The Re-use of Monuments
ornaments; but the Romans would demolish with their own hands
the arches and walls, if the hope of profit could surpass the
cost
of the labour and exportation (Gibbon 71)
Gibbon's
remarks indicate that the re-use of building materials
is not
a phenomenon new to the Middle Ages. Ruthless spoliation
of
earlier monuments was practised by the Romans themselves, as
in the
selection of spolia used by Alexander Severus for the
restoration
of the Portico of Octavia, the taking of material
from
the Forum Suarium to complete work on the Basilica Julia in
377
(Rodocanachi 1914, 14f.), or the `impressive list' of
precious
marbles re-used at Piazza Armerina, some of which we
otherwise
know only from first-century contexts (Wilson 1983,
32) -
and many of which were robbed out again during the villa's
decline.
The practice was a normal one, and an essential
ingredient
in the recycling of a precious commodity: sometimes,
indeed
(as perhaps in the case of the Parian temple dismantled
by the
Venetians for use in their castrum at Paroikia: Gruben
1982),
the material has been better preserved than would have
been the
case had the original monument been left standing. But
we
should distinguish the re-use of structural members from that
of
decorative elements: Deichmann (1976, 132) states that the
latter
was introduced no earlier than the Tetrarchy - perhaps
the first
stage in that respect for the past which informs so
much
mediaeval treatment of the antique. However, as Settis
reminds
us (1984B), the whole subject of spolia needs much more
study.
The majority of spolia were no doubt taken from
disused
buildings (surveys in Deichmann 1975; and Esch 1969),
but
constructions still in use were sometimes also in danger, as
shown
by the regulations on the taking of building stone from
town
walls, or the oath taken by the Ostiarius of the Lateran
Palace
in 1188, promising to guard against the thefts of
building
materials such as wood, metals, gates and stone (AIMA
1.121f.).
Cities frequently promulgated regulations safeguarding
their
building materials - such as Modena's of 1327 forbidding
the
export of (surely antique) `lapides magni' from the city
(Parra
1983, 469).
The
decay of Roman civilisation in the West provided
unrepeatable
opportunities for spoliation, and the Theodosian
Code
throws interesting light on matters relating to the theft
of antiquities
for re-use, as well as on the apparent
degradation
of creature comforts. The edict of 382 that the
various
rungs on the social ladder should be allowed only
half-an-inch,
one inch, and one-and-an-half inches of bathwater
(Cod.
Th. 15.2.3) may say something about the state of the
aqueducts,
just as others in the same book make it clear that
pilferage
of antiquities was rife. Thus `No man shall suppose
that
municipalities may be deprived of their own ornaments,
since
indeed it was not considered right by the ancients that a
municipality
should lose its embellishments, as though they
should
be transferred to the buildings of another city' (15.1.
1).
This could well refer to buildings in a ruinous condition,
since
an edict of 364 prevents officials from constructing new
buildings
within Rome without imperial permission, whereas
permission
is indeed given `to all to restore those buildings
which
are said to have fallen into unsightly ruins' (15.1.11).
The
same sentiment was reiterated in 365 (15.1.14),
together
with a prohibition against robbing monuments, which was
sometimes
the work of officials `who, to the ruin of the obscure
towns,
pretend that they are adorning the metropolitan or other
very
splendid cities, and thus seek the material of statues,
marble
works, or columns that they may transfer them'. However,
this
picture of officials dismantling new properties in order to
recover
the antique materials from which they had been illegally
built
may be a false one, for such a practice would contradict
the
normal run of Roman property laws, as Melillo points out
(1971).
His interpretation of the Ostrogothic Pragmatica Sanctio
(which
includes the phrase `modis omnibus restituere') is that
objects
could be recovered when damage would not thereby be
caused
to the structure concerned (ibid., 158f.); in any case,
he
believes the statute a reaction to the problems of war, and
not
applicable in times of peace. Hence it would seem unlikely
that
spoliation of monuments even before the time of Justinian
usually
met with much more than the imposition of fines.
The
emperors could have a variety of reasons for wishing to
preserve
monuments, but there is no archaeological evidence that
buildings
were actually rebuilt as the edicts sometimes required
(Kunderewicz
1971, 140): perhaps the looters preferred to pay
the
fines instead. Libanius, writing of reconstruction at
Antioch,
not only castigated the governor Florentius for
destroying
tombs to build a portico (Or. 46.34) but rejoiced
when
Constantius II, who visited Rome in 357 and apparently
`discovered'
his antique heritage, marvelling at the vast
grandeur
of the buildings, particularly the Forum of Trajan
(Amm.
Marc. 16.10.13-17), had looters return cut stone and
columns
for the reconstruction of sanctuaries they had destroyed
(Or.
18.126). The Novels of Majorian (title 4) continue to
rail
against the same practices, still perpetrated by people in
office:
`While it is pretended that the stones are necessary for
public
works, the beautiful structures of the ancient buildings
are
being scattered, and in order that something small may be
repaired,
great things are being destroyed.' Private individuals
robbed
even funerary monuments for plain house-building. The
emperors
made some efforts, helped by promulgations, to repair
those
selfsame monuments, as in a decree of 365 (14.6.3)
which
assigned 1500 wagonloads of lime to the repair of the
aqueducts,
and the same amount to public buildings.
The popes were despoilers as enthusiastic as the emperors: as early as Symmachus, restoration was taking place at the expense of ancient monuments. That pope, according to the Liber Pontificalis, took part with vigour in the refurbishing of the city encouraged by Theodoric. The emperor made it his business to supply Rome with lime and bricks, and Dulaey (1977, 10f.) believes that Symmachus probably obtained the concession to make use of ruined monuments `which it was now impossible to rebuild: Theodoric, through his mouthpiece Cassiodorus, wished that, instead of sadly commemorating the past, those monuments should serve, thanks to their materials, to embellish the present'. The Church was therefore an early user of spolia, as the great basilicas testify; even in France, we find the Bishop of Limoges re-using spolia in the sixth century (Carver 1983, note 11).
Usually,
however, material conveniently to hand was
incorporated
in foundations or in walls, frequently without any
attempt
in the latter case to disguise its origins (cf. Buis
1973-4,
19ff.; Esch 1969; Bertelli 1976-7). Complete excavation was
frequently
unnecessary in the search for spolia: mere tunnels
would
suffice - as seen in the fifteenth-century views of the
antiquities
of Rome which show a mound outside the walls, a
tunnel
leading into it, and the legend `beneath this mound there
is a
temple' (Scaglia 1964, plates 24f.). This fits in well with
Schneider's
suggestion (1975, 227f. and notes) that references to
`grotte'
in mediaeval documents could well indicate ruins where
building
materials were to be found (see above, p.00).
Certainly,
the common word for rooms is `criptae', as in the
`ultra
griptas antiquas' referred to in the fourteenth-century
Roman
statute `That rubbish be not thrown in the streets (in
agora)'
(Re 1883, 2, ch. 195). Recent excavations on the
Palatine
have revealed alarming gaps in travertine foundation
courses:
the material has been robbed out, presumably by
recklessly
dangerous tunnelling, similar to the marble hunting
discussed
in the previous chapter.
It was
large constructions such as cathedrals which received
the
great share of spolia, as anyone could see; thus Odorici
(1864,
15; 27), not only observed funerary monuments
incorporated
into the cathedral of Parma, but believed that the
use of
rich marbles in the nave must signal the demolition of
sumptuous
pagan buildings to aid its construction. At S. Giorgio
di
Valpolicella (Verona), inverted and sawn-down funerary altars
are
ingeniously employed as capitals and impost blocks
(D'Angelis
D'Ossat 1982, fig. 13) - as well as, the right way
up, as
a high base (ibid., fig. 12). The more usual destination
of such
altars was as holy-water fonts - as, for example, that
at S.
Angelo in Formis, and perhaps related to the antecedant
cult of
Diana (de Francescis 1956, 43 and fig. 14) - or as
supports,
such as that under the altar table at Popoli, near
Norcia
(Cordella 1982, fig. 69). At Tac, in Hungary, the
cathedral
was built using Roman gravestones, as well as material
from
Aquincum (Szekely 1973, 342). For the construction of the
church
of Saint-Pierre at Oudenbourg, in the late eleventh
century,
the antique town wall was used: it `stands so strong
and
solid that it cannot be destroyed with rams unless blocks
first
be extracted from the foundations ... I have seen the
demolition
with my own eyes' (Mortet 1911, 173). At Bremen in
1045,
Archbishop Adalbert used stones from the (modern?) city walls
to
build his church - although the reference to `polished
stones'
for the cloister suggests he found some antique pieces
(L-B
no.232).
In
England as well, the antiquities suffered from church
building:
at Croyland (Linconshire), Abbot Joffridus (from 1109)
decided
to build a new church and monastery `with stone walls on
a
marble foundation' (L-B England no. 1183). Even the Modena
`miracle'
of finding stones for the new Cathedral has an echo at
Llanthony
Abbey (Monmouthshire), where `Parian stones' were to
be
found nearby - easy to cut, and taking a polish (ibid., no.
2482).
Houses
as well as churches needed material when cities
expanded.
At Spoleto, the expansion was first accommodated by
allowing
inhabitants to raise houses on top of the old wall (if
this is
the meaning of `supra' - rather than simply `outside').
But for
building the new wall in 1296 (Di Marco 1975, 21), it
was
decreed (Constitutum cap. 28r: Antonelli 1962) that those
citizens
who owned parts of the old wall must give it up,
presumably
to provide stone for the new one. At Perugia also,
inhabitants
were encouraged to take stone from ruined sections
of the
old wall (statute of 1279: Nicolini 1971, 715) and to
build
houses on (supra) the new one, thereby helping to keep
it in
repair. The dangers of such a path were obvious, even
though
it only applied to people with properties up against the
wall.
For in this period of shortage of stone, it was wilfully
misinterpreted
and, by 1475, when the statute was tightened, it
was too
late (Nicolini 1971, 721). One factor which kept the
city
from the extremes of lithomania was the availability of
stone
and other materials in the citadel, seriously damaged in
the
revolt of 1375; these went to help build the Cathedral
(Nicolini
1971, 727, n. 106).
At
Florence also, because of her exceptional rate of growth,
materials
were always at a premium (described, with documents,
by
Sznura 1975). A document of 1299 gives to the workmen any
`mactones
et lapides' found in the course of digging, but only
up to a
value of ten pounds. Metal, on the other hand - `gold,
silver,
or any other metal' - had to be divided (ibid., 42).
Such
provisions ring very true: compare Villani's mention
(8.2)
of how the city sold the old walls and adjacent land in
1293,
when money was short. The finding of valuables must have
been a
real possibility - as when antique pieces of gold to a
value
of 30,000 livres were unearthed at Padua in 1274 (Babelon
1901,
74). Perhaps workmen involved in demolition frequently
made
such contracts: Bartolommeo, whom a document of 1474 states
was
working on the building of Arezzo Cathedral, had to break
down a
wall `per li membri dele colonne' (a reference to spolia
in the
wall?), but was allowed to keep `the stones excavated
from
the outer skin', perhaps in payment for the work (Pasquini
1880,
178).
Not
that lithomania is associated only with population
expansion
- witness the concessions for building stone in a
diploma
of 874, giving the right to found the Monastery of S.
Sisto
at Piacenza: scavenging for stone throughout the
public
streets is permitted, and a gift is made in perpetuity of
`the
whole wall of that City within and without the ditch, from
the
foundations to the top, from the Milan Gate as far as the
next
postern'; materials could also be sought in the surrounding
fields
and villages (AIMA 2.454D). In England, the
dissolution
of the monasteries provides a later parallel for
such
opportunism.
Some
sites, of course, were uninhabited when urban life began
to
expand, and these were pillaged most professionally. The
earliest
full account is from England where, in the earlier
eleventh
century, abbots Ealdred and Eadmar sought stone and
tiles
from Verulamium for their abbey at St Albans (Gesta
Abbatum
Monasterii Sancti Albani, in L-B England, nos
3792-3).
The former filled in the ditches and underground rooms
(`quasdam
speluncas') which were haunts for criminals. The
ditches
were carefully examined, and the earth turned over `to a
great
depth' in the search for stones, during which the remains
of a
boat were found. A successor attacked the foundations of
the
`great palace' in the middle of the city, and found some
manuscripts
in the hollow of a wall; those containing
`invocations
and idolatrous rites' were destroyed; that with the
History
of St Alban unfortunately fell to dust, we are
told,
when it had been copied. His excavations were thorough and
fruitful,
and he found `stone floor slabs, with tiles and
columns,
needed for the construction of the church he was
building
... the diggers found, in the foundations of ancient
buildings,
and in subterranean rooms, water pitchers and
amphorae,
soundly made in both clay and turned work and also
glass
vessels, containing cremated remains ... Above all,
half-destroyed
temples, overturned altars and idols, various
kinds
of coins. All of which, at the command of the Abbot, were
broken
into small pieces'. It has been suggested, surely
correctly,
that some of the antique gems inventoried among the
relics
of the Abbey came from these excavations (Wright 1844,
442f.).
Given the treatment meted out to the antiquities from
Verulamium,
some might consider the recycling of material yet
again
after the dissolution of the monasteries as no less than
poetic
justice (Aston 1973); and indeed, trade in second-hand
building
materials is frequently documented in earlier English
records,
which include many instances of theft of stones from
the
town walls.
Similar
searches were made in Gaul, and for the same reason:
the
Chronicle of S. Hubert (MGH Script. 8.579, folio
series)
recounts how the abbot, `seeing an abundance of great
stone
blocks in the foundations of what was once the city wall
(now,
however, diminished by taking material for the castle),
...
sought and was freely given sufficient to built crypts and
cloisters'
- and then had `altar tables, and columns with their
capitasl
and bases, brought from Arles.' In some locations,
antique
constructions were deserted early: Gregory of Tours
tells
of a `crypt' (perhaps a cryptoporticus analogous to that
which
survives at Arles, or like the horrea at Narbonne?) at
Bordeaux,
which had a vaulted roof and `a certain elegance in
its
construction', a corner of which was used by a boy who
wanted
to be a hermit (HF 8.34). It is no coincidence that
religious
foundations were most likely to find antiquities and
to
re-use them: for not only were such foundations frequently
among
the earliest solidly built mediaeval constructions, but
they
could also be located in `strategic' areas for making
finds,
such as immediately extra muros. Thus at Rovigo in 1667,
digging
for the foundations of the old Cathedral produced not
only
building stone, but pagan burials with `diverse medals', as
Silvestri
relates (Zerbinati 1974-5, 241f.); and in 1696, when
the
foundations of the new Cathedral were in progress, `at
various
spots earthenware urns were found, similar to so many
others
which have come my way' (ibid.). The manner in which the
St.
Albans abbot treated `pagan' finds was no doubt usual, and
it is
clear that, once `idols' were disposed of, any other
materials
(even altars) might be re-used. This may always have
been
the case: Montfaucon, for example, did not even bother to
comment
on their location when he found figured bases in re-use
in the
church at Flavigny, and his account kept to their
significance
as antiquities (L'Antiquité Expliquée,
supp.
4, 1724, 86f. and figs 39-40). However, later ages
took
care not to despoil Christian graves: the account by the
Abbé
de Cocherel of the excavation of a prehistoric site
near
Evreux in 1685, related in Le Brasseur's Histoire civile
et
ecclésiastique du Comté d'Evreux (Paris 1722;
reprinted
in Archeologia 63, 1973, 80f.), describes his
careful
work in a manner worthy of the beginning of this
century,
which may represent the first `archaeological' dig of
such a
site (earlier openings had been very plentiful, but in
search
of treasure: Wright 1844, 439f.). Yet the motive for the
work
was familiar, namely to find stone for the Seigneur de
Cocherel
who, on the King's orders, was to do some building work
on the
Eure. The site - in fact a double tomb - was carefully
examined
to make sure it was not a Christian burial, and the
conclusion
was that the Seigneur could `employ the stones
without
scruple for whatever use pleased him'.
What a pity that words such as `lapides' and `petras' are so uninformative. There are many deeds like as the transfer of a property `cum petras' near the city wall of Lucca in 757 ( AIMA 3.569C) where it is tempting to assume a stock of stone from some ancient building, or even decorated material. But such texts cannot bear this weight of interpretation.
So keen were mediaeval builders to make thrifty use of all materials that they sometimes grubbed up complete foundations. When the Bishop of Anagnia rebuilt a church in the early twelfth century, he took up the foundations of its predecessor (L-B no. 2093: since he `had obtained a large collection of marble blocks' some of it may have come from such foundations). The same happened when the Old Minster at Winchester was demolished at the end of the eleventh century. There is therefore no problem in assuming that even those spolia in the foundations of late antique walls (as in the Winchester example) would have been uncovered and reused. A bonus could be spolia from earlier mediaeval buildings, as with the building of the abbey church at Andres, near Boulogne, c. 1172, when `the earth being opened up, a mountain of stone was dug out, the old and ruinous church was overthrown to the foundations, and a new and suitable building begun' (Mortet 1911, 391). Indeed, the stones in antique walls were referred to approvingly in the late eleventh-century account of the rebuilding of Saint-Pierre at Oudenbourg, near Bruges: `an ancient hand laid the northward foundation (of the city wall) in great squared blocks, firmly fixed in place with iron and lead' (Mortet 1911, 172). The fact that such blocks were already squared clearly made the masons' task easier; and, as we have seen, the term or its equivalent (e.g. `petras congruas' at Aecae: De Santis 1967, 181ff.) is common in mediaeval writings. The desire for a straight 90-degrees edge might have led the builder of the foundations of the Chapelle Saint-André at Saint-Victor, Marseille, to use some older ranks of sarcophagi, which are not, however, laid with any great care (Demains d'Archimbaud 1971, 94).
For the
city of Rome, then, the first searches for large
quantities
of building materials followed Robert the Guiscard's
sack of
1084, which destroyed many churches (Lanciani 1902-12,
1.5ff.).
Gibbon again (71), citing Petrarch: `Behold the relics
of
Rome, the image of her pristine greatness! neither time nor
the
barbarian can boast the merit of this stupendous
destruction:
it was perpetrated by the most illustrious of her
sons;
and your ancestors (he writes to a noble Annibaldi) have
done
with the battering-ram what the Punic hero could not
accomplish
with the sword.' This is not to say that large
buildings
had necessarily survived intact into the late Middle
Ages:
the dearth of antique columns, bases and capitals in
matching
sets is sufficient indication that they had not - a
penury
illustrated by the ingenious attempts of high mediaeval
architects
to arrange what little they could get into more or
less
`significant' patterns (Malmstrom 1975; and note the
plethora
of ill-matched slabs in the aisle paving of the SS. Quattro
Coronati:
Munoz 1914, 48ff.). But some buildings were
substantially
intact and used until the Norman sack: one such
was the
Curia, which contained the church of S. Adriano, and
which
was transformed into a `mediaeval' building only c.
1100
(Mancini 1967-8, 215ff.).
Consciousness
of a wasting asset appears in the
fourteenth-century
statutes of Rome, in a chapter entitled Of
the
ancient buildings, which are not to be pulled down: the
penalty
was heavy fines, for `antique buildings represent an
ornament
for the city in the public interest' (Re 1883, 2.191) -
an
echo, so to speak, of the legislation of late Antiquity. But
the
spoliation never stopped: one energetic nineteenth-century
author
counted no less than 7012 antique columns and ornamental
blocks
in re-use in the city (Müntz 1884, 305, n. 2); and plain
blocks
were re-used on a large scale - witness the use in Roman
church
foundations of the eighth and ninth centuries of tufo
blocks
which, with their frequent cramp-holes, clearly came from
antique
buildings; the Servian Wall must have been robbed
frequently
for such a purpose (Bertelli 1976-7, 163). But the
destruction
of Rome began in real earnest with the building
projects
of the Renaissance, when those popes who evinced the
greatest
love of antiquity - such as Pius II and Paul II - were
amongst
the greatest destroyers of the patrimony (Müntz 1884,
305ff.;
Lanciani 1902-12; Weiss 1969, 98ff.). Thus Nicholas V
took no
less than 2500 carts of travertine from the Colosseum in
one
year (Müntz 1878-82, 1.104ff.). Indeed, so fast was the
destruction
that Albertini, writing in 1509, names five
triumphal
arches he himself has seen destroyed (Müntz 1884,
306). A
cynic might wonder whether some of the measured drawings
by
Renaissance architects (which include blocks as well as
columns)
were sometimes to record suitable spolia for their
projects,
rather than a simple love of exact knowledge.
There
is some slight evidence (as well as the hints adduced
above)
that even Rome was running short of marble by the
fifteenth
century: the stone-masons were against the breaking
of
marble in order to provide lime, and forbade it on pain of
heavy
fines in their statutes of 1406 and again in 1598
(Rodocanachi
1913, 172f.). A cynic might suggest that they were
simply
protecting the raw materials for their livelihood while
sheltering
the same materials from the lime burners. Accounts of
the
city in the Renaissance period, such as those by Albertini
(Valentini
1940/53, 4.462ff.) or Vergerio (ibid., 4.97) reflect
the
dismal story; and Poggio, for instance, records the
Colosseum
as `for the most part gone for lime, on account of the
stupidity
of the Romans' (ibid., 4.238).
With
the further expansion of Rome in the Baroque period,
destruction
continued; for example, in 1605 José de Sigu[um]enza
conjured
up the past glories of the Via Appia, with `a great
number
of precious statues, excellent tombs, superbly built;
pyramids,
obelisks, well made inscriptions of great
erudition'
(1909, 221); he does not claim to have seen all
these,
but surely rebuilds them in his imagination from the
remains
he has seen - remains which must have been more
extensive
than those visible today or even in the nineteenth
century.
Most people marvel that so much of Rome has survived:
Rodocanachi's
position (1914, 7f.) is however much more
realistic
for, numbering the monuments of which we have
knowledge
but of which no trace remains, he marvels at how much
has
disappeared.
The
same profile of destruction probably applies to much
smaller
centres like Vaison (Sautel 1924): with the decrease in
European
population after the end of the Empire, there simply
was not
the pressure on objects or property to occasion
destruction,
until the expansion of population from the eleventh
century.
Only with that expansion did antique buildings begin to
disappear
in substantial numbers: compare, for example, the
plentiful
descriptions of antique buildings standing in England
even
after the Norman Conquest (Higgitt 1973, 3f.), or the
startling
case of the sanctuary of Fortuna Primigenia at
Palestrina.
The owners, the Colonna, accused the papal troops of
its
destruction in 1298, stating that it had been built by
Julius
Caesar himself; yet even in the sixteenth century much
of its
structure remained visible (Zevi 1979, 4f.). In Gaul, for
example,
the great forum built by Trajan at Fourvière (Lyon) is
recorded
as collapsing in 840; but it was not until 1192 that we
know of
its limestone and marble blocks being plundered for the
building
of Lyon cathedral (Mortet 1911, 269f.). Another example
is the
great Roman villa of Chiragan, near Martres Tolosanes,
where
the ruins stood to a height of 4m in the eighteenth
century:
a scholar in 1900 found only the foundations (Harmand
1961,
11).
A few
hints will indicate what treasures must still have
been
available in mediaeval Italy, which the Renaissance
destroyed.
The first, the Basilica of Junius Bassus at Rome,
which
was re-used only in the sixteenth century, is well known
and
need not be repeated here. The second example concerns the
marble
veneer on the monuments of Ravenna. Quantities from S.
Apollinare
in Classe were taken for the decoration of S.
Francisco
at Rimini, apparently without payment (Ricci 1909,
260f.).
Alberti's antiquarian interest in coloured marbles is
rare
for the period: we may imagine that he re-employed the
antique
decorative patterns he must have found in Ravenna when
he
designed the facade of his church. A complaint (and quittance
for the
sum of 200 ducats) survives by the Abbot of S.
Apollinare
in Classe, and dated 1450, that Sigismondo's men
`extracted,
removed and broke many slabs of marble and other
kinds
of stone, which were a fitting ornament for that church'
(Ricci
1974, 586, doc. 5) - surely the references are to opus
sectile
decorating the interior walls of the church. The third
is an
earlier depredation of the same site, for Charlemagne had
preceded
Alberti and Sigismondo. The papal permission to take
mosaics
for Aachen included veneers as well as mosaics -
`mosaics
and marbles from the city of Ravenna, both from the
churches
and from the houses and paved streets'. And given the
similarities
between Ravennate styles and those employed at
Trani
(Raspi Serra 1973), it could well be that capitals were
exported
thither from Ravenna, rather than just imitated in
local
productions.
Only
exceptionally, of course, were such depredations
recorded.
For the `Tempio di Romolo' on the Roman Forum, for
example,
some of the losses were clearly late ones: compare the
rich
opus sectile decoration of the Aula Flavia, in Pirro
Ligorio's
drawing (Flaccominio 1980, 58, fig. 65). However, when
we turn
to the rotunda itself, we have no drawings of decoration
in
place - only the regular holes in the fabric itself for the
pegs which
once held the marble veneer (ibid., 101f.). For
Ravenna,
we have much less evidence than for Rome and so cannot
fully
answer Ricci's question (1909, 277): `Where did all the
marbles
go from the more than eighty ruined or destroyed
churches
in Ravenna or her suburbs?' Large amounts went to
Puglia,
to Otranto and to S. Nicola at Bari, as Ricci points out
(ibid.,
284). But apart from odd pieces, identified on stylistic
grounds,
there is no evidence of what happened to such
structures
- themselves surely built with marble from the
monuments
of the city of Rome (and Constantinople - the probable
source
of the columns and capitals in S. Apollinare Nuovo). One
clue
might be the mention of an area of Ravenna as `ad calchi',
in an
account of c. 839 (Colin 1947, 91); this is a reference
to lime
kilns, and since Agnelli mentions this toponym as in the
palace
area (cf. Della Valle 1959, 128), the destruction of
Ravenna
began with the choicest structures, as it did at Rome.
Monuments
were less liable to post-mediaeval spoliation when
antique
floor levels were lost under silting or detritus. This
happened
when drainage channels became blocked, as at Bath or
Canterbury.
Some areas of Rome, such as the Forum, were
particularly
susceptible to silting (cf. Rodocanachi 1914, 10):
thus
the original ground level of the Horrea Agrippiana appears
to have
been abandoned by the later sixth century, for the
church
of S. Teodoro was then built much higher on part of the
site.
The great flood of 589 may have been the cause of the
abandonment
of the site by 600 at the latest (Astolfi 1978).
Other
floods were to cause even greater havoc in mediaeval Rome
(Homo
1934, 64f; Llewellyn 1970, 195). Such disasters may have
set the
seal on existing neglect: excavation in the Schola
Praeconum
on the other side of the Palatine has shown the
abandonment
of the site by c. 430-40, when its Room A
began
to be used as a dump for miscellaneous materials,
including
large quantities of marble veneer. In other words, the
decay
and destruction of this part of the city, at least, began
early.
Lassalle
(1970,15) maintains that much re-use is decorative,
and
betokens some notion of protection and display, as in a
museum:
citing several cases from Provence, he notes `the clear
intention
of offering to the admiration of all those antique
remains
considered particularly remarkable'; Mâle (1950, 65-6)
makes
the same point. An Italian illustration would be the
doorway
of the Duomo at Trieste, a building which contains many
spolia:
the jambs are made froma tall, three-tier stele with
paired
busts in niches, sawn down the middle so that the left
edge
forms the right jamb, and the right edge the left one
(Susini
1982, pl.60); and one of the busts has been
`Christianised'
into S. Sergius. But the material can also be
important
for itself: we have seen how marble tends to get
mentioned
in contemporary documents (Buis 1976,
233,
238), and that `more romano' can apply to materials as well
as to
construction techniques. Pride can derive from both, as
when
Cuthbert is shown the Roman remains of Carlisle by the city
reeve,
including the city walls and a fountain (Colgrave 1969,
vii,
122). And although those cases where rulers tend to live in
or near
amphitheatres or theatres could be simply because of the
solidity
of such buildings, we have also seen that such a location
can
make a political statement, as can substantial quantities of
spolia
left visible in completely new constructions. Thus
Verzone
(1967, 128), attributing the Clitumnus Temple and S.
Salvatore
at Spoleto to the seventh century, believes that the
re-use
of spolia should be read `as an anti-Byzantine gesture
and as
a manifestation of monarchical prerogative', erected by
the
Lombard dukes with workmen imported from Rome.
In some
cases, indeed, it is certain that the choice of antiquities
was
specific rather than haphazard: Venice apparently wished to
concoct
an impressive ancient pedigree for herself, but it was
to the
Christian and not the pagan past that she looked, so that
there
seems no vested interest in the display of pagan
antiquities
(Demus 1955; Caldwell 1975, 91f.). Much the same
conclusion
can be drawn from Carolingian imitations of earlier
architecture:
as Krautheimer (1971a, 230) notes, `the aim of the
Carolingian
Renaissance was not so much a revival of Antiquity
in
general as a revival of Rome, or specifically of one facet of
the
Roman past: the Golden Age of Christianity in that city.'
Nevertheless, the exact impression mediaeval builders wished to create when they used spolia often remains elusive. Sometimes, the care with which spolia are incorporated (as with the pieces of frieze set into the nave pillars in S. Giustino at Paganica, L'Aquila) make it clear that they were prized. More often, however, antique capitals and pieces of column are used in a haphazard fashion, particularly in crypts: the crypt to S. Clemente, at Torre dei Passeri (Pescara), of the ninth century, for example, has stumpy pieces of column supporting full-size corinthian capitals! Much the same happens in the early eleventh-century crypt of San Giovanni in Venere at Fossacesia (Chieti), which was supposedly founded not later than the seventh century on the ruins of a temple dedicated to Venus (cf. the `villa qui dicitur Veneris' in a document for Arezzo in 961, where the toponym presumably has the same origin: Pasqui 1899, 1, doc. 69). Even in the church proper, the ensembles are often ungainly to the modern eye: at Santa Giustina at Bazzano (L'Aquila), of the early thirteenth century, the column nearest the altar on the south side of the nave is part of a cannellated Roman one, while its neighbour toward the west is part of a Doric frieze, with objects in the metopes, and dividing triglyphs - naturally on its side. What is more, the three faces which are not turned into the nave are, again naturally, bare of any kind of ornament. If part of the intention of such displays was to `mislead' admirers into misdating the age of the building in which they were incorporated, success can often be noted. The case of the Florence Baptistery is well known; and Montfaucon, already the author of the huge L'Antiquité expliquée, proclaimed in his Monuments de la Monarchie française that the iconography to be seen on French churches showed them to be early in date; his knowledge of antiquities built into some of these encouraged such radical misdating (Vanuxem 1957, 54ff.). What, indeed, are we to make of those many cases where figured antiquities are indeed displayed, but on their side, as for example at S. Agata dei Goti (Cielo 1980, fig. 29), or upside down, as with the cippi at S. Giorgio di Valpolicella (D'Angelis D'Ossat 1982, fig. 13)?
At
first sight, the antique fragments of marble, stone and
tile
from which the church is built seem to have been put
together
in an haphazard manner: no attempt has been made to
match
the dressing of the stones, and rough and smooth
chiselling
sit side by side - the roughest of all being when
antique
tenons or decorations have been removed. The pillars at
the
`crossing' are unequal in height, and the one to the East is
even
stepped; the antique columns which they support have been
given
mediaeval capitals, which are no more than simple cubes.
However,
a more careful inspection reveals that the masons
have
attempted symmetry, as when they match the cubic capitals
just
mentioned. These provide a rough base for the upper rank of
columns
(of which only one has an antique entablature) and give
the
rest blocked out but matching pieces - surely evidence
enough
of a concern for uniformity. Similar but isolated
matches
are attempted in other churches, such as the two series
of
sculptures at Vence, of which the one is a clumsy imitation
of the
other; unfortunately neither can be closely dated (Buis
1976,
241-2). But at Valcabrère an attempt has been made to
balance
the whole church: in the apse, for example, the
decoration
of coupled columns (all antique, but awkward in
conjunction)
has been supplemented by the mediaeval mason with a
series
of vestigial capitals, together with sufficient extra
column
piece in each case to bring everything up to the new
entablature
level which surrounds the apse and, indeed, nave and
aisles
at the same level. The idea for the entablature (a
chequerboard
pattern of raised and lowered squares) could well
stem
from the antique piece incorporated in the north side of
the
central pillar, to the south of the nave; the motif is, in
any
case, common in the area (cf. Larrieu-Duler 1972, fig. 2).
The
same concern can be seen in the placing of stones for the
pillars,
for the best-looking and most regular pieces are
reserved
for the two pillars which we see on entering the church
by the
north porch (past the column-figures which decorate it,
including
one which looks like a young Augustus!). Nor are the
pieces
simply thrown together, for the courses are levelled with
slate,
stone or tile where necessary.
But we must also conclude that, if the masons of Valcabrère desired symmetry, they did not take any particular delight in Roman sculptured reliefs, except for those which were purely decorative: for there are no figured reliefs in the church, and only one mask outside it (and that on the south flank); one piece of sarcophagus (Christian or pagan?) is set near the entrance porch. As for the fine antique floral scroll reliefs incorporated in the apse, neither is placed so as to balance the other (and one is partially hidden behind a pillar). What is more, it appears that neither has been cut in the Middle Ages to fit its location: the one terminates at the end of a motif; its fellow, higher up, is fractured, but the ends are weatherworn, so it must have lain around for some time at the mercy of the elements before being used.
The wide availability of antique capitals and bases must also be assumed as a precondition for the revivals of the Romanesque period - although supplies of matched sets of columns and capitals were by now in short supply. If, in Provence, limestone replaced marble, areas such as Aquileia maintained a tradition of working in marble - without a break, according to Barral I Altet (1981, 356f.), who also suggests that antique capitals re-used in the basilica there were the models for strict eleventh-century imitations in the same structure. Whereas the spolia do not necessarily fit their shafts, which vary in diameter, the new capitals (which he dates to 1020-30) do, which means that each one has been tailored for its respective shaft. Aquileia had its own antique buildings, but insufficient spolia; in most places material had to be imported. This is the case even in the Cathedral at Otranto: although a Roman municipium, the few antique capitals re-used only near the entrance to the crypt probably came from the amphitheatre at Lecce, a more prestigious site. Vergara (1980, 65) sees in their re-use a desire for `latinitas' and `dignitas' - that is, that impulse to impress by conspicuous placing of available treasures which is an important reason for the use of spolia. .st Re-Use of Monuments: Roman Techniques
A
feature of Romanesque building practice in Provence is the
masons'
imitation of Roman techniques in the very dressing of
the
stone (Lassalle 1970, 17-20). In locations where the example
of the
antique was readily available, as at Saint-Victor,
Marseilles
(Demains d'Archimbaud 1971, 93, n. 1), such
imitation
is less than surprising. It underlines not only the
interest
of the period in antique styles, but also the close
attention
paid to details: if it is frequently very difficult to
find
exact parallels for the `antiquarian' figures and reliefs
of the
sculptors, the relationship of their brother workers to
the
antique sources is much clearer. Examples of just how
smoothly
antique pieces can - with care - be integrated in
Romanesque
work are plentiful in Genoa (Bozzo 1979).
Just as
antique capitals were among the most prized of
spolia,
so they were frequently imitated, for example in the
south-west
of France, where over three hundred pre-Romanesque
but
post-antique capitals have been studied (Larrieu 1964; 1972;
Cabanot
1972; see also Fossard 1947), but there seems little
consensus
about dating. Fossard (1947, 69) believes she can date
her
series accurately because they come from dated buildings;
whereas
Larrieu, in her main catalogue (1964, 109) disclaims any
attempt
to date, and maintains that position in a later article
(1972).
Cabanot, while admitting that any attempt at dating is
premature,
maintains that the marble quarries were at work into
the
eighth century (1972, 1; 17). But the important features of
these
capitals are, first, that they are of marble - and
therefore
imitate one of the most prestigious features of Roman
architecture
- and, secondly, that several of them were
themselves
re-used in later buildings: they took their place, as
it
were, in the canon of `good' architecture. The proof of this
is that
they were sometimes themselves imitated in stone during
the
Carolingian period (Fossard 1947, 85, note 4).
Of course, it is possible that some techniques simply survived, and therefore did not require revival. How this may be ascertained is difficult to say: for example, the use of lost-wax casting techniques in Carolingian Aachen (Gazda 1970, 249) could point either way.
It can
easily be explained how mosaics became available, for
builders
certainly came across them casually. At
Trinquetaille,
the villa of the Clos S. Jean had a fine mosaic
of the
Golden Fleece, substantially restored in the Gallo-Roman
period:
the site was re-occupied and, while some walls cut
through
the mosaic, others - perhaps those of the church of S.
Thomas
- rest directly upon it (Benoit 1934, 221ff.). At the
villa
of La Hillière, near Montmaurin, mediaeval burials lie
right
on a large Roman mosaic (James 1977, 447).
Place-names
reflect
such knowledge of antique floors: Cameron (1977, 111-12)
reports
two British occurrences of `fawler', meaning a mosaic
pavement
- one of which has been confirmed by excavation.
Perhaps
the same applies to the appellation `flor', OE `floor',
also
indicating earlier settlement, and Chessel, which may mean
tesserae
from ploughed up mosaic.
Such
depredations apart, the survival of mosaics intact
depended
on the integrity of the buildings which contained them.
Opened
to the elements, frost and moisture could combine quickly
to
destroy them: well maintained, they could last for centuries
with
relatively little attention. Repair and restoration are
themselves
a gauge of the esteem in which mosaics were
frequently
held: in Byzantium, there is evidence of repair (and
alteration)
after the period of iconoclasm and, in the West, the
earliest
restoration extant is of the Carolingian period, on the
mosaics
of S. M. Maggiore (Alexander 1977), the next perhaps the
sensitive
work of a late twelfth-century artist on Torcello
(Andreescu
1977, 20). Several antique floors survive in place,
but
with altered or later buildings protecting them. One even
has an
antique mosaic inscription: S. Angelo in Formis, built in
the
temple of Diana Tifatina, retains the original floor, with
sections
of an inscription of 74 BC relating to the `titulus
magistrorum
Campanorum'; and although some of its sections have
had
their black tessera replaced by white at some stage, `L. F.'
and
then `IVS. L. F.' are clearly visible and, together with
traces
of the cella wall, would have been so throughout the
Middle
Ages (De Franciscis 1956, 18ff. and figs 8-10). And a
reference
in Beowulf has been interpreted as meaning that
Saxon
halls were sometimes erected on former villa sites, using
their
mosaic floors (Higgitt 1973, 2); there is as yet no archaeological
evidence
for such a practice, but that the floor referred to
could
well be mosaic, taken up from a Roman building and re-used
(Cramp
1957, 76).
The
durability of mosaic meant that it was easy to re-use.
Tessera
were sometimes ripped out for use elsewhere, although
the
evidence usually comes to light only when the `new' work is
examined
back and front. At the villa of Sette Finestre, for
example,
this happened in the Roman period itself, as it did at
a villa
near the `Tomba di Nerone' on the via Cassia; but here,
for
reasons unknown, the tessera were discovered by the
excavators
in a pile in one of the rooms - although the marble
cladding
from that and another room had already been stripped
and
carried off (Ward Perkins 1959, 155). It is certain that the
practice
was common in Roman times, for many mosaic floors,
particularly
of the late Empire, make use of spolia,
identifiable
by inscriptions or architectural decoration on the
verso.
In some cases, however, we can only guess: surely so
little
of the superb opus sectile work remains in Nero's Domus
Transitoria
that we may assume it was removed very quickly - for
use in
the Flavian layers above. Given the `jigsaw' nature of
mosaic,
it is likely that at least a few antique schemes were
grubbed
up and `re-cycled' in the Middle Ages, not necessarily
in the
same patterns. A study of the porphyry roundels which are
such a
feature of Cosmatesque and Carolingian pavements shows
that
whereas many clearly have been sawn (presumably from
columns,
as the traditional view has it), many more are
completely
smooth, suggesting a direct antique source in opus
sectile
decorations on antique walls or floors (Glass 1980, 29);
indeed,
Becatti (1948, 207) remarks that the marble wall
decoration
at Ostia is a prelude to Byzantine taste. An
examination
of the underside of such roundels and smaller
tesserae
could indicate whether they were in fact spolia; but
the
only firm way of deciding whether tesserae are reconstituted
from
antique works, or alternatively contemporary pieces put
together
in an antiquarian pattern, would be to rely on
differences
in the way they were cut: this does not appear to
have
been attempted.
Survivals of wall mosaics were relatively rare outside Rome, and the account of Abbot Agnellus, of about 839, of two mosaics of equestrian groups of Theodoric in the palaces of Pavia and Ravenna is therefore valuable (Colin 1947, 89ff.; Della Valle 1959, 128) - although he writes of the Ravenna one in the past tense. In Rome, those in the Basilica of Junius Bassus and the church of S. Adriano (which occupied the seat of the antique Curia: Mancini 1967-8, fig. 2). were well known. And, of course, large expanses of Ravennate mosaics were available and esteemed enough to be imitated - earliest of all, perhaps, in thirteenth-century Venice (Demus 1955). One bridle on the extended use of mosaic during the earlier Middle Ages may have been the lack of skilled craftsmen. Bernward of Hildesheim (bishop 992-1022) was an undoubted innovator in the arts, and his antiquarianism is, of course, well known from his triumphal candelabrum. His biographer, Thangmar, notes that `he also taught himself the art of laying mosaic floors and how to make bricks and tiles ... And the old places, which had belonged to his predecessors and which he found destitute, he brightened with excellent buildings. Some of these he adorned with alternating white and red stones according to a beautiful pattern and by various mosaics' (Davis-Weyer 1971, 122-3).
Mosaics
were but one feature of an antique desire for sturdy
splendour:
according to Pliny (NH 36.184), the practice of
decorating
pavements `after the fashion of painting' was begun
by the
Greeks. Fine examples of interior decoration using
different
varieties of marble can be seen at sites such as
Ostia,
but a coherent account of how techniques and styles were
imitated
is not yet possible, because (in spite of the bold
statements
relayed above) we have insufficient examples from the
earlier
mediaeval centuries in the West - the East being a
different
matter (Dauphin 1980, 114ff.). Consequently, survivals
are
difficult to date: an illustration of the problem being
Stern's
dating of the Pomposa mosaic to the Romanesque period,
in the
face of other scholars who believe it to be
paleochristian
(Toubert 1970, n. 14). With many works we can,
naturally,
be more precise, but such exactitude only serves to
emphasise
the surrounding darkness. Dufrenne has recently
suggested
(1980) that `the antique inspiration for certain
iconographic
details of manuscript images (she cites the Utrecht
Psalter)
had once been furnished by mosaic pavements of Late
Antiquity'
- a suitably cautious formulation for the present
state
of knowledge. We will argue below that schemes such as
those
at Ostia - ensembles which are in sympathy with practice
of the
High Middle Ages (Cagiano de Azevedo 1970) - were
available
and imitated, using spolia; but whether the practice
was
widespread (except of course in church decoration) seems in
doubt.
Mosaic work was of great interest for parts of the Middle
Ages
because it is a type of painting, frequently in
semi-precious
materials - marbles and coloured stones for the
floor
designs, and glass for the wall and vault mosaics. The
richness
of the latter, and the scarcity of the various kinds of
tessera
required for the former, would contribute to the
attraction
of the medium, which was highly prized, as can be
seen in
mediaeval descriptions, encyclopaedias, poems and
sermons
(Barral I Altet 1978, ch. 2).
Opus
sectile is, according to McClendon (1980), the
technique
which reveals the revivalism of the Carolingian period
because,
although a feature of late antique work, it was mosaic
and
opus tessellatum which were used between then and the ninth
century.
He sees in the striking similarities between antique
work
(citing examples from Ostia) and Carolingian work an
indication
that much of the later work may be spolia (ibid.,
161).
Ensembles in the same manner were also available in Rome
itself
(Becatti 1948, 210f.). A similar revivalism informs the
wall
mosaics of the Carolingian period, when popes,
`particularly
Leo II and Paschal, returned to mosaic, a medium
characteristic
of the great early Christian monuments, but
scarcely
practised in Rome since the mid-seventh century'
(Alexander
1977, 18).
Monte Cassino may also have used spolia for its mosaic pavement as it did for the rest of its building works, for Leo of Ostia in his Chronicle of Monte Cassino (3.18.26-32; Davis-Weyer 1971, 135ff.) notes that the abbot from 1058 to 1087, the resourceful Desiderius, undertook a rebuilding programme on a large scale, making great use of antique materials, as we have seen. That this was part of a programme of conscious antiquarianism can be deduced both from Alfanus' poem composed to honour the dedication, and from the inscription placed on the chancel arch, which paraphrases that of Constantine at the Vatican basilica (texts in Bergman 1980, 116f.). Such a commission highlights the decadence of the tenth century after the conscious revivalism of the ninth when, for the first time in several centuries, it appears, mosaics were produced in Rome as part of a concentrated and sustained building programme pursued by a series of popes elected from the great and wealthy Roman families (Krautheimer 1980, 141-2). The Cosmati were to be an important part of this programme, and much of their material must have been obtained by breaking up antiquities, perhaps even floors (Wentzel 1955, 57ff. for general comments). The many examples of direct imitation of antique motifs in Roman pavements of the eleventh and twelfth centuries (Toubert 1970, n. 14) indicate but one aspect of a widespread and skilful revival of antique forms in several media. Thus Toubert (ibid., n. 84) suggests that the makers (surely Roman?) of the San Clemente absidal mosaic may have examined the work in the lower church before it was abandoned, as well as that at Monte Cassino. And some of the decorative patterns in the Lower Church of San Clemente have also been linked (Toubert 1976, 22ff., figs 13-15), together with others found at Monte Cassino and in Salerno Cathedral, with antique patterns found at Herculaneum - more evidence of a revival of the antique based on the survival of antique exemplars.
To take
but the most famous example of supposed Eastern
influence:
one might imagine that, with imported craftsmen, not
to
mention the high regard in which the civilisation of the East
was
held at this time (Rentschler 1978), the Monte Cassino
pavement
(church dedicated 1071) would be in an imported style,
but
this is not the case. Glass (1980, 26, 29) provides
comparisons
in her study of Cosmatesque pavements which make the
matter
very clear: the Cosmati were much influenced by the Monte
Cassino
pavement, and six of the patterns they use derive from
it;
three of these selfsame patterns are antique in origin - but
not one
of them appears in Byzantine pavements. Much the same
equation
can be made by comparing Cosmatesque pavements with
Byzantine
ones: eleven antique patterns have been identified in
the
work of the Cosmati, but only one of these appears in
antique
Roman pavements in the East, and not a single one in
Byzantine
pavements of the tenth or eleventh centuries. We must
conclude
that both the Monte Cassino craftsmen and the Cosmati
knew
and imitated antique Western designs - and not antique
designs
filtered down to them through intermediaries in the
Byzantine
Empire. And because mosaic designs are unlikely to
have
been handed down to such craftsmen through another medium
(compare
manuscript illumination as the carrier of traditions of
monumental
painting), it follows that artists of the eleventh
and
twelfth centuries had access to antique pavements. For our
purposes,
then, the fact that there are whole centuries without
any
fully proven mosaic `tradition' at all is a piece of luck,
for it
tends to show that the revival of interest in mosaics at
various
periods of the Middle Ages must repose on the survival
of
pagan and paleochristian schemes - that is, across a gap of
several
centuries (cf. Venice's early use of such schemes: Demus
1955).
Such is certainly the case with Carolingian work in Rome
(Belting
1976).
Barral
I Altet's assertion of continuity may change this
state
of affairs; but the existence in seventh- to ninth-century
Rome -
that centre of revivals - of two pavement types, one
antique-based,
the other proto-Cosmati (Barral I Altet 1973,
191)
strongly suggests the existence of antique exemplars and
even,
as we have seen, the re-use of actual antique tessera. In
this
respect, it is surely no coincidence that all Barral I
Altet's
suggested `continuous' centres - Aquileia, Rome, Ravenna
and
parts of Gaul - are areas with a strong antique (and often
paleochristian)
presence. Indeed, the latest student of
Desiderius'
plans (Carbonara 1979, 37-8) parallels the choice of
the
paleochristian basilican plan with the use of opus
alexandrinum,
itself classical in origin, pointing out that such
a
mosaic type was also used at about the same time in Longobard
southern
Italy, particularly Benevento. Like all scholars of the
period,
Carbonara bemoans the gaps in our knowledge,
particularly
for the tenth century, which make it impossible to
establish
the correctness of Desiderius' claims that there was
indeed
a break in continuity between the classicism of the
eighth
and ninth centuries, and that of the eleventh.
What is more, so frequently do artists of the late eleventh and early twelfth centuries make use of antique motifs - including masks, cornucopia, putti, dolphins and other forms hitherto unseen since Antiquity - that `they seem to have been collected with some archaeological pedantry by painters struck with an interest in the antique' (Toubert 1970, 105). And while the models for the great apse-mosaic at S. Clemente are largely paleochristian, as Toubert has suggested, this work is also as far as we know the first such decoration for two centuries. Nor was the phenomenon of interest in antique mosaics confined to the West; Velmans (1967, 232) detects in the designs of the Palaeologan artist of the fourteenth century Parisinus Grecus MS no. 135 an interest not only in Gothic forms, but also in antique pavement mosaics.
Paleochristian mosaics naturally survived even better than pagan ones, although the Renaissance, usually unsympathetic to the medium (Andreescu 1977, 21f.), sometimes replaced them with frescoes, and did not even re-use the tessera as Charlemagne had done. One example of destruction is the Baptistery of Sant' Ambrogio in Milan, whose vault was covered with gold-leaf tessera, large quantities of which were found when the site was excavated (cf. Nordhagen 1978, 263). When it was demolished in the fifteenth century, the marble veneers were saved for re-use, and the task accomplished by sapping, mining and fire. The tessera were left in the rubble.
However,
unlike those in Italy, French Romanesque mosaics do
not
continue antique fashions; not only is that period
characterised
as `an ephemeral splendour, after several
centuries
of neglect' (Barral I Altet 1972, 118), but the type
of opus
sectile adopted is unlike that used in Antiquity both in
its
colouring and in its use of plaques of marble. The survival
of
antique patterns and materials in France therefore antedates
the
Romanesque period, as for example the mosaic found on the
site of
the Saint-Martial crypt at Limoges, dated to the ninth
century,
or the fragments on the site of Saint-Croix at
Poitiers,
which might be sixth or ninth century (ibid., 119).
The
Limoges mosaic, condemned by Stern as `clumsy' (1962, 16),
somewhat
incongruously uses cubes of gilded glass and deep green
marble,
probably taken from antique pavements. This could also
be the
case with the early ninth century mosaic found under the
cathedral
of Saint-Quentin, where antique motifs are copied -
but
using only simple colours, and not the rich polychromy usual
in the
late Empire. The mosaics in the Cathedral of Saint-Jean,
Lyon,
have been dated to the eleventh century (rather than much
earlier)
because they employ the same non-antique simple colours.
More
sophisticated mosaic schemes did exist, but the
inspiration
for them was probably from the South: Charlemagne
robbed
Rome for material for the monastery at Centula: the
`marble
and columns' mentioned in the account could include
mosaic
work (McClendon 1980, 163f.). But the best-known example
concerns
Charlemagne's building of the Chapel Palatine at Aachen
(Knoegel
1936, no. 876), when not only did he import craftsmen
for the
work, as Desiderius was to do (Notger Charlemagne
ch.
28), but he also got permission from Pope Hadrian to take
mosaics
and marble from Ravenna: but we do not know whether he
re-used
the tesserae in new designs, reproduced the original
ones,
or simply had areas of wall carried to Aachen and set in
new
mortar. He could also have found useful spolia already on
site
(cf. ANRW 2.4, 146). He would have known of the
possibilities
of secular mosaic from the survival in Ravenna of
the
mosaic representation of Theodoric (already mentioned), as
well as
the actual statue he had taken to Aachen (MGH Script.
rer.
Lang. 1.337f.). On balance, transportation in `tessera'
not
`wall' form seems the more likely: the Venetians appear to
have
brought back mosaic tesserae from Constantinople as part of
their
booty from the Fourth Crusade (Andreescu 1977, 22); but as
there
is no suggestion that actual slabs of finished mosaic were
transported,
perhaps Charlemagne's craftsmen had done likewise.
That
the transplantation of small areas was feasible is
suggested
by the likelihood that this was done in twelfth
century
restorations in S. Giovanni in Laterano, S. Pietro, and
S.
Paolo fuori le Mura. An analogy is the re-use of mediaeval
stained
glass in later structures, at least from the twelfth
century
(Caviness 1973, 206ff.). Perhaps, therefore, we should
not
read too much into the importation of mosaics by
Charlemagne,
for the recycling of mosaics might have been as
common
a practice as the re-use of columns: Liutprand, for
example,
boasted of decorating his monastery church of S.
Anastasio
at Corteolona (built 729ff.) with
precious marbles,
mosaics
and columns - surely mostly spolia (Calderini 1975, 179).
Not all
material re-used in the North need have been imported,
however:
the early ninth century mosaic at
Saint-Germigny-des-Prés
uses tessera of red and pink, cut
from
the debris of antique pots, but also cubes of gold and
silver
foil on green glass supports, for which the only
(surviving)
comparisons are at Ravenna and Aix. Their
commissioner,
Theodulf, may well have made his own tessera,
because
débris of glass pastes have been found in the
presbytery
garden (Louis 1975, 426ff.). The Rhine had had a
large
glass industry since Roman times, which certainly survived
the
fall of the Empire (Snijder 1933, 119); and there is
evidence
for a thriving glassmaking industry at Trier in the
ninth
century, producing material for the cathedral (Roslanowski
1965,
104): could any of this have gone toward the decoration of
the
palace at Aachen? These can be no more than suggestions, for
Theodulf
could easily have first robbed old mosaics and then
melted
down the glass for his own purposes - and Charlemagne's
workmen
could have done the same for Aachen. In this connection
it
would be interesting to know to what extent Roman mosaics
outside
Italy used what Nordhagen (1978, 259) calls `the pure
glass
tradition' - and, therefore, their level of susceptibility
to
recycling. Similarly, it would be helpful to know whether any
of the
gold sandwich tessera in mediaeval schemes are indeed
spolia.
But
even if there is no strict parentage between Gallo-Roman and
Romanesque
mosaics, and direct evidence that Charlemagne
preferred
southern work, this does not necessarily mean that
antique
mosaics were unavailable during our period - and
Theophilus'
remark, quoted above, suggests that they were. Crozet,
for
example, argues (1956, 22f.) that the identity of certain
patterns
between the two periods does indicate the use of Gallo
Roman
models (and cf. James 1977), but he is in a distinct
minority,
for neither Stern nor Barral I Altet are disposed to
see the
revival of mosaic in the eleventh century as having any
other
than vague connections with either Gallo-Roman or
paleochristian
work, and then usually only in iconography: the
latter
believes that any continuity between Antiquity and the
Middle
Ages was in any case only at a local level (1978, ch. 1);
he is
also more confident over dating than, for example, Stern
(e.g. Stern
1962, 22-3).
Few examples of actual re-use have come to light. One is the pavement at Sorde (Landes) which, while it certainly might be eleventh century, could equally be a collection of antique Gallo-Roman and Carolingian pavements found in the region and put together patchwork-fashion in the choir (arguments in Stern 1962, 21f.). Another is the pavement found underneath the apse of Saint-Pierre-des-Cuisines, Toulouse, which consists of fragments of birds and fish in a geometric framework; the supposition is that parts of a paleochristian mosaic were re-used at a time when there was a dearth of craftsmen skilled enough to create a new design (Barral I Altet 1973, 195). In the case of Valence, there is a possibility that the mosaic is indeed re-used in a later baptistery, or even that the building itself (now disappeared) and mosaic are both Romanesque; but whatever the dating, it is clear that baptistery and mosaic continued in use for several centuries (Stern 1962, 24). However, what re-use there was may continue traditional interest in mosaics in Gaul, for there are references in Gregory of Tours to new mosaics being made (died 580; Knoegel 1936, nos 42, 239); to a large mosaic apse in S. Etienne at Auxerre, by 614 (ibid., no. 142), and to work in S. Eusebius in the same city by the next bishop (623-59; ibid., no. 149). Much earlier, Childebert I's (511-58) basilica of S. Vincent in Paris has not only marble columns, but also a figured pavement (ibid., no. 401). He perhaps robbed out Parisian ruins for his materials, just as S. Aritus (died 518) surely did when he built at Vienne a baptistery `marvellously decorated with mosaic and marble, and including a finely worked pavement' (ibid., no. 501). This same tradition of robbing antique sites was surely continued when Archbishop Léger of Vienne, in the mid-eleventh century, decorated his choir `with the most precious stones'; it was perhaps he who made the `marble mausoleum' in which he was buried (Mortet 1911, 86f.).
One monument's mosaic decoration disappeared partly for medicinal reasons. Sections of the opus sectile work in the fourth century Basilica of Junius Bassus (which G. da Sangallo had recorded in all its splendour) survive because the French fathers of the church which occupied the site and the hall of the basilica gave them away as presents, for they wished to use the resin with which the tessera were fixed to the wall as medicine (Becatti 1969, 183f.). That the scheme really was as sumptuous as the surviving fragments and Renaissance drawings suggest can now be shown by the discovery of similar schemes at Ostia (Becatti 1969, passim). .st Other Survivals: Frescoes
Certainly,
much of mediaeval iconography is traditional but
innumerable
details make it certain that artists like Cavallini
and
Giotto had antique frescoes before their eyes. Beyen (1960,
23)
makes the very interesting observation that whereas, in
antiquity,
the invention of illusionistic fresco followed that
of
panel painting, in the Middle Ages it preceded it -
suggesting,
if we accept the usual thesis of movement from the
simple
to the complicated, that mediaeval artists did not invent
their
own schema. Beyen, however, never considers what
archaeological
evidence might exist for survival of antique
works
of art, and even denies (ibid., 36) that the Renaissance
had
access to antique still lifes. Indeed, familiarity with true
classical
vocabulary - rather than with some watered-down
`tradition'
of antique technique or style - can be seen in the
design
of the Torhalle at Lorsch, or at Assisi, where Kruft has
shown
(1971) that the frescoes of the Legend of S. Francis have
connections
with the Second and Fourth Pompeian Styles which are
so
close that direct knowledge must be assumed; these are
particularly
evident in the painted architectural system. John
White
had already made similar comparisons which emphasised the
importance
of Rome and its surviving antique art for the work in
Assisi
and throughout Italy, and his conclusion is unequivocal: `it
was in
Rome that Italian painters first rediscovered nature
through
the art of late antiquity' (1956, 93ff.).
As
early as the the beginning of the twelfth century,
knowledge
of ancient fresco schemes is in evidence at Rome, as
we can
see from three types of work. First, a wide range of
decorative
motifs is used in both fresco and mosaic, and could
have
been imitated from either. Secondly, the artists of the
1120s
begin to collect a whole series of motifs from antiquity
hitherto
unused even in such a traditional city - works `which
seem to
have been collected with a certain pedantry by painters
rapt in
enthusiasm for antiquity' (Toubert 1970, 105). Thirdly,
and
most important, whole antique schemes are imitated,
including
settings of fictive architecture; little remains
either
from antiquity or the twelfth century to study the
comparisons,
but Toubert's juxtaposition (ibid., figs 17-18) of
the
S.M. in Cosmedin scheme with Sangallo's drawing of the
Basilica
of Junius Bassus is convincing. Such antiquarian
traditions
continue into the thirteenth century: compare the
perspective
niches frescoed on the walls of Nicholas III's
Vatican
Palace c. 1280, with those made by Giotto at Padua a
little
later; or, indeed, the work at S.M. Maggiore with that in
the
Papal Palace of the Vatican, and of Orvieto and Viterbo
(Radke
1984, figs 6, 15-17, 20) - proof of Krautheimer's
contention
(1980, 222f.) that the late thirteenth-century
revival
of the antique was more broadly based in its sources
than
that of a century and a half previously, and more inclined
to look
further afield than mere late antique and Christian
exemplars
(cf. Gardner 1973, 35-8). But these certainly played
an
important role (P[um]aseler 1950); for example, Cavallini's
restoration
of the fifth-century frescoes in S. Paolo fuori le
Mura,
and his own great series which he added to them, with
their
many `antiquarian' overtones, must have helped the process
(White
1956; Kruft 1971, 169). Panel paintings were sometimes
transported:
Benedict Biscop brought some on religious subjects
to
Wearmouth, from his fifth and sixth visits to Rome (Hist.
Abb.
6, 9), although it is not known if these were old.
It is difficult to speculate about mediaeval knowledge of antique frescoes without remembering the many instances in fifteenth- and sixteenth-century art where antique influences are to be seen but where no suitable comparanda have survived (Greenhalgh 1982, 28ff.); one example where the whole ethos of the antique villa is also promoted is the fresco of the Vatican Belvedere, published by Ackerman (1951, 78ff.). Let us hope that greater attention to mediaeval layers on classical sites will illuminate this interesting area.
Funerary
stelai and altars were often re-used when cities
expanded
in the Middle Ages, and were probably a main source of
mediaeval
knowledge of antique inscriptions. Originally located
outside
the Roman walls, we find that churches built extra muros
harbour
large quantities of them - as at Modena (see above,
p.00),
Spoleto (for the collections of which, and list of
locations,
find-spots and comments, see Sansi 1869, 255ff.) or
Milan,
where finds have been used to pin-point cemeteries
(Arslan
1982, 206ff.).
Although there are exceptions (particularly from cities like Ostia, which were systematically plundered), most inscriptions probably did not move far from their original location, and many took a long time to degrade. Rome provided for the surrounding area, as we know from the fragment of the Arval acta found in a mausoleum at the destroyed church of S. Rufina on the Via Cornelia: of the second century AD, the re-use is of the fifth or sixth century, and came `presumably in a load of building material brought out from the city to the site' (Reynolds 1969); indeed, it would probably have come from near the fifth milestone on the Via Portuensis. Even such a small distance was probably exceptional, when compared with the story of that extraordinary plan of Rome, the Forma Urbis Marmorea. Thanks to the ingenious detective work of Cozza and others, its post-Roman history can be reconstructed (Rodriguez-Almeida 1981, 21ff.). It was fixed to a wall of the Forum Pacis, through which a passageway was made about 420, and punched from the inside out, so that bits of the map fell off; this was later blocked by a wall. In the late Middle Ages, the Forum was abandoned. The upper slabs of the Forma began to fall off, and the lower sections were systematically robbed. At some stage those pieces still in place were damaged by fire, which must have happened when the plan was no longer whole, because adjacent surviving fragments are sometimes damaged and sometimes not. The difficulties of dating such a sequence of events underline the problems involving other monuments and works of art which have not been so intensively studied: compare Degrassi's description (1947, 1ff.) of the discovery in 1546 of the Fasti on the site of lime kilns, whence they might have been extracted had any hunt for inscriptions gone on in earlier centuries.
Perhaps
because they were in a sense the `very words' of
their
author, inscriptions have often been considered
`authoritative'
- witness the interest apparently roused during
the
reign of Nero when tablets with script (whether Linear A or
B is
not known) were found at Knossos (Gordon 1971); or the
(false)
interpretation about 1300 by a pilgrim of a pagan
inscription
(CIL 11.1926) semi-hidden under the altar of
Sant'Angelo
in Perugia as having to do with the foundation of
the
church (Calabi Limentani 1970, 257). Not surprisingly, then,
antique
inscriptions were often displayed and imitated in the
Middle
Ages (survey in Kloos 1981) - as in the copying of actual
Roman
inscriptions for the dedication stone of the church at
Jarrow
in 685 (Bruce-Mitford 1961); the titulus found on the
chest
of S. Dunstan at Canterbury, written in `Roman letters'
(L-B England no. 945); the altar in the catacomb under S.
Michele
Archangelo, at S. Vittorino (Aquila), probably done
under
the sixth-century Bishop Quodvult Deus, which has good
lapidary
capitals inscribed on a tabula ansata held by a figure
at
either side; or the fixing of a bronze inscription on the
wall of
S. Basilio in Rome, said in the Mirabilia to refer to
the
pact between the Romans and the Jews (Calabi Limentani 1970,
259).
Collections of inscriptions made in the Middle Ages
were
surely done for practical rather than purely scholarly ends
- a
parallel, perhaps, to the writing of the Mirabilia, which
Gregorovius
has explained as part of such a political (rather
than
simply `archaeological') context (1972, 3.162ff., 167).
Of
course, not all inscriptions survived whole, and most in
re-use
were extensively damaged: what, then, were the reasons
for
such fragmentary re-use? At Pisa, we have seen that
fragments
were re-used in some prominent position only when they
were
legible, and perhaps had some specific meaning for the
spectator.
This explanation certainly fits the display of `key'
words
in the twelfth century papal throne in S. Clemente, Rome:
this
was apparently made out of the consecration inscription of
the
church of c. 384/99, rescued for the purpose after
doing
service as a paving-slab in the lower church. The largest
piece
became the back-rest of the throne, and bears vertically
in
large lapidary capitals the word MARTYR (Gandolfo 1974-5, 208
and
fig.2). Other fragments, probably of the same inscription,
appear
in the ambone (ECCL) and the ciborium (PRAESBYTER); and
yet
more, with less recogisable fragmentary words, have been
found
in various parts of the paving (Guidobaldi 1978, 80ff.).
Equally,
we often find an attempt to unify
modern inscriptions
with
existing re-used spolia, as with the the consecration stone
of 1112
in S.M. delle Grazie at Coppito (L'Aquila); this blends
well
with the use of a Roman architrave over the door, and an
acanthus
scroll frieze of about 1150 to which are added a lion
and a
griffon.
However,
most re-use of inscriptions (Calabi Limentani 1968,
84ff.;
Susini 1982, 32ff.) is very casual, ignoring what is
written
and simply re-using the material. At the SS. Quattro
Coronati,
for example, after the Norman sack of 1084, the
rebuilding
used many epitaphs in the paving of the aisles, some
pagan,
most Christian, and the latter said by Munoz (1914, 130)
to have
come from the catacombs in the ninth century. Some were
used
face-up, most face-down. Nor was such crass disregard for
antiquities
unusual: at S. Paolo fuori le Mura, the Museo
Lapidario
was largely constituted from inscriptions re-used in
that
church as paving slabs. In the Cathedral of Trieste, they
were
re-used face-up and face-down (Della croce 1698, 381). At
S.
Giorgio di Valpolicella, altars were used (D'Angelis D'Ossat
1982).
At S. Gennaro, the oldest cemetery church extra muros at
Naples,
and itself on a pagan site, the same happened when, in
1468,
it was taken over for a hospital: `worthy marble memorials
in
Greek and Latin' were taken from the tombs in the cemetery,
broken
up and used for paving the church (Carletti 1776, 324).
Frequently,
the re-use required hiding the original inscription
by
using the other side of the slab, as in the strange fifth
century
tympanum to the Porte Papale in the Cathedral at Le Puy,
the now
hidden verso of which bears a dedication not only to the
Emperor,
but also to Adidon, a local pagan god - the whole made
safe for
Christianity, perhaps, by the addition of the cross
(Bréhier
1945, 69f.). Another example is that of the bronze
tablet
with part of the Lex de Imperio Vespasiani, which Cola is
said to
have found hidden against an altar in the Lateran,
supposedly
put there by Boniface VIII with the inscription
facing
inwards `in odium imperii' (Calabi Limentani 1970, 255);
the
subsequent inspiration of this work is related below.
Such
contrasting attitudes - the inspirational and the
opportunist
- appear side by side throughout the Middle Ages.
Sometimes
the imitations inspired by antique inscriptions are so
close
that models must have been directly available to the
masons.
At Modena, for example, the apsidal foundation
inscription
for the Cathedral (consecrated 1106) demonstrates a
clear
respect for funerary antiquities in lettering, proportions
and
scale (for it is not imitated from civic inscriptional
styles);
there are mistakes, to be sure, and the sculptor must
have
been somewhat relieved to carve the last two lines in
modern
- rather than antique - letter forms.
If some
people prized antique inscriptions, did they prefer
those
of any particular date or type? There is some evidence
that
certain styles of inscription were espoused for particular
political
ends, even as early as the seventh century: thus
Morison
sees the marble diploma of Gregory the Great in S. Paolo
fuori
le Mura, with its antique square lapidary capitals, as in
a style
`which would have been considered `pagan' in
Constantinople'
(1972, 104). In this perspective, Charlemagne
did
indeed appropriate, `with calligraphic consequences, the
insignia
of ancient Rome' as seen both in manuscripts produced
during
his reign and in the famous epitaph of Hadrian I; Morison
contends
that he deliberately abandoned `the notion of a
Christian
lettering-style appropriate to a Christian Roman
emperor
... in favour of an Imperial letter-style appropriate to
a pagan
Roman emperor' (ibid., 145). In other words, the
Carolingians
sometimes based their own lapidary inscriptions on
the
style of the early Empire: they certainly knew antique
monumental
inscriptions, for they often filled the channels of
their
letters with lead, in imitation of the Roman practice of
using
bronze letters (Deschamps 1929, 14ff.). Had antique
comparanda
not been readily available, there would have been
little
point in such painstaking work. Such a feeling for the
splendour
of the antique manner is seen in the epitaph of
Hadrian
I (died 795), which Charlemagne ordered to be made in
France,
and written in marble with golden letters, as the Lorsch
Annalist
says (ibid., 13f.). Indeed, as Gray remarks (1948, 97),
`the
lettering is beautifully formed, regular and skilful; only
occasional
ligatures and inserted letters differentiate it from
a
classical inscription'. This work from far outside Rome is
something
of a landmark for, in spite of the likely Byzantine
origins
of the decorative border, it apparently provoked a new
classicism
in Roman letter forms (ibid., 97ff.) which is echoed
in some
inscriptions of the next centuries; and, like them, it
was
surely imitated directly from antique models and not through
small-scale
intermediaries (Morison 1972, figs 105f., 109,
128ff.).
That the classical manner is linked to classical sites,
and fed
by them, is seen in the tenth century in Gaul, where
little
remains of such a style except in centres such as Vienne
(ibid.,
fig. 14) or Rheims (fig. 11), who maintain their manner
into
the following century (Rheims: fig. 24; Poitiers: fig. 27);
while
elsewhere a style develops and flourishes which is far
removed
from the antique. Thus the propaganda value of antique
lapidary
capitals may first have been recognised by the papacy,
and
popularised by the emperor so that, by the later Middle
Ages,
cities were themselves conscious of the tokens of their
ancient
grandeur.
The
best documented and most thoroughly studied example of
inscriptions
being manipulated for political ends concerns Cola
di
Rienzo, whose anonymous biographer underlines the political
implications
of inscriptions in the very first chapter of his
work.
We have to take his word that Cola read ancient
inscriptions
lying around Rome every day, and was the only man
who
knew how to translate them; we are told that they caused him
to
ponder on the ancient Romans and their justice: `Every day he
made
observations on the marble reliefs lying about Rome - and
none
besides him knew how to read ancient epitaphs. He
translated
all the inscriptions, and correctly interpreted the
marble
figures ...' (AIMA 3.399). This passage is perhaps
a gloss
on Cola's use in about 1346 of the large bronze tablet
containing
parts of Vespasian's Lex de Imperio as a prop
for his
political oratory (for he neither invokes nor quotes the
monuments
of Rome or their inscriptions in his letters): and
Weiss
comments (1969, 40f.) that `it was the first time that a
classical
inscription had furnished a text for a political
sermon'.
Pope Boniface had hidden this tablet, as we have seen;
and (as
Calabi Limentani 1970, 255, remarks), he must have been
able to
read it, and considered the text important, or there
would
have been no point in hiding it.
But
probably the biographer's statement has wider
implications:
Cola dreamed of Roman grandeur, which was evoked
for him
by the intagli di marmo, and he was the first to
explain
li antichi Pataffi to the common people; the account
cannot
imply that Cola was the first to understand such
inscriptions,
particularly since there are but a few very minor
contractions
used in the Lex. Sordi (1971) presents the two
extreme
arguments, namely that either Cola had more than the
remaining
section of the Lex available to him, or alternatively
that
his knowledge of Roman law was comparable with that of
Mommsen;
and adduces evidence that two tables were displayed in
the
Lateran in the thirteenth century. It seems to Sordi, then,
that at
least one tablet has been lost since Cola's day; but
this
will not square with Gregorius' statement that `aenea
tabula
est', referring only to one tablet (Degrassi 1946).
It is informative to parallel Cola's call to Roman grandeur with Michael Choniates' work in Athens, where he became Archbishop in 1182 after an education in Constantinople. His first sermon to his people, from the pulpit in the Parthenon, was a salute to the city and the ancient traditions of her inhabitants. Was only the glorious name of Athens left? No, for `this is the Peripatos, this is the Stoa, over here is the Akropolis, down there is the Peiraeus, and right here is the Lantern of Demosthenes.' Unfortunately, the learned discourse of this scholar was over the heads of his flock, disillusionment quickly set in, and he was soon complaining about the `barbaric' Attic dialect (cf. Setton 1944, 187ff.). With Choniates as with Cola, therefore, the poetry of the past foundered on the mere prose of the present.
However, whether inscriptions were correctly interpreted as well as being correctly read is another matter. There are many instances of citizens invoking the antiquity of their particular city by pointing with pride to inscriptions which - so they believed - recorded their famous sons: thus Lovato Lovati found in 1318/24 a funerary inscription in Padua featuring the name T. LIVIUS, and immediately proclaimed it to be the historian. They did not notice that the inscription contained the cognomen HALYS, or that the dead man was a freed slave (cf. Weiss 1958, 150f.).
To
Brescia goes the honour of creating the first lapidary
museum
in Italy, placed by public decree on the façade of the
Monte
Vecchio, built 1484-9 (Brescia 1979, 1.185ff.; 2.6f.,
18ff.,
and 82, fig. 6). At first this seems to have been made up
exclusively
of material found on her own territory. Decisions to
ornament
a main square in this manner had been taken earlier, in
1465
and again in 1480 (Zamboni 1778, 30). Finds were made when
driving
a wall for the construction of the present Piazza della
Loggia
(after the decision, in 1484, that the shops should be
built
of stone, following fires caused by fireworks). During the
digging
of trenches for the foundations, `very beautiful
pieces',
some bearing inscriptions, others reliefs, were
discovered.
Since this site was just outside the Porta
Mediolanensis,
it is clear that the builders had found one of the
ancient
cemeteries. An even greater quantity of inscriptions
(which
were recognised as coming from pagan tombs) was found in
the
Torre di Paganora (Zamboni 1778, 29, n. 36: `cavati ...
nella
Torre'), which formed part of the twelfth century town
walls,
being at the south west corner of the old Roman wall -
presumably
re-used in its foundations; and although the stones
were
found near and not under it, we can assume that similar
material
was available to its builders. The decree for the
creation
of the `lapidario' is dated 13 October, 1480. As
Zamboni
(1778, 29f.) relates:]]
[t2] Indeed, scarcely had those inscriptions been
discovered,
style='mso-tab-count:1'> than our City understood their value, and
conceived the
style='mso-tab-count:1'> idea of setting them in public buildings,
thereby
style='mso-tab-count:1'> providing not only for the beautification
of those
style='mso-tab-count:1'> structures, but also for the preservation
of those
style='mso-tab-count:1'> precious monuments of antiquity ...]] [cr]
[t1]Otherwise,
like so many others, they would have been lost. As
well as
the sites by the old walls, inscriptions were also taken
from
the Piazza del Novarino (i.e. the Piazza del Foro, with the
Roman
Capitol at one end), and from near the Cathedral, which
was
built by the Roman west wall (Brescia 1979, 1.200). At the
same
time, heavy fines were levied on any misuse of rediscovered
stones,
which were considered the property of the city - perhaps
because
they were discovered underground (cf. Rebecchi 1984,
322).
Modena was far from alone in having pride in her
antiquities,
although the expression of the idea by other cities
is
later: Della Croce, having discussed (1698, 273) the
inscriptions
and monuments of Trieste, notes that these provide
an
`authentic proof of the great antiquity of the town, and an
infallible
indication of its magnificence and greatness in times
gone
by.'
The
taste for antique inscriptions extended even to painted
ones.
Given the suggestion (Alfieri 1961, 2.750) that Mantegna
might
have been influenced by the architecture of the Monte di
Pietà
in Brescia, we might wonder whether his attention was not
equally
drawn to the inscriptions placed on the façade of that
building
(and cf. Brescia 1979, 6ff.; 18ff.), for he
incorporated
inscriptions in his frescoes. So too did the now
lost
works by Bernardino da Parenzo, in the cloister of S.
Giustina
at Padua: it has been shown (Billanovich 1969, 241)
that
these inscriptions, like the artist who painted them, are
not
Paduan but from Parenzo - he presumably got hold of a
sylloge,
and copied the contents quite accurately. This explains
how
inscriptions were placed in a cloister, but not why: the
reason
could be a consciousness of the antiquity of the site,
which
was over an old pagan cemetery, where the tombstone of
`Livy'
had been found (ibid., 226). Billanovich reprints (ibid.,
291) a
seventeenth-century description of what was found when
new
foundations were being dug: apses, bricks, fragments of
obelisks,
large slabs of stone, and other `very old monuments'.
Can any
connections be discerned between such interest in
antique
inscriptions, and the state of contemporary politics?
This
was surely the case at Modena, where inscriptions joined
other
antiquities on the Duomo as a reminder of the city's past
(Parra
1983, 470f.). But such interest was neither uniform nor
continuous:
the Paduan interest in classical epigraphy (no
matter
how shaky it may have been: Weiss 1969, 18ff.) did not
survive
the end of the Commune and the arrival of the Carraresi,
which
may indicate that such antiquities were then considered an
important
link with the free past and its glories. And there is
a
poignant confirmation of the value placed on inscriptions as
tokens
of past grandeur at Arezzo where, in 1384, the
Florentines
deliberately buried some, as we learn from a much
later
account (which may, of course, have misrepresented the
motivation):
[t2]
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> The marbles with ancient inscriptions of
the Romans are
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> manifest signs of their high dominion, and
their antiquity.
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> Our city used to be full of them but, when
ceded in 1384 by
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> the valorous General Conciaco for forty
thousand gold
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> florins, they were placed in the
foundations of the new
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> fortress, in contempt for their worth as
antiquities and
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> against the wishes of the citizens. But
confounding those
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> who sought to bury them in oblivion, a
note had been taken
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> of them in the year 1350, now preserved by
the most learned
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> antiquarian in Tuscany (Farulli 1717, iii;
the
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> contracts for the money are reprinted in
RIS 24.1,
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> 95ff.). [[ [cr]
[t1]One
is reminded of Livy's comment (23.203) on the Perugians:
`casus
obscurior fama est, quia nex ipsorum monumento ullo est
inlustratus
nec decreto Romanorum.'
However, according to Cittadini (1853, 51f.), the Florentines did exactly the same thing in 1502, throwing `all Etruscan and Roman relics' into the lime kilns, or into new buildings. Is this a confused tradition, or did it really happen twice? The matter is complicated, because the Florentines had also bought possession of the city and its forts after the peace of March 1337, and for the same sum (RIS 24.1, 877; Rondinelli 44, n. a). The topography of the city (cf. plan of the ninth and tenth century city in Schneider 1975, opposite p. 288) would have helped the Florentines in what could have been a casual collection of suitable building materials, for the earlier fortress partly overlies the ancient theatre, and is very close to the baths - both locations where inscriptions were likely to have been frequent. However, there are two indications that the Aretine resentment was both accurate and justified; for when the fortress itself was razed in 1688, inscriptions were indeed pulled out from its foundations, as they were from the nearest gate, the Porta di Colcitrone (Cittadini 1853, 190ff.); and the Florentines in 1384 also took from Arezzo to Florence `the books of their civil and communal affairs, together with other documents public and private' (Farulli 1717, 13) - surely more than was needed just for efficient administration. There seems at least a possibility that the Florentines did likewise when they captured Pisa in 1406: the walls of Pisa are built in conspicuously regular fashion, of stone and brick, with no marble spolia whatsoever - except in the area of the Fortezza, where the contrast between the (normal) regularity of the stonework and the varying sizes of marble blocks may indicate that the latter are spolia. Perhaps such `cultural genocide' was indeed standard practice, for Frederick II at Ravenna took `all the stone blocks, and marble slabs at Porta Aurea, wherever they were found, to the lime kiln, and from them was made lime for the Imperial castle' (cited in Zirardini 1762, 234, from the Chronicle in RIS 1.2, 578). Since the same entry records his spoliation of Ravenna, and transport of spoils to Palermo, surely the slight was intentional. Nevertheless, it must be remembered that the rampart was traditionally the property of the ruler in the Middle Ages, and stones from it within his gift (Février 1974, 73f.), which changes the perspective somewhat.
In Renaissance France as well, antique works of art, including inscriptions, were seen as reflecting glory upon their city. In 1594, the search for building materials in a field of ruins (Roman baths?) outside Bordeaux uncovered two white marble statues, which were subsequently displayed at the Hotel de Ville with an inscription containing the words CIVITATIS HIC IN MEMORIAM ANTIQUITATIS ET AD PERPETUAM BURDIGALAE GLORIAM PONENDAS CURURANT ... MULTA RENASCITUR (Jullian 1897/90, 1.91ff.). There is also the story of Joseph de Chassaigne (died 1572) who, desirous of owning some inscription referring to Ausonius, favourite son of Bordeaux, forged one on a fragment taken from the old walls, and incorporated it into a sun-dial in his garden (Jullian 1887/90, 1.262).
Inscriptions continued to be collected in `paper museums' during the fifteenth century, and many must have been copied from their position in walls (cf. the operations of Cyriacus of Ancona). At Bordeaux, for example, we have an account of the Sieur du Haillan, brother of the Historiographer of France, having the foundations of the walls of Bordeaux searched for inscriptions in 1594 (Jullian 1887/90, 1.368). But one of the first collections of inscriptions about which we are relatively well informed is that of Raffaelle Fabretti (1619-1700), and the way in which it was formed (as we learn from his own accounts) would have been equally possible five hundred years earlier: countrymen around Rome, sometimes digging speculatively on their own land, sometimes finding works by chance, took to the city any inscribed stones they found, where they were snapped up by collectors (Mennella 1973, 18-19). And thanks to the post of `Custodian of the Holy Relics and Cemeteries' granted him by his protector, Fabretti could roam freely in his search for inscriptions, and also visit catacombs which were normally closed; indeed, one day he actually found a lost catacomb, namely that of S. Castulo on the via Labicana (ibid., 23).