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17.4 The Temple of Antoninus Pius and Faustina the Elder in the Roman Forum
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Roman Architecture
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Bigger is Better: The Baths of Caracalla and Other Second-and Third-Century Buildings in Rome
Exploration of a "bigger is better" philosophy; exposed brick tombs with painted stucco and architectural elements; the Temple of Divine Antoninus Pius and Faustina and its post-antique afterlife as the Church of S. Lorenzo in Miranda; the earliest surviving triple-bayed Arch of Septimius Severus in the Roman Forum; the Septizodium, a lively baroque-style façade for Domitian's Palace on the Palatine Hill; and the colossal Baths of Caracalla
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Diana E.E. KleinerDunham Professor of History of Art and Classics at Yale University
History Of Art
All of these buildings were being put up during the reign of Hadrian's successor.
Hadrian had died in 138 A.D., and he was succeeded by a man by the
name of Antoninus Pius, whose portrait you see here on the upper right.
[COUGH] Antoninus Pius again was he reigned for a quite long time.
He reigned between
138 and 161 A.D.. It was a period of extraordinary peace.
He, like Hadrian, was a peace loving man, he was able to
maintain that peace exceedingly well, and Rome really thrived under his emperorship.
He's also interesting because he seems to have had more of a love
relationship with his wife than any other Roman emperor that I can think of.
A relationship that was so strong
that when his wife died, he became
emperor, here is his wife, Faustina the elder.
When he became emperor in, he became emperor in 138, but she died
already in 141, and as I mentioned he stayed emperor for until 161.
So he was emperor for 20 more years after her death.
He never forgot her.
He stayed in, he stayed in a completely enamored of her.
He never remarried.
We don't even have any,
any, any rumors that he had any concubines or anything like that.
He seems to have stayed completely true to her.
And, what's interesting is that when the two of them died, their
successors, Marcus Aurelius and Lucius Verus, put up up a monument to them.
And, it's not on your monument list and I'm
not holding responsible for it, but I just want
to show it you, because it will illuminate a
monument that I am going to show you in a moment.
This this base which, which served as the base for a porphyry column.
That was located on top. It represents a scene in which we see.
Antoninus Pius, and his wife, Faustina the elder, being
carried to heaven on the back of a male personification.
We see Roma, in the bottom right, and she is saluting them.
She is bearing
witness to what is a representation of their joint divinization.
The two of them, Faustina the elder, divinized at her
death in 141, Antoninus Pius divinized at his death in 161.
And yet we see them being carried to heaven
as if their divinizations happened exactly at the same time.
This is obviously a fiction. It is a conflation of time.
It is a fiction of which the
Romans were particularly adept in their sculptural representations.
But I show it to you here because it has some
bearing on a temple that I now want to talk about.
This is the so-called Temple of Antoninus Pius and Faustina the Elder.
It is a temple that Antoninus Pius put up in honor of his wife in 141 to her
as a diva, after she was divinized.
But at his own death, 20 years later,
in 161, his successors again, Marcus Aurelius and Lucius
Verus rededicated it to the two of them, to
the divine Antoninus Pius and to the divine Faustina.
It is quite well preserved today, and it is important for two main reasons.
It is important because it is our best surviving
temple that was put up to, an emperor and an empress.
It wasn't the only one, but it's the best surviving example of that.
And it is another example of the way in which antiquities
are reused over time in other contexts and at, at later times.
And how that reuse sometimes helps to preserve them.
What I show you now on the screen is
a coin on the upper left representing Faustina the Elder on the obverse of the
coin, on the left, her portrait, and it refers to her as Diva Faustina.
So it is a coin that Antoninus Pius
struck after her death and after her divinization.
And we see on the back, the temple
that Antoninus Pius originally made, in her honor.
Over here we see a series of se, of drawings that come
from the Ward-Perkins textbook, that show once again the
depiction of that original temple, on the, on the coin.
And with a legend that says, aeternitas, for
eternity, because now she is a diva for eternity.
And then a restored view, over here, of what the temple would
have looked like after it was rededicated to Antoninus and Faustina, in 161.
And then over here the
baroque building that was built into it in the 17th century A.D.,
when it was turned into the Church of San Lorenzo in Miranda.
And I've put the names San Lorenzo and Miranda on your Monument List.
If we look at the view of it, as it
was after it was rededicated to Antoninus Pius and Faustina.
We will see a typical Roman temple. All the features that
we have described so very often in the course of this semester.
The deep porch, the free-standing columns in the porch,
the very tall podium, the single staircase, the facade emphasis.
We see all of that here, very, very typ, very conventional Roman temple with
sculpture in the pediment and decoration on the eaves of the temple as well.
What we see in the bottom
left is what happened to this temple in the 17th century.
Part of it was preserved.
Maybe more of it was preserved, we're not absolutely
sure, but at least part of it was preserved.
The walls, the side wall and also the columns and the
the front of the well, the side walls primarily, and the columns.
And the the lintel over here that has the inscription that dedicates the temple to,
and to Antoninus Pius and Faustina.
But what you see behind it, is the Baroque facade rising up.
A Baroque facade that has buttresses, and I'm going to show
it to you in actuality in a moment, that has buttresses
on either side, that has this wonderful split, arcuated pediment,
a split arcuated pediment that would have been impossible to conceive.
I believe, without these architects, Baroque
architects of 17th century looking back to
the Baroque element in Roman antiquity.
The cross is, is added in the center of course.
But there's one major difference between this building and this building.
Does anyone see what that is?
Besides the addition of the Baroque facade.
>> What? A little louder.
The podium. Exactly.
Emily, right? The podium is not there.
The podium is not there.
The staircase is not there. Why is that, Emily?
>> I don't know if it's because the land is filling.
>> Yes. >> [INAUDIBLE]
>> Yes, the ground level has risen, so that at the time
that they decide to turn the Temple of Antoninus Pius and Faustina
into San Lorenzo in Miranda, this is where the ground level is.
There's no podium anymore.
The podium is completely underground. As are part of the columns.
We see only the part of the, so they put the door, at the, at the bottom.
What is the bottom at that particular time.
Now let me show you the building today. It's very well preserved.
So you see what I mean by the best preserved monument to.
The best preserved temple to an emperor
and an empress in Rome, extremely well preserved.
You see its location is in the Roman Forum.
With the backdrop of the imperial Fora behind it.
The forum of Augustus, the Forum of Trajan.
In the Roman Forum, so prime real estate for this
temple, when Antoninus Pius decides to build it to his wife.
We see here the original podium,
the original stair case, the original
columns, gray granite columns, white marble capitals.
We see the originally lintel with the inscription
still preserved, to Divine Antoninus Pius, to Divine Faustina.
We see the original tufa walls of the side.
We see the lintels on this side that
also has a frieze that is preserved from antiquity.
And then we see, growing up behind it, the 17th century
Baroque church with its buttresses and with its broken arcuated pediment.
And if you look very carefully, you will see
this is, this was ground level in the 17th century.
This is the 17th century door.
This is the ancient door, down here.
I'll show you a couple of views where you can see that even more clearly.
Here's another view showing you those
great grey granite columns, the white capitals,
the 17th century door.
And then down here, the ancient door which shows you more dramatically than anything
else I've even able to show you this semester this change in ground level.
And two more views that I took that show you the same here, the 17th century door.
So you have to think of all of this underground in the 17th century.
And then, then only in more modern times was the was the temple excavated.
Temple and church excavated down to their original level.
Here's another view showing you again the
17th century doorway, the earlier doorway, the staircase.
A little baby down here of which I was happy to have for scale It
gives you a sense, once again, of how, and that makes it even more dramatic, because.
I don't know if it's a he or she she? She?
sit, sitting there, that she it
makes it even more dramatic to demonstrate to you
again since this is a lecture on bigger is better.
That this temple to Antoninus and Faustina was also
very, very, also is, very, very large in scale.
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