goes without
saying, therefore, that we require a centre with
good archaeological
records, and one of which we have some
knowledge of population levels.
Unfortunately, as we have seen,
population studies are flawed by frequent
and crucial
uncertainties, even for the later Middle Ages, so much so
that
any estimates must be couched in the most general terms, backed
up by what it is fervently hoped is directly comparable material
from
other sites.
How many
towns fit the above conditions? Good
examples are provided by those towns
which knew a second main
period of prosperity in the Middle Ages or early
Renaissance,
and lay encased in temporal aspic thereafter while the
expanding
and deep-foundation-digging world passed them by: these are
studied below. Neither Florence nor Rome fit particularly well,
the
former because of its relative unimportance in ancient
times, and the
latter because of the peculiar conditions obtaining
there during the
Middle Ages: both are included in the survey
because of their place in various
renascences.
Bologna
A recent study of
Bologna's mediaeval growth has suggested (Pini
1978, 367; 374ff.) not
only that it was the Hungarian and
Saracen incursions which were
responsible for breaking an
equilibrium between city and countryside, but
that the city
fathers deliberately broadened the tax base to encourage
more
city settlement and hence more revenue. The city had shrunk
considerably
in the ninth century (La Ferla 1981, 6), and the
local recession of
1274-1347 caused another population decline,
prompting the question of
how far such expansionism was either
artificial or speculative. Pini
(1974, 820ff.), studying
viticulture and land use at Bologna after 1000,
shows how the
disposable capital of the mercantile and artisan classes
led to
investment in land, and frequently to the planting of vines,
which were cultivated up to three miles outside the various sets
of
walls, as well as within the second cerchia (eleventh to
twelfth
centuries) and the third cerchia (thirteenth to
fourteenth centuries: cf.
ibid., pl. I). In the same city, it
has been shown (Fasoli 1960-3, 335)
that it was mostly pious
foundations which, from the eighth century,
occupied the
`civitas antiqua rupta' - namely the abandoned Roman section
of
the city - although this was occupied again with the rise of
population
from the early eleventh century (Pini 1978, 372ff.).
However, the fact
that religious foundations were first on the
site helps explain the
re-use of so much antique material in
religious buildings - a feature
which is duplicated all over
Europe.
If we accept that, at Bologna, the new twelfth-century
wall
is an affirmation of a new political organism acknowledged by
the
Emperor in 1116 when he gave privileges to the citizens
(Fasoli 1960-3,
341), then perhaps we can also assume that the
Bolognese took pride in
their antiquities, as did the Modenese,
discussed below: in other words,
that Roman survivals were an
essential element in their identity and
hence in their civic
pride.
Verona
Much information can be expected from
excavation in Verona -
another city which was clearly proud of its
antique past
(Ward-perkins 1984, 224ff.). The city retained its antique
grid
structure throughout the Middle Ages, and its circle of walls
had
three main enlargements. The first, in late Roman times,
took the arena
into the circuit of walls. The second, in the
late twelfth and early
thirteenth century, doubled the city's
size by taking in all the loop of
the Adige and more territory
on the north bank. The last, effected by
Cangrande della Scala
c. 1327, again doubled the size. Is it
possible that the
beginnings of humanism in Verona, under Cangrande
(Weiss 1969,
21ff.), are contemporary with the expansion of the city?
Using as an index the numbers of
antique inscriptions in the
city's mediaeval churches (it is impossible
to do it for
other types of antiquities, because they have not been
catalogued), it is clear that those foundations in the `firing
line'
of the second and final expansions had much larger
collections of
inscriptions than those within the limits of the
late Roman city. For, of
the churches on the old Roman roads
outside the city (cf. Verona 1960-9,
3.1, 36f., 66f.),
several were the findspots for inscriptions: S. Michele
alla
Porta (Franzoni 1965, 96); S. Pietro Incarnario; S. Lorenzo,
built
c. 1110; and SS. Apostoli, where three paleochristian
sarcophagi
were brought into the adjacent chapel between the
ninth and fourteenth
centuries (ibid., 89f; Verona 1960-9,
1.574ff.). The SS. Apostoli was
reconsecrated in 1160, with the
remains of its two saints placed in `a
great and prestigious
sarcophagus of marble'). To the north, over the
river, the
construction of S. Giovanni in Vallis, just outside the
pre-Commune
wall, and consecrated in 1164, threw up several
inscriptions; but its
neighbour, S. Pietro in Castello (a
Romanesque church demolished in the
last century) and the castle
itself, just inside the same wall, yielded
much larger numbers -
about a dozen entries in the CIL (the
vagueness reflecting that
of some of the descriptions of find-spots). The
Cathedral was
also adorned with some particularly fine inscriptions (e.g.
CIL 5.1.334; Franzoni 1965, 145ff. for finds of antiquities on
the site).
Many
more inscriptions, however, were noted at S. Zeno, which
not only sits in
the middle of one of the main necropoleis (the
others being by S.
Giovanni in Valle; south of the city; and
around the Roman walls to the
north of the Adige), but is also
just inside the mediaeval protective
ditch (Franzoni 1965,
55ff.; Bullough 1974, note 9). Whether these were
found and used
only in the Romanesque refurbishing, or perhaps in the
ninth
century (when the foundation is already described as `antiquo'
(deed of 889: AIMA 1.937B; and cf. deed of 833, in AIMA
1.459ff.)
is impossible to know. S. Zeno possessed at least
one (arguably) antique
building in 901, when the monks' right to
the `Orreum' within the walls
of Verona is confirmed (AIMA
1.741C). A document of 889 refers to
the `horreo antiquo',
perhaps the same one (Schiaparelli 1903, 30, doc.
6) It is
highly likely that some of these antiquities came not simply
from cemeteries extra muros, but from the demolition of the
ambitious
third-century walls which, as remaining segments show,
were themselves
rich in spolia, particularly funerary ones.
Modern finds from this source
include at least one circular
mausoleum (Mirabella Roberti 1979, 435ff.;
and if this author's
dating of some of the towers is correct, then the
use of spolia
is not a practice confined to the late Empire, but goes
back to
the time of Marcus Aurelius).
Modena
For Modena, contemporary narratives survive which tell us under
what circumstances antiquities were discovered, and which
proclaim
a pride in the city (Parra 1983, 463f.): when the
foundations of the
Cathedral (begun 1099) were being dug, God
directed the workmen where to
dig, and stones and marble were
found:]]
[t2]And so the divine
right hand coming to their rescue, the
fabric of the foundation having
now reached the higher parts,
and while the nave was being built (dum
tale opus in longum
protenditur), the people began to fear lest through a
lack of
stone (for the supply was small) such a church would remain
uncompleted ... Persuading the hearts of men, you make the earth
to
be dug out; you deign out of the multitude of your mercy to
disclose
astonishing heaps of marble and stone, which seem
sufficient to complete
the task in hand. A machine ... is
therefore erected; noteworthy marbles
are uncovered; and they
are carved with marvellous skill. The blocks are
raised and
fitted together ... So the walls grow, and the building grows
(from the account of the translation of S. Geminianus, in RIS
6.89;
see also Quintavalle 1964-5, 51f; 362; gloss in
Rebecchi 1984, 319f.) ]]
[cr]
[t1]Although (as we shall see) there is no reason to doubt the
truth of this account, it does sound suspiciously like a topos:
compare
Procopius' account of Justinian's building work in
Jerusalem
(Buildings 5.vi.19), when, lacking columns, `God
revealed a natural
supply of stone perfectly suited to this
purpose in the nearby hills, one
which had either lain there in
concealment previously, or was created at
that moment'; and
there are further instances from the East (Morrisson
1981, 327 and
n. 48). Where the finds were made we do not know, but the
type
of material found (and some of it was placed high on the walls
of the new Cathedral) was in part funerary, and must therefore
have
come from outside the walls of the ancient city.
It is also likely that the `gift
from God' tradition
associated with the Modenese finds may have done the
craftsmen
less than justice, for there is evidence that they knew what to
look for, and vaguely where: an entry for 12 May 1167 in the
Regestum
Ecclesiae Mutinensis (Vicini 1936, 2.42) decrees
that the `massarii'
of the Duomo (and they alone) be allowed
`digging for stone through the
roads and the squares of the city
without incommoding the inhabitants
within. Outside the city
likewise along the streets, roads (stratas,
vias) and marshes,
communes and settlements, and next to the streets and
roads
within the fields for four bracchia, they may likewise freely
dig' (AIMA 1.478ff. for Muratori's comments). The implication
is that the `lapides' are cut stones, and not simply pieces of
rock;
and the restrictions on how far from the roads the masons
could stray
could be to do not only with property rights, but
also with the knowledge
of where to look for antique tombs. God
still takes a part, for the
permesso goes on to refer to the
`stones which God gave to them'.
Scavenging was also practiced
to find marble for the Cathedral for, according to Muratori, it
came from
a villa site, with temple, three miles outside the
city to the south
(AIMA 3.122).
Indeed,
because mediaeval Modena is a new foundation, and
some way from the Roman
city (which was destroyed during the
invasions), it seems likely that the
masons directed by God also
visited the old remains for the bulk of their
material.
Nevertheless, some of the early eleventh-century finds could
indeed have been made close to the Cathedral site itself, for
the
`Ghirlandina' lies on the site of ancient tombs, some of
which came to
light during restoration work at the beginning of
this century - although
there are too few to call the site a
necropolis (Montorsi 1976, 263). Any
material discovered when
digging foundations for the Cathedral complex
would therefore be
from tombs flanking the Via Emilia.
We also know what happened to the
cache whose discovery is
recounted above: the best pieces were displayed;
some were
recarved, and others indeed imitated in modern productions
(Quintavalle 1964-5, 1.148ff.; 2, pls 478, 586). God could see
some
of them, even if they were set too high for the eyes of
mere men (e.g.
Malmusi 1830, no. 6, in the Campanile; cf.
Rebecchi 1984, 326ff.; and
Montorsi 1976, 258ff. for the
antiquities inserted therein); and one was
even set on its side
in the Campanile, being admired perhaps for its fine
epigraphy
(ibid., no. 7). Others, surely found at the same time, went
into
the walls of other churches (e.g. ibid., no. 13). We might
surmise
that even more material was discovered when protective
ditches were being
dug after the Modenese decided, in 1188, to
`greatly enlarge their city,
and to close it with new gates'
(Tiraboschi 1793, vol 2, 3ff.); this
involved digging ditches -
witness the reference to a `fossatum novum' in
1182 (AIMA
3.149D).
The quality of much of the
material discovered during the
mediaeval centuries in Modena, and to be
seen today either in
the walls of the Cathedral or in the museum, is
high, and of a richness underlined by the recent find of a good
neo-attic
Niobid frieze in the northern necropolis (Gentili
1974). Indeed, many of the best pieces now to be
seen in Modena
came from excavations associated with the expansion of the
city
or its suburbs: a great sarcophagus, found in 1353 when digging
the ditch for Cittanova (Malmusi 1830, no. 64); another, found
three
years later (ibid., no. 4) - some of this material
exhibited immediately,
surely as `works of art' (Parra 1983,
480f.); and inscriptions, a figured
stele and another
sarcophagus appeared in the course of similar work in
1546, 1635
and 1646 respectively (Malmusi 1830, nos. 51, 25, 24). Perhaps
because
of the richness of the finds, Modenese interest in things
ancient
continued beyond the period of Cathedral construction:
the Chronicon
Mutinense for the year 1313 notes that `the
ancient Tower of the
People of the New City was utterly
destroyed and levelled to the ground;
in its ruins they
discovered a marble tablet inscribed with details of
its
foundation and, after computation made by the learned, it was
realised
that it had been set there 1311 years before' (
RIS 11.100; the find
is also mentioned in the Annales Veteres
Mutinensium, RIS
11.78f.).
It is in
this `antiquity-rich' context that the works of
Guglielmo, who made
reliefs and friezes to decorate the
Cathedral, may be viewed. Some of
these are so close to the
antique that they must have been done from actual
models; one
such is the putto with a torch, which is surely from a
sarcophagus
(Jullian 1931, 134ff.; Greenhalgh 1982, 25; Settis
1984B, 315ff.;
Rebecchi 1984, 323). Not that the fashion of
adorning a church with real
or imitation antiquities was
confined to Modena, for it was practised in
several cities, such
as Ferrara. There an imago clipeata appears on the
fa[ce]cade,
surely cut out of a sarcophagus; a fragment of ambo in the
Cathedral Museum shows the gathering of the vintage - an example
of
interpretatio christiana which also has its origins in a
sarcophagus,
although possibly a Christian one.
Brescia
Brescia
may have kept more of her ancient monuments longer than
any other
inhabited Italian city except Rome. The horrea were
probably in use as
such throughout the Middle Ages, their
location being called `il
granarolo' as late as 1930 (Storia di
Brescia 3.1066, n. 2). And
both forum and capitolium are
referred to in tenth- and eighth-century
documents respectively
(loc. cit.), although it is clear from references
in the Editto
di Rotari that the city also contained wooden houses
(ibid.,
vol 3, 1062). What destruction there was in earlier centuries
could have been due to fires (776 and 1097) or earthquakes (1117
and
1212), but by the thirteenth century a building boom was in
progress, and
the lime-burners arrived; kilns have been found in
the theatre, and the
church of S.M. in Calchera clearly
indicates the same process (Brescia
1979, 1.94; 2.88, 94).
Although
that boom caused a shortage of stone - witness the
statute of the
Visconti of 1313 forbidding the `magistri muri'
to dig for stone near the
fortress (Brescia 1979, 2.88) - the antique
buildings intra muros were
not too badly affected, because (as
with some cases in Rome) they were
taken over by the towers and
palaces of the nobility. The boom probably
also occasioned the
discovery of antiquities: thus the church of S.M. in
Solario,
built perhaps 1150-80 on the old decumanus maximus, and so
called
because an altar dedicated to the sun (CIL 5.4284)
supports the
central vault in the crypt (cf. Storia di
Brescia 1.270, note 1;
741ff.). Other fragments of Roman
inscriptions are also visible on the
fa[ce]cade (Brescia 1979,
2.82). Furthermore, the late antique gate
incorporated
first-century stelai, as well as sections of a splendid
mausoleum (Mirabella Roberti 1979, n. 6). Similar finds were to
be
catalogued both inside and outside the walls during the
Renaissance as,
for example, by Elia Caprioli (Weiss 1969,
115ff., 126f.).
Arezzo
Before its mediaeval circle of walls was built, Arezzo was
a
very small city in which ancient monuments, and conspicuously
the
Etruscan wall, were much in evidence, as the notional plan
of the city in
the ninth or tenth century shows (Pasqui 1899,
62). Sections of the
Etruscan wall were repaired or completely
re-made about 1040, and a new
gate is mentioned in 1085; but in
1111 Henry V destroyed the walls, and
the Commune had to rebuild
them. The topography of sections of the city
appears to have
remained antique: thus a document of 876 writes of the
forum,
and of the `house which is called the Granaries' (Pasqui 1899,
doc. 43). Honorary inscriptions had been posted on the forum
wall
and, according to Pasqui, some of these were found at its
base when
making the foundations of the Logge Vasari (ibid., 61,
n. 2): were they,
then, visible on the remains of the forum in
the ninth century?
A new circle of walls was begun
in 1319, and in 1320 more
stone was sought, such as at the `Monte di
Sole', `which was
then within the destroyed circle of walls; at the
insistence of
the Lord Bishop, blocks from there were taken and used in
the
new city walls' (RIS 24.1, 16); supplies of building stone were
meagre, and materials left over from the repair of the Palazzo
del
Popolo were also commandeered (Camerani 1946, 1, no. 23).
These walls
probably contained many antiquities, if we are to
believe the account by
L. Cittadini (1853, 51f.) of what
happened when Cosimo I ordered the
rebuilding of the main
fortress, as well as that of S. Clemente (both
destroyed by the
Aretini in 1502): `the Florentine commissioners allotted
to
oversee the task sated their hatred of the Aretines by
destroying
all Etruscan and Roman monuments, throwing a large
part of the stones and
venerable monuments into the lime kilns
and into the foundations of the
new structure, so that no record
of our past greatness should survive.'
One inscription could not
be reached (as Cittadini records: ibid., 191),
for it was
already underneath the Porta di Colcitrone, very near the
fortress.
There
are sufficient other Italian examples of pride in
antiquities,
particularly inscriptions, to
prove that this mournful
account is not
mere Aretine paranoia.
Indeed, such
ç actions may have been de rigeur
for conquerors:
compare what happened at Farfa, when the Saracens
invaded: `the
church was destroyed, and the stones hidden under ground,
so
that nobody has yet been able to find them' (AIMA 6.276E -
although perhaps the Moslems had been damaging or destroying
human
images, on sarcophagi and tombstones, which were contrary
to their
religion). One doubt about the Arezzo account is just how many
inscribed
stones would have been available in the sixteenth
century, given that the
Florentines had already built a small
castle at Arezzo in 1336, and begun
a big one as well (Villani
6.55). But in any case, Florentine policy
toward the Aretines
continued in the same harsh manner: in 1561, the Duke
proclaimed
their Cathedral to be dangerous - `marked down for demolition
by
the political whim of the Medicean government; various other
buildings,
which stood next to the wall, were also destroyed.
The precious marbles,
and the granite and porphyry columns, were
carted to Florence as a noble
ornament for the marvellous
Cappella S. Lorenzo; while others, which were
damaged and
broken, and not considered worth taking, remained as
witnesses
to the injust and arbitrary despotism of those days' (Cittadini
1853, 139) - a sad fate for a city which traced its foundation
back
to a son of Noah, and surely (to at least some of its
inhabitants) a
clear case of the destruction of their heritage.
Perhaps the destruction
of a large part of Perugia by Paul III
in 1540 to form the Rocca Paolina
may be read in the same way.
Pisa
One city
whose mediaeval prosperity obliterated almost all
traces of antiquities is
Pisa, where pride in the antique past
nevertheless remained strong (Scalia
1972), and is reflected in
several of the city's medieval monuments. It
was the vigorous
mediaeval building programme which destroyed antiquities,
rather
than simply the high water-table which obscured them (Banti 1943,
80ff.).
Whether
the Roman wall stood into the eleventh century is
not known; one wall
certainly did, because a diploma of Conrad
the Salic dated 1027 gives
land `between the old wall and the
city wall of Pisa' (MGH Dip. Reg.
Imp. Germ. 4.101; and cf.
Masetti 1964, 23f.): this is either the
Roman wall, or an
earlier mediaeval one, replaced by that of Cocco
Griffi; and
laws of 1027 and 1081 against its destruction prove its
continuing usefulness - even if only, perhaps, as official
rather
than private building material (Masetti 1964, 23f.; 33,
n. 8). We are
unsure about its exact line (Neppi Modona 1953, 2;
Tolaini 1967, ch. 1),
but it is clear than the Duomo itself was
outside it, because of the
funerary material later found in and
around via Torelli. This includes
architectural fragments, urns
and ceramics (Neppi Modona 1953, nos
21ff.), as well as records
of foundations, marble pavements, urns, cippi
and sarcophagus
fragments found later outside Porta di Lucca (ibid., nos
11-13).
The placing of a cathedral either just within or just outside
the line of the antique walls is a phenomenon not restricted to
Pisa
and Florence, but is common throughout other areas of Italy
(Violante
1966, 321ff.) and, indeed, Gaul.
Why were antiquities built
into the Duomo?
As at Modena, with which Pisa has certain parallels
(Parra
1983), many antiquities (mainly inscriptions) were built into
the Duomo, and visible; but, as Bianconi pointed out in the
eighteenth
century, considerably more may lie underneath the
building - `an infinity
of antiquities condemned by barbarism to
an eternal night ... Ancient
Pisa has furnished the materials
for modern Pisa' (Tolaini 1967, ch. 1;
Scalia 1972, 795). Such
was also the nineteenth-century opinion: `the
destroyed circus
and Palace of the Caesars towards the Duomo, the columns
of
oriental marbles, the capitals, inscriptions and numerous
sarcophagi
unearthed in Pisa, mostly on the right bank of the
Arno (Repetti 4, 1841,
372). Bianconi was right to be
scathing, for one important inscription
was found in use as
pavement before the west door (CIL 11.1420:
Neppi Modona 1953,
no. 6; Scalia 1972, n. 33); and another, CIL
11.1421,
reversed, as the altar table in the Chiesa della Spina (cf.
Arias 1977, 83ff.). Although at least one of the inscriptions
(CIL
14.9) is from Ostia, much of the rest may be local (Scalia
1972, 799);
about half is funerary, and the best in style comes
from monumental
building. It is worth emphasising that Pisa
Cathedral (begun in 1063 and
consecrated in 1118) was perhaps
the first large work of the later Middle
Ages to employ such a
large quantity of spolia: Orvieto Cathedral, which
did likewise,
was begun only in the early fourteenth century.
Always bearing in mind the (at
first sight) haphazard way in
which the antique pieces at Pisa have been
inserted in the walls
(cf. the very different attitude in Genoa: Bozzo
1979, 17f.), we
might surmise that only those pieces which contain some
readable
words have been used; lapidary capitals are popular for obvious
reasons - and it may be significant that the important
inscriptions
CIL 11.1420-1 were not displayed because they
are cursive rather
than lapidary, and the letters very small in
size. The following are
among the letters which were displayed:
SACR; IMP CAESARI (twice);
HADRIANO; POPULUSQUE PISANUS; AUGUST;
and fragmentary references to IMP
CAESAR; TITUS; HADRIAN; and
TRAIANI (Neppi Modona 1953, nos 3; 4; 9; 10;
12; 28; 29).
Perhaps such display is paralleled in Florence, where an
inscription honouring Lucius Aurelius Verus was used in the
refurbishing
of the Baptistery before the reconsecration of 1059
(Pegna 1974, 303).
This is placed on its side: but could it have
been chosen because it
begins IMP. CAESARI / DIVI ANTONINI, etc.?
Unlike Modena, Pisa has left no early documents
hinting at a
local search for spolia (Parra 1983, 456f.), so what
conclusion
should we draw from the grouping of the majority of the
re-used
pieces around the usual entrance, at the top of Via S. Maria?
Either that the sanctuary was considered worthy of a more
luxurious
level of decoration than the rest of the building or,
more likely, that
it was at this point that the visitor could
best be impressed: here were
displayed the famous vase on a
porphyry column both now in the Camposanto
(Settis 1984A, no.
59), as well as the Phaedra sarcophagus (cf. Parra
1983, pl.
58.2). But was the main interest in the marble, rather than in
the incised letters? No, for two reasons. First, fragments have
been
recut to retain lettering - as that on the south wall where
the lettering
is not parallel to the edge of the block,
indicating that the block must
have been recut. And secondly,
there are several cases (e.g. on the north
wall of the nave)
where long, narrow antique blocks are incorporated so
that the
lettering is at 90 degrees to the plane of the wall; because it
would have been equally simple to leave the design face to the
wall
(since, however arranged, one face of the block would need
redressing),
we must conclude that the lettering is displayed,
not simply tolerated.
This disposes of Donati's suggestion (in
Settis 1984A, 10) that pieces
were deliberately inserted
upside-down so as not to displease the Christian
God.
A justification
in Pisan culture for the use of such
fragments is not difficult to find,
and the context is of course
the placing of antique sarcophagi around the
Duomo as tombs for
the great families and heroes of the Republic (Settis
1984A,
10ff.; Parra 1983, 477ff.). Their concern for the antique is to
be seen in the eleventh-century Pisan epic, the Liber
Maiorchinus,
which begins in true Virgilian fashion with `Arma,
rates, populum,
vindictam celitus actam' (whole text in RIS
6.111ff.; for the background to such
material, cf. Raby
1.259ff., and 2.152ff.); and the epitaph of 1114
recording
Pisans killed in a naval battle against the Saracens, and
buried
in S. Victor, Marseille (Deschamps 1929, fig. 30), is in the
same metre. Other, much earlier examples have been collected by
Muratori
(AIMA 3.681ff.; and cf. AIMA 5.1ff.). Scalia has
taken such
antiquarianism as far as to propose (1972, 832ff.)
that the head of
Hercules now on the Camposanto (Settis 1984A,
No. 84) is in fact an
effigy of the Pisan Consul Rodolfo, made
in 1124 for the Canto di S.
Frediano, and reflecting an interest
in the antique; but as the head has
several features which place
it firmly in the late antique period, and as
we do not really
know what twelfth-century portraits look like (indeed,
are there
any, at least in our sense of the word?), the theory must be
discounted.
Local antiquities in the fabric
But the thesis that many antiquities were found when digging the
foundations for the Duomo is supported not simply by recording
that
its foundations sit partly on Roman buildings (including
mosaic floors:
Neppi Modona 1953, no. 16b), but also by
reference to other churches in
the city which contain
antiquities. Thus S. Zeno, which nestles up
against the
mediaeval wall, has a rich selection of epigraphic and
architectural
fragments, urns and sarcophagi in its foundations,
and sarcophagi inside
as well (ibid., nos 34-6). Like many
other churches inside the mediaeval
walls, it was outside the
Roman enceinte, and may be presumed to have
received its antique
riches as a result of building activity in its area.
The antique
sarcophagi discovered may well have helped the sculptor of
Camposanto A21 int., dated 1443 (Arias 1977), for it is so much
in
the antique mould, with lions and strigillations, that it
must have been
imitated from an antique exemplar; by the
fifteenth century, a good
antique style must have been
considered de rigeur, particularly when
needed for the bones of
the abbot.
That antiquities were available locally, and important
enough
to receive mention, is clear from a donation of 720 by Sumealdus
of a house `and the stones which I saw to be within' (AIMA
3.1003A
- where the property was outside the walls, and the
stones anything from
squared blocks to statues. Further away,
`in loco Cassina' (Cascina?), a
donation of land of 935 has one
of its sides `sicut ibi signa esse
videtur' (AIMA
3.1053D), where `signa' are presumably statues. Many
churches in
the same category as S. Zeno are rich in antiquities - S.
Michele in Borgo (built about the year 1000, supposedly on a
Temple
of Mars), S. Vito, S. Pietro in Vinculis (founded by
1063, supposedly on
a Temple of Apollo), S. Andrea, and S. Paolo
a Ripa d'Arno (Neppi Modona
1953, nos 59; 61; 68; 69; 76). Until
the source of such abundance of
antiquities is shown to be from
outside the Republic, Parra's suggestion
(1983, 459) that the
Pisans had no pride in local antiquities cannot be
supported.
Imported antiquities in the fabric
If
we accept Scalia's assessment (1972, n. 57) that no author
has yet made a
thorough and detailed survey of antique material
in Pisa (now modified by
Arias 1972 and Settis 1984A), then any
firm conclusions would be
premature. However, inscriptions on
some of the antique material in Pisa
prove that it was brought
from outside the limits of the State,
particularly Ostia. A
document of 1040 states that the columns of San
Michele in Borgo
came from Rome by ship (Cattalini 1982, 74), but few of
the
cinerary urns now in Pisa are securely of local origin (Settis
1984A,
no. 97ff.). And according to Marangone (Annales Pisani
for 1159, in
RIS 6.2, 18), the Pisans brought `three
great stone columns from
Elba to the church of San Giovanni';
and from Sardinia in 1162 came
another two. They were proud of
their trophies, for the sack of Palermo
of 1063 is enshrined in
an inscription on the fa[ce]cade of the Duomo
(ibid., 5f.). The
great Mahdia campaign of 1087 provided riches for the
churches
of Pisa but also material, as the account written shortly
afterwards
makes clear: the Pisans `destroyed fine buildings all
around, and carried
home with them all that was fine' (para 66
in the latest edition, by
Cowdrey 1977), and donated some of the
booty for the construction of S.
Sisto (ibid., para 71).
Maragone notes that the sack of Mahdia (and
nearby Sibilia) also
produced `a huge booty of gold, silver and
ornaments' with which
the Duomo of Pisa was then decorated (op. cit.,
anno 1088). And
since Mahdia is but 170km from Carthage, which is
mentioned in
the fourth line of this nationalistic epic, it is tempting
to
wonder whether the Pisans also took material from the ruins
there,
in useful imitation of the Roman sack of that city and,
indeed, of the
Arabic re-use of material there in the
great mosque at Tunis (Ferchiou
1981). Such importation was
probably not unusual: Venice had perforce to
import all her
material; and Genoa probably imported much of hers - some,
perhaps, from Luni (Bozzo 1979, 14, 34); and Genoa, where
inscriptions
prove at least some of the antiquities to have been
imported (Bozzo 1967,
10ff. and note 4) provides an analogy.
Nor should we forget the church of S. Piero a Grado,
built
in the mid-eleventh century on top of a fourth-century church
and a first-century villa; as well as many Italian spolia, it
contains
a capital in Greek marble, once thought to be of about
the date of the
Erechtheum, probably brought by the Pisan navy
from Chios (Neppi Modona
1953, Ager Pisanus no.2; Von Mercklin
1962, no.619a); this has now been
shown to come from the
Auditorium of Maecenas at Rome (Cattalini 1982).
Its very
presence heightens the possibility that at least some of the
spolia in the Duomo were also imported: Repetti's explanation
(4,
1841, 315) is that the Pisans got their taste for grandiose
public
monuments through their commerce and their port, which
was open to trade
with the East. This likelihood of large-scale
imports must be balanced
against the rich local finds of
material similar to some of the
Camposanto material in 1520
(Arias 1977, 10ff. and n. 10), in later
centuries (Masetti
1964, 17) and, indeed, during the building of the
mediaeval wall
itself, which had a greater extent than its antique
counterpart
(ibid., 19).
Pavia
The site of Pavia had been an
important and secure one since
long before the Romans, and its situation
at the junction of
major roads ensured continuing economic prosperity; it
was
capital of the Lombard Kingdom until the twelfth century
(Schmiedt
1978, 65). That prosperity ended when the Duchy of
Milan fell in 1525,
and the population probably did not reach
its later mediaeval level until
the nineteenth century.
Although
it is still a city rich in Roman remains (described
in Stenico 1968, 63;
cf. fig. 3), many of which were re-used as
spolia in its mediaeval
buildings (cf. Tozzi 1981, 8, n. 21),
much has been lost, but exactly
when is not known (Hudson 1981).
Bullough (1966, 97-9) doubts whether the
Roman forum was visible
as late as the eighth century, or indeed many
other relics of
Antiquity: all he has found are references to a
supposedly
public bath-house in the late seventh century, and to another
built during the same period by Bishop Damian for his clergy.
And
while the `insulae' may still have looked as they had always
done, the
growth of church building obliterated much of the
ancient city - no less
than forty four churches were said to
have been destroyed by the Magyars
in 924. As Bullough makes
clear, little can be learned of the aspect of
the city in the
earlier Middle Ages - and that in spite of its political
pre-eminence which assured the survival of a sparse collection
of
documents. But given the early introduction of intramural
burial
(practised from the fifth century, and popularised when
King Grimoald was
buried in his newly founded church of
Sant'Ambrogio in 671: Bullough
1966, 99), we can assume that its
population was diminished from Imperial
times, and that the
vegetable gardens and large and derelict plots which
are
recorded for the ninth and early tenth centuries within the
walls
probably existed much earlier as well.
A series of maps shows the development of the city
beyond the
original Roman grid (Gutkind 1969, figs 163-6), with the third
and outermost band being the `Spanish' fortifications of 1500.
The
innermost band is Roman, and has been dated to the late
third or early
fourth century (Bullough 1966, 87). From
documentary evidence (ibid.,
115), the second ring of walls
should be later than the end of the tenth
century: presumably it
dates from somewhere between the year 1000 and the
population
expansion of the thirteenth century, when Pavia founded the
new
towns of Pontenuove, Castel San Giovanni and Stradella as
satellites
(Lavedan 1974, 105).
From
such maps, and from a walk around the city, it might be
assumed that the
grid pattern has remained unchanged through the
ages; but this is not the
case. Grid patterns are a favourite
mediaeval type of layout as well; and
there are plenty of
examples of cities overlaying Roman predecessors
where the
patterns do not match (e.g. Fernie 1983, 26ff. for England).
The
Roman grid pattern at Pavia is visible today, and the Middle
Ages
knew and admired its regularity. Opicinus de Canestris made
it the basis
of his new design (Gutkind 1969, 266; Tozzi 1981,
6ff.), and although his
is the earliest surviving text in
admiration of it, it is far from the
last (Tozzi 1981, 11).
However, the survival of the pattern seems to be
restoration
work carried out during the later Middle Ages, and apparently
prompted by the discovery of the antique drainage system
(Bullough
1966, 98): it is known that several mediaeval
buildings did stray across
the grid divisions, which supports
this inference. The fact of
restoration, while in itself an
indication of a severely practical
interest in antique
technology, must have obscured even more traces of
the past,
aiding a process which the very prosperity of the city had
encouraged for centuries. Thus no temple sites, granaries, etc.
have
been located, and very few inscriptions (Stenico 1968,
75f.); although
some inscriptions must have been available, to
judge by the antiquarian
style adopted in Longobard epigraphy
(Gray 1948, 59ff., 155ff.) and by
the finding of several in the
rebuilt Roman wall (Fagnani 1959, 35).
The line of the Roman
wall has been studied by Fagnani
(ibid.), who has shown that the space
outside the pomerium was
used after the Pax Romana as a necropolis and
then, in the early
Middle Ages, particularly the Carolingian period, as
an
`expansion valve' for additional building. He adduces documents
to
show how various types of development took place from the
Roman wall
outwards: Theodoric had strengthened the walls, but
by the early tenth
century they were ruinous, partly because of
the diplomas giving various
sections of them to religious
organisations. Sometimes such organisations
received gifts which
included old necropoleis, such as the area of the
Chiostro della
Pusterla (ibid., 27ff. and n. 80), and built over them as
they
expanded. In some instances the Roman wall was used for building
material; and some sections of it (probably those remade by
Theodoric)
contained inscriptions (ibid., 35). Some of the
antique cemeteries were
also built over in the course of urban
expansion - and again the digging
of foundations for new walls
uncovered tombs (ibid., pl. 1). Some parts
of the (?) Roman
pomerium (the space just inside or outside the walls)
were still
free and open space in 1061, when the term is correctly used
(as
`publicum pomerium') in a document (Sordi 1971, 306). A happy
occurrence
of `folk etymology' confirms this, for the term was
confused with
`pomarium', meaning `garden': the transfer of
meaning is certain, for it
is glossed as `pomerium, locus
proximus vel muri ubi arbores pomorum'
(loc. cit).
The legend of the foundation of the city
The probability that it was during population expansion of the
later Middle Ages (Hudson 1981, 33ff.) that antiquities were
discovered
is illustrated by the legend that Pavia is founded on
four great statues,
which are buried under the main gates of the
city and under the
Cathedral: `The city itself is founded on
four precious and large stones,
which are sculpted with the
images of the Four Cardinal Virtues'. Of
these Fortitudo is
placed to the east, Temperance to the south, and
Prudence under
the Summer Cathedral, `as if in the heart of the temple'
(
Anonymi Ticinensis Liber de Laudibus civitatis ticinensis, in
RIS 11.1, 19, lines 6-13).
According to Stenico (1963), these statues were in
fact set up
on the gates of the city, presumably in niches.
Temperance
and Fortitudo are now
lost, but he has identified two works now
in the museum as part of the
set: a male togate statue is
Justice; and Prudence is a Roman relief of
Attis, flanked by
columns. The latter is certainly funerary, the former
possibly
so (although Fagnani 1959, 23, suggests that it was an honorary
statue fixed to the outside of porta Marica). The identification
of
both is convincing. Justice was known as `La Muta' as early
as the
beginning of the fourteenth century, presumably because
its mouth was
even then worn away (Stenico 1963, n. 8); but the
fact that the head does
not belong to the statue prevents any
hypotheses about how long the work
stood out in the weather: it
could have been continuously visible outside
the Roman gate for
as long as that stood, or it could have been dug out
of the
adjacent necropolis (cf. Fagnani 1959, note 8), perhaps at the
time of the construction of the mediaeval circuit of walls - for
the
porta Marica (which was demolished in 1823) was of early
mediaeval
construction, and contained spolia (Fagnani 1959,
22f.). Prudence, which
Stenico believes was built into the
Cathedral as an ornament, was walled
up sometime between
Opicinis's day and its rediscovery in 1779.
There are many parallels for the
placing of antique statues
on city gates, including an example at Pavia
itself: the city
retained until 1584 one of the towers of the Roman wall,
the
Torre di Boezio, drawn by Giuliano da Sangallo (Cod. Vat. Barb.
Lat. 4424, fol. 13v) and charmingly described by a
sixteenth-century
Frenchman as `a great round tower made of
brick, with diabolic figures
great and large' (Fagnani 1959, 19)
- namely naked atlantes. Elsewhere,
the closest parallel is
perhaps the porta Consolare at Spello (a
mediaeval remaking of
the antique gate), which is decorated on the
outside with
antique funerary figures. Another is Frederick II's
triumphal
gateway at Capua, of 1234. Here the statues, like those at
Pavia, were symbolic and had suitably minatory inscriptions
(again
like one of the Pavia figures); and one wonders whether
the `antique
carvings' which a fifteenth-century writer mentions
as adorning it really
were antique, rather than simply old, that
is, of Frederick's day (Van
Cleve 1972, 339ff.); the
(Frederican) survivals were surely intended to
look antique. A
parallel to both which probably employs an antique work
is the
Porta S. Gervasio at Lucca, in the second set of walls, finished
in 1265: called Porta Romana in the Middle Ages, the gate
carried a
marble lion which may have come from some antique
cemetery in the area.
However, bearing in mind the mediaeval
penchant for lions (Nochles 1966;
Wentzel 1955, 35ff.), it could
be a mediaeval imitation of the antique.
The practice echoes
that of erecting modern honorific statues on city
gates: in
1297, the citizens of Orvieto set up statues in honour of Pope
Boniface, but perhaps not of him: `images of marble were made
and
placed at the porta Maggiore ... to the
magnificence of the said pope'
(Annales Urbevetani, in
RIS 15.5, 134).
Since decorated stones,
architectural fragments and statues
were used in the walls of Pavia, our
quadrivium might well come
from a mediaeval reworking of the defences,
being found in
re-use in the first wall when it was demolished, and
considered
beautiful enough to be set up as trophies to embellish the
second set. This seems likely, given the tradition relayed by S.
Breventano
(Istoria della Antichità ... di Pavia, Pavia 1570,
9v) that the
sculptures were actually found under the wall: `I
found in an very
ancient manuscript, that under the foundations
of the walls of the first
circle of this city at the four
cardinal points are the images of the
four virtues, called
Cardinal, sculpted in precious marble.' In other
words, they
were solid enough to be used as part of foundations - a
common
occurrence, especially in the late antique walls of Gaul.
The togate statue in the museum
is almost certainly the work
which appeared on the Porta Marenga, for
Breventano (1570, 5r-v)
describes it: `a very ancient statue of white
marble which,
because of its great age has the face ruined. But up to now
it
is not known who it represents. And above the same gate on the
inside
face is a dove of white marble with sculpted letters
proclaiming this
motto, because they say that at the foundation
of this city a flying dove
let drop from its beak `a banner, on
which was written Here is the
nest of nests. Woe, woe to
those that war against him'. Breventano
does not connect the
statue he describes with the Cardinal Virtues and
their legend;
but he does mention another relief, itself probably
funerary. He
may have taken an interest in antiquities partly because he
could surely have seen some appear when, in his own day, at
least
one of the gates of the second circle of walls was
destroyed: `once there
was to be seen an ancient gate, which has
been razed in my lifetime'
(ibid., 5v).
If the
Cardinal Virtues did indeed come from the foundations
of the first wall
or its Theodorican refurbishing, what could
have been their original
location? Given the extensive
Gallo-Roman cemeteries outside the west
wall, at Piazza Cavour,
as shown by modern finds (Stenico 1968, 63, fig.
3), this seems
a likely place - given also that Porta Marenga (which held
our
togate statue) was on this site and, when demolished in 1825,
revealed
many funerary antiquities (Tozzi 1981, 29ff., nos 81,
90, 93), which
strongly suggest that part of a necropolis was
cleared to build it. We
may conclude that, at some stage in the
history of the city, a decorated
gateway in the Roman fashion (a
fashion which could have been easily
known from coins as well as
from surviving gates: Price 1977, 47ff.) was
erected, using
statues some of which came from antique cemeteries
discovered
either in the course of demolishing the old wall, or of
digging
foundations for either the new wall or some other buildings.
However, it would be
unsound to argue that any or all of the
four statues were found near
`their' gates, for the propensity
to allegory in the legend is sufficient
to show that their
positioning is an ideal one. Compare Alexander
Minorita's
Exposition on the Apocalypse (ch. 21; in MGH Quellen zur
Geistesgeschichte d. Mitt., 1.461ff.), in which the walls of
the
Heavenly Jerusalem have the twelve Apostles as foundations,
and three of
the Twelve Tribes of Israel for each of the four
gates. And the
foundations are ornamented with every precious
stone - `id est omnibus
virtutibus'.
Perugia
Perugia is a good example of a city
which does not seem to have
contracted during the Middle Ages. The circuit
of Etruscan walls
contained an area of 0.11 square miles, while the
mediaeval
circuit enclosed 0.353 square miles, making it the largest
in
Umbria at that period (Nicolini 1971). At first, the population
expanded
outside the walls in the form of borghi (Blanshei 1976,
21-2), perhaps
first along the road to Rome; other suburbs were
still developing in the
late thirteenth century. The mediaeval
circuit of walls may have been
started in the 1270s (ibid., 22),
and was completed remarkably late, in
1342. The fact that
repairs were carried out on the old wall from 1256
indicates its
continuing usefulness, as well as the timing of the
population
expansion. This is confirmed by two other factors: the
new
suburbs outside the new wall by the early fourteenth century,
and
the spurt of church building in the late thirteenth century
after
the dearth in the previous six centuries (ibid., 23-4). The
town
records also support the picture of a populace bent on
improvements:
in 1250, 1264 and 1276, new aqueducts were built to
improve the water
supply, culminating in the Fontana Maggiore,
which was working by 1278 -
the main jewel in the crown of five
other fountains provided for the five
districts in the previous
decade (Blanshei 1976, 25).
There are no documented
discoveries of antiquities during
the mediaeval expansion of Perugia, but
the sixteenth-century
expansion brought to light large quantities of
Etruscan tombs
and urns, as Ciatti records in his strange book (1636,
52ff.,
115ff.). The veracity of his account can be checked against
modern
finds of antiquities in some of the areas he mentions,
such as Monterone
(ibid., 119f.), and Pila (which is one of the
suggested find-spots for
the Arringatore). The land around the
city was clearly still very rich in
antiquities even in the
seventeenth century; of Monte Tezio, he writes
(ibid., 24):
`daily there are found antique objects in marble, tables,
columns, inscriptions, coins, tombs, statues of different kinds,
and
bronzes variously worked.' And we might compare the 1963
find of two
chamber tombs, one of which contained 26 urns, with
Ciatti's description
(ibid., 199) of a find in the same locality
in 1558: `digging near to the
church of the Madonna delle Piaggi
di Campo to remake a threshing floor,
a grotto was discovered
with a great quantity of vessels in it, and
tombs, many of which
have inscriptions in Etruscan lettering.'
But, thanks partly to the
disturbance created by the
formation of the Rocca Paolina, there is
little evidence inside
Perugia of the re-use of antiquities in the Middle
Ages. One
exception is in the church of S. Pietro (naturally enough,
considering the other spolia there), where the altar is built on
large
blocks of travertine which probably came from a large
dismantled Etruscan
tomb. And when the church of S. Montano
(near the Castello di S.
Valentino) was refurbished in 1749, two
Etruscan urns were found under
the altar. The one, in black
stone, was empty, and had been dated 1509
and labelled as
containing the bones of Montanus; the other was of
travertine,
and covered with a slab as big as an altar table. Many bones
were found inside, and `near the lip of the urn is an ancient
Etruscan
inscription, which is certainly pagan' (Leccisotti
1956, 60, n. 5).
Apart from Etruscan
funerary material, which is still found
regularly in the area, it is possible
that the famous bronze
lion and griffon are antiquities discovered in the
course of
urban expansion, and also that the tripartite figure on top of
the Fontana Maggiore was inspired by an antique find (cf. below,
p.00).
Atina
Atina (Lucania) is included here as an example of a city
which
was once a notable Roman centre, was rebuilt in the Middle Ages,
but has not survived to our day: it was destroyed in a
nineteenth-century
earthquake. The Chronicon Atinense
notes that its mediaeval
history was far from happy, for the
Duke of Benevento came and destroyed
the city (RIS 7.908).
According to B. Tauleri (1702, 22), a
tradition related that the
same Duke took a statue from Atina for his
palace at Benevento -
a statue recorded in the Chronicon (RIS
7.907) as
being on the main gate of the city: `the great gate was
called
Golden, whereon stood an idol of Hercules, which it was meet
that all who entered should adore. This is the gate next to the
Temple
of Jupiter, where the church of St Peter's now stands.'
This is a clear
indication not only that the gate was decorated
with a statue, but also
that the chronicler knew that the
ancients erected statues on their
gates. Destroyed in another
earthquake in 1349, so severe that not one
stone was left upon
another, as the Chronicon has it (RIS
7.910), it was
presumably the subsequent rebuilding which produced
what the
Chronicon describes at the third gate to the city - `the
south gate, next to which are to be seen the Stone of the
Emperor,
and many other scenes (historiae) in stone' - namely a
series of
inscriptions and bas-reliefs. Under Bishop John, from
1087, the
Christianisation of spolia included two pagan altars
placed in the
church, the one for relics, and the other for holy
water (RIS
7.909).
Florence
Florence must appear in
any survey of the survival of
antiquities because of her place in the
development of the
Renaissance (plan in Bullough 1975, fig. 2). Like the centres
discussed above, she did indeed turn up antiquities during urban
expansion,
which was mainly in the period 1100-1330. For
example, the church of S.
Mamante, near Empoli, was repaired in
1232 with decorative reliefs of the
imperial period; and no less
than three churches just outside that city,
at Prato Vecchio,
were repaired in 1100 with marble from a `round temple'
(Pegna
1974, 210). The south-east corner of the first set of later
mediaeval
walls (the `primo cerchio') was rich in finds: a
nineteenth-century
historian refers to a `tall marble statue
with sculpted robes, and
headless, from which it is believed by
scholars to have been on the gate
of the first walls of
Florence' - a statue which he says was rediscovered
on 27 April
1490 while the foundations for Palazzo Gondi were being dug
(Pegna 1974, 260). This assertion is plausible, given that the
palace
is at the very south-east corner of that `primo cerchio'
(we would call
it the `cerchia antica'), and could therefore
have been placed above one
of two postern gates - perhaps that
called `de' Salomini' which leads to
the modern Via della
Condotta (Pegna 1974, 332, fig. 132). Maybe the
statue
(presumably a funerary figure like those at Spello) was erected
on the gate because it was clothed, and thus clearly not an
`idol';
it may have been lost when the wall was demolished,
perhaps during the
construction of the 1172 circle. Nearby is
the Badia Fiorentina, which
was constructed immediately outside
the line of the Roman enceinte
(identical with the
eleventh-century line on this side): its campanile,
erected in
the early fourteenth century, has spolia in its foundations
which may have come from the Temple of Isis, in what is now
Piazza
S. Firenze - and, in that case, probably unearthed when
that area was
settled as the city expanded. But then what
happened to the spolia
(including one fine statue: Pegna 1974,
264f.) until the time the
campanile was built? Could it be that
the Temple remains were
continuously visible since the work on
wall and ditch in 1172, or even
before then, seeing that the
area was used as a cemetery before the
second expansion of the
city?
Expansion through Roman cemeteries elsewhere
frequently
turned up sarcophagi, and Pegna's dating of
the Florentine
fashion for burial in them to after 1000 AD could
indicate a similar
source (1974, 198f.). He also connects the
refurbishing of the Baptistery
(completed by 1059) with the
embellishment of the exterior with
sarcophagi: he estimates that
there were at least ten sarcophagi in place
outside (plus one
front panel let into the wall - so placed, he suggests,
because
the vessel broke during transport and was therefore of use only
for decoration). Villani (8.3) places the decoration of the
brick building
with black and white marble at 1293, at which
date, he maintains, the
sarcophagi were removed, thereby
enhancing the beauty of the building; he
also notes (12. 46)
that the marble veneer was letting in water by 1345,
and had to
be repaired. For those vessels which survived the
refurbishment,
re-use continued into the fifteenth century: the Baptistry
Boar
Chase sarcophagus was re-used in the fourteenth century; another
became the tomb of Bishop G. da Velletri in 1230; another,
perhaps
from the Baptistery, was moved to the Palazzo
Medici-Riccardi, and used
for the body of Guccio dei Medici in
1299; a vessel with the myth of
Phaeton, already re-used circa
1380, became the tomb of P. Farnese in the
Duomo; and an Early
Christian sarcophagus in Sta. Trinità with the
Good Shepherd was
used in 1444 for the body of G. N. de' Davanzati. The
use of
antique heads on contemporary bodies for some of the Duomo
sculptures
(Rathe 1910, 108ff., figs. 49-52) echoes this
interest, and provides a
long-lived rationale for Donatello's
concern with the antique in his
Campanile figures (Greenhalgh
1982, 63ff.).
Rome:
a special case
Rome is always considered the focus of any
Renaissance interest
in the antique and, although it might seem reasonable
to extend
that influence back into the later Middle Ages, because of the
city's Imperial and Papal importance, to do so is in fact
tendentious:
for whereas other cities developed and expanded
through political and
artistic initiatives, Rome did not. In the
context of our investigations,
Rome is therefore a special case
for three main reasons: first, its walls
were big enough to
accommodate its population from the time of Aurelian
to the
nineteenth century (cf. Pressouyre 1973 for a useful series of
maps); secondly, sepulchral monuments were freely available
within
the later walls but, of course, outside the `Servian'
walls; and lastly,
it was by no means an intellectual centre,
particularly in the fourteenth
century, for it was outsiders
rather than natives who studied its remains
(Gregorovius 1972,
3.333ff.). Indeed, there were so many monuments
available
that even the building programmes of the Popes could not
destroy
them all.
Silting
and detritus preserved some of the city's monuments
(Rodocanachi 1914,
9ff.), while many others were never hidden.
Scavenging was constantly
practised, especially in jubilee
years: one order gave permission for
roads to be repaired with
material obtained by dismantling the tombs
which flanked them
(Lanciani 1902-12, 1.137). And in the jubilee year of
1300, an
`opus marmoreum' (about which we have no details beyond the
inscription which proclaims it) was added to the Capitol, which
was
then largely of brick; it could well have come from the
demolition of
tombs. It was in connection with the jubilee of
1675 that workmen
quarrying road-metal for repairs to the Via
Flaminia came across the Tomb
of the Nasonii (Trapp 1973, 62ff.).
As at Brescia, some of the great antique edifices
survived,
because they were occupied by (or were the property of) noble
families (Krautheimer 1980, 254ff.). But the extremely small
population
throughout our period, together with the absence of
the Popes for some of
it and their powerlessness for most of it,
meant that the Eternal City
held little temporal reward for
artists. Its emptiness can be illustrated
by a complaint of 1306
by the Magistri Aedificiorum Urbis (whose duties
included
sanitation and roads) that even by the road leading from the
Ospedale di Santo Spirito to S. Peter's `are to be found
abandoned
orchards and gardens, reduced to deposits for rubbish
which foul the
whole area' (Schiaparelli 1902, 50). Indeed, Rome
was clearly a horrible
place: a priest writing in 1241 warns
about its unbearable heat, bad
food, heavy atmosphere, mosquitos
and scorpions - as well as the
snake-filled catacombs which
exuded a fatal vapour (Van Cleve 1972, 450).
Only with the
return of the popes and, very gradually, with their
building
schemes and the increased prosperity of the Roman nobles, were
sections of the city converted from the cultivation of crops to
the
housing of humans. Rome became a haven for artists only
toward the end of
the Quattrocento.
Conclusion
Such
an argument about the unimportance of Rome for the
development of early
Quattrocento classicism - overstated for
effect - highlights the
remarkable survival and rediscovery of
antiquities in cities to the North
at a time of prosperity and
expansion, and the equally remarkable uses
which were found for
them. But it would be foolish to take such a
hypothesis too far,
because conditions had changed by the time Florence
rose to
artistic eminence: we cannot `explain' the Florentine
Renaissance
in terms of a growing population discovering
antiquities as its
living-space expanded - but it would seem
perverse to underestimate the
active involvment of North Italian
cities with antiquities as one element
in its success. It is
surely significant that large mediaeval building
projects were
willed by both clergy and citizens, and that there is
therefore
no real division between religious and secular re-use: at Pisa,
the Parliament met in the Duomo, and the notables were buried in
sarcophagi
on its flanks; at Modena, the building of the Duomo
is `a tangible
expression of rebirth' of the city (Parra 1983,
474) - a rebirth
predicated upon the antique. Was it, then, an
intellectual predominance
which assured the Renaissance proper a
greater permanence in comparison
with the perhaps more
artefact-based and arguably less cohesive
renascences of earlier
centuries?