File:Roman cities in Italy and Dalmatia (1910) (14796605403).jpg

Identifier: romancitiesinita00frot (find matches)
Title: Roman cities in Italy and Dalmatia
Year: 1910 (1910s)
Authors: Frothingham, Arthur L. (Arthur Lincoln), 1859-1923
Subjects: Cities and towns, Ancient Cities and towns -- Italy Architecture, Roman Italy -- Antiquities Dalmatia (Croatia) -- Antiquities
Publisher: New York, Sturgis & Walton Company
Contributing Library: New York Public Library
Digitizing Sponsor: MSN

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en in the church walls were also some of thelarge Corinthian columns of the pronaos, two ofthem i7i situ. It is quite an unusual treat to visit the excava-tions that have laid bare the podium of theCapitolium underneath the church. The widesubterranean trench opened around the founda-tions is well lighted by electricity. The doublestepped basement of the temple is one of themost perfect pieces of early Roman stoneworkI have ever examined. The blocks of travertineare sometimes enormous—one cornerstone is overtwelve meters long; the joints are fine and thesurfaces perfectly worked. The width of the basement is ten meters, al-lowing for a gable with four columns on thefront and two on the sides. A most curiousfeature are two parallel vaulted passageways inthe front part of the basement, which perforateit on a line parallel with the facade. It wouldseem as if they corresponded to a street whichran into the forum at this point and were madefor traffic. If so they are unique. Perhaps they
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Spoleto, Interior of the Church of the Crocifisso showing profuseand confused use of Roman material Plate XXIX THE t^^^^^-^FDBLI: ART ASTOR, -R ROMAN CITIES 159 are explained by an interesting feature in thebasement, a break in the masonry where thesepassages occur, which shows that at some periodthe basement was lengthened toward the frontin order to make it possible to add, we may-imagine, the more stately and spacious porticoof Corinthian columns which still partly remains.As there is no great difference in the masonrythis addition cannot be dated very much laterthan the original structure. Another explana-tion of these passages is one that is suggested bya few other cases of sub-cella chambers, namelythat they were storerooms for sacred objects orannexes to the temple, like the chambers in thepodium of the temple of Castor and Polluxin Rome. Cav. Soldini is planning to com-plete the freeing of the substructure and todig into the core underneath the cella, in thehope of finding the

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