Daily Updates
Week Eight: 10 November
10 November. Ben O'Donnell Reporting
The Basilica Nova, also called the Basilica of Constantine and the Basilica of Maxentius at different points in its history, is one of the most impressive, architecturally innovative structures surviving today from late antiquity. Built on the upper Via Sacra just east of the original Roman Forum between either AD 306 or 308 and sometime after AD 313, it is a monument of the Maxentian revitalization project that added and refurbished a number of buildings in the Forum area following the fire that destroyed about a quarter of the Forum in AD 283.
At 95x65x35m, the basilica is larger than any other building in the Forum except the Basilica Julia, which had been thoroughly renovated during the same construction project phase, and essentially is constructed on three axes: first, there is the original intended Maxentian axis, which runs east to west, beginning with an entrance vestibule in the east, recalling the chalcidica of past basilicas, and culminating in a large apse in the west, which was to act as the tribunal. When Constantine ousted Maxentius, however, he reoriented the basilica north to south, adding an entrance porch and four porphyry columns to the south end off the Via Sacra, and complemented that with another apse in the north (the west apse now holding a 15m colossal statue of Constantine, which watched the senators, magistrates, and businessmen as they went about their affairs). Finally, a building of this height (35m) has significant vertical orientation that must be accounted for, the soaring height of the interior drawing the visitor's attention from the opulent marble floor to the magnificent vaulted ceilings.
The building materials and techniques employed in the Basilica Nova were very singular, certainly unlike any other basilica that had ever been constructed. Like most Maxentian projects, its shell is of brick-faced concrete, revetted with marble up to the vaulting. The six barrel-vaulted bays, the northern three of which constitute the most significant part of the basilica's remains today, did not form proper basilica aisles, but rather served as buttresses to the long central nave, which was groin-vaulted to provide another clerestory level to the structure that has since collapsed. These bays would also have been marble revetted, some cornice and architrave work remains today, along with a set of corbels along the north apse, which feature palmette, egg-and-dart, wishbone, and winged figure motifs, up to their concrete vaults, which in turn were coffered in four-level octagonal and hexagonal patterns and elaborately stuccoed. The floor originally featured 3m patterns of squares inscribed with circles and squares, similar to the one that paved the Temple of Venus and Roma, and was of Numidian yellow marble, Carystian green marble, Phrygian purple marble, and red and green porphyry. The colossal columns that appeared to be supporting the clerestory along the eight bay piers were 17.5m tall and of fluted Proconnesian marble, only one remaining in Rome today near the Santa Maria Maggiore.
The overall interior effect hearkened much more to the great late-empire bath complexes than to any other basilicas, all these structures designed to enamor the people of Rome of their emperors in an age when the city's preeminence and favor was in obvious decline. The high ceiling, unified rather than colonnaded construction, nave-and-apse form, and use of windows to make the outside world a decorative element of the interior all anticipated and influenced the incipient Christian architectural trends, marking this structure as transitional between the classical and Christian eras.
In addition to building the Basilica Nova, Maxentius restored a number of Forum monuments as well, the Temple of Venus and Roma among them. Though originally built by Hadrian between AD 121 and 135, the Maxentian restoration made significant changes. Most notably, the flat partitioning wall between the cella of Venus and that of Roma was replaced by two back-to-back apses, elaborated stuccoed over lozenge-shaped coffering. The cellae were now of brick-faced concrete revetted in marble, like the Basilica, and they similarly culminated in barrel vaulted roofs with square coffering that replaced their wooden ones. Decorating the interior was a floor design almost identical to the basilican one and a set of porphyry columns alternating with miniature porphyry colonnettes that flanked numerous niches. Despite its late reconstruction, the Temple would continue to see much use, as it was the last pagan temple in operation in Rome before Theodosius closed it for good in AD 391.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Claridge, Amanda. Rome: An Oxford Archaeological Guide. New York: Oxford University Press, Inc, 1998.
Dudley, Donald R. Urbs Roma. London: Aberdeen University Press, 1967.
Gibbon, Edward. The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire: Volume I. London: Penguin Classics, 1995.
Grundmann, Stefan. The Architecture of Rome. Stuttgart/London: Axel Menges, 1998.
Krautheimer, Richard. Rome: Profile of a City, 312-1308. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2000.
Macadam, Alta. Blue Guide: Rome. New York: WW Norton and Co, Inc, 2003.
Sear, Frank. Roman Architecture. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1982.
Ward-Perkins, J.B. Roman Imperial Architecture. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1994.
Basilica Nova plan
Basilica Nova, coffering detail; the coffering detail (concrete and stucco) is from the barrel vault over the north apse, but would have covered the entire ceiling of the basilica in some pattern or another.
Basilica Nova, corbel detail with winged figure from the north apse
Basilica Nova, cornice piece is under the vault east of the north apse
Basilica Nova, exterior view with arched windows looking south.
Basilica Nova, north apse shows statuary niches brick construction techniques
Basilica Nova, north barrel vaults
Basilica Nova, porphyry entrance column is one of four at the south entrance to the basilica from the via sacra.
Temple of Venus and Roma plan with Maxentian features