Last Wednesday the American Academy welcomed Professor Rita Volpe and the Sovrintendenza Capitolina ai Beni Culturali to discuss some extraordinary recent discoveries beneath the Baths of Trajan. The presentation was held in Italian and organized in collaboration with the Sovrintendenza as part of the Academy’s New Work in the Humanities Series 2013-2014: New Work on Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages.
After a brief welcome from Director Christopher Celenza, Andrew W. Mellon Professor Kim Bowes, FAAR’06, introduced Professor Volpe as having made key discoveries that dramatically change our understanding of the ancient cityscape. A professor of ancient topography at the Università di Roma “Tre” and an archaeologist for the city, Professor Volpe is also director of excavations at the Oppian Hill, heading a team that includes Giovanni Caruso, Marta Giacobelli, Francesco Pacetti, Carla Termini, as well as Simonetta Serra, Advisor to the Academy.
The Oppian Hill was saved from urban development as parkland in the 1930s thus leaving the area’s archaeological record beautifully in tact. Professor Volpe’s team are working to excavate the structures lying beneath the western corner of the Baths of Trajan and just north of Nero’s infamous Domus Aurea. Not only have the excavations revealed the layout of the city as it was before construction of the immense Baths of Trajan between 104-109 AD, but they have unearthed extraordinary and unparalleled examples of Roman fresco and mosaic.
In 2011 a monumental wall mosaic came to light beneath the baths of Trajan. Located within a 16-meter tall edifice, the mosaic features multiple registers of standing figures in a monumental architectural framework. The discovery changes our assumptions about the history of ancient wall mosaics, which were previously thought to have seen their fullest expression in late antiquity. Its discovery is one of the most important finds in Rome of the last decades. Despite facing financial hiccups and logistical challenges, the team has made a wealth of spectacular discoveries that, as Professor Volpe pointed out, will doubtless fuel hundreds of doctoral theses and scholarly articles.
Last month new funds finally allowed the dig to resume and Professor Volpe was therefore able to share a discovery made only days before her lecture at the American Academy. “Quisquis amat valeat, pereat qui nescit amatum, bis tanto pereat quis amor vetat” were the words etched on the building by some ancient soul whose voice came back to us in anticipation of All Hallow’s Eve.