HSAR 252 - Lecture 23 - Rome of Constantine and a New Rome Chapter 1
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HSAR 252 - Lecture 23 - Rome of Constantine and a New Rome Chapter 1. The End of the Tetrarchy and the Rise of Constantine the Great [00:00:00] Professor Diana E.E. Kleiner: Good morning everybody. This is the last lecture in Roman Architecture, and I think it’s appropriate that I deliver this last lecture, which I call “Rome of Constantine and a New Rome,” on Rome’s birthday. Indeed, this is Rome’s birthday today, April 21st, 2009. Rome was born, as you’ll recall, on the 21st of April in 753 B.C., which means that Rome is 2762 years old today. And since birthdays are often celebrated with cake and ice cream, I should make good today on the promise that I made to you at the very beginning of the semester, which is that sometime in the course of this semester I would recommend four ice cream places to you, four gelaterias in Rome, to you. And I’ve only recommended two. I recommended Tre Scalini in Piazza Navona, and I recommended the Della Palma that is located near the Pantheon. So I haven’t–there are two more to go. And it seemed on Rome’s birthday, this was the perfect thing to begin the lecture with, and that is to round the circle and make you aware of the two other best ice cream places in Rome. And I show you here, on the left-hand side of the screen, Giolitti, and on the right- hand side of the screen San Crispino. And note the birthday balloons, and that I’m enjoying myself very much on Rome’s birthday, today. But just so that you know where these are. You know Rome so well by now that I think I can give you directions that are going to make sense to you. So you are in the core of ancient Rome. You’ve just been to visit the Colosseum and the Roman Forum. Maybe you’ve been up on the Capitoline Hill. You’re exploring the Victor Emmanuel Monument, and so with your back to the Victor Emmanuel Monument, look straight ahead and you see the Corso, the so-called Corso, the street of the racecourses, or the racecourse, where the popes, by the way, used to race their horses. You stand facing the Corso. You walk down the Corso. You’re on your way, in this regard, toward the Piazza di Spagna, the Spanish Steps. But before you get to the Spanish Steps, you’re going to notice one, the only department store in Rome, Rinascente–that’s why it’s a good landmark–Rinascente, on the right. You take a left and you’re going to see the Column of Marcus Aurelius, which is a column we didn’t look at this semester, but is based on the Column of Trajan. You take a look at the Column of Marcus Aurelius. You continue into the next piazza, which is the Piazza Montecitorio, with a great obelisk in the center and a government building and a couple of hotels. You stay on the right and you go down that next small street and you hit Giolitti, which in my opinion is the single best ice cream place in Rome. So if you’re in Rome, not to be missed. It has the best fruit flavors in the city of Rome; in fact, anywhere in Italy that I know of. And the second one that I mention to you is San Crispino. San Crispino is near the Trevi Fountain in Rome. So you’re going to go to the Trevi Fountain in any case, and all you need to do when you’re facing the Trevi Fountain is to go about two blocks away from the Trevi Fountain and you will hit San Crispino. It has a smaller selection of flavors, but everything is very, very good there. In fact, they’ve been such a success that they have expanded and opened another one near the Pantheon. So again, back to the Pantheon, down that small street–I already gave you the directions to Della Palma. You go beyond Della Palma, you take a left and you’ll hit the second San Crispino. So very important to share this with you, again before the term is up, and in honor of Rome’s birthday. Also, of course, when you’re at San Crispino, don’t forget the Trevi Fountain. And you probably all know the tradition that when you go and visit the Trevi Fountain, which is always very crowded–this is actually a small crowd compared to what’s usually there–after you’ve looked at it, and enjoyed it for its own sake and for architecture, obviously, of a much later period but I think one you can see is very closely based on a lot of things that we’ve been looking at this semester. After you’ve looked at it–and people usually do this right before they leave Rome; you go up to the fountain, bring a coin–it can be an American coin or an Italian coin or any coin for that matter–you stand in front of the Trevi Fountain, with your back to the Trevi Fountain, you take a coin, you throw it over your shoulder–got to make sure it goes into the water and not on the side–but throw it into the water, and that will ensure that you will get to return to Rome someday. So don’t forget to do that as well. We spoke in the last lecture about the Tetrarchy, about Diocletian and his formation of the Tetrarchy, and his attempt to bring stability back to Rome and to the Empire, and how successful he was indeed. We also talked about the fact that Diocletian and the other Tetrarchs were responsible for some important building projects, in fact, bringing architecture back to Rome in a way that it had been missing in the third century A.D. And I mentioned in particular that Diocletian was interested both in public and in private architecture. And I remind you of an example of public architecture that we looked at last time, on the top left, the so-called Five Column Monument, or Decennial Monument, or Tetrachic Monument, that Diocletian erected in the Roman Forum to honor himself and to honor his formation of the Tetrarchy, and his relationship to Jupiter. You’ll remember the five columns: four with the Tetrarchs imaged on the top in the front, the one of Jupiter behind, that this was located behind the Rostra or the speaker’s platform in the Roman Forum. We also talked about the fact that Diocletian was interested again in private architecture, that he built a palace for himself, a place that he hoped to retire to, on the Dalmatian Coast where he was born, at a place called Split. And I remind you of it here, a restored view showing you what it looked like; that it was essentially a fortified camp, designed like a Roman castrum, with walls and towers and a very distinctive octagonal mausoleum that was located across from the Temple of Jupiter. So again his connecting himself to Jupiter, honoring Jupiter as he honors himself. And I also showed you an example of the portraiture of the Tetrarchs. We talked about the all-for-one-and-one-for-all philosophy, how they stuck together, not only in life but in their portraits, and they depicted themselves, or they had themselves depicted as this foursome, in large part again to underscore the fact that all four of them were co-equal emperors, that all four of them–or almost co-equal emperors: you’ll remember that there were Augusti and Caesars, so some had the slight upper hand, but for the most part they worked together. They’re represented as a whole, and they’re represented in a very similar way to one another. And we talked about the use of geometric forms, the abstraction, the solidity of these portraits that I suggested mirrors this new stability that Diocletian and the Tetrarchy have brought to Rome and to the Empire. And we saw that those same qualities, that interest in geometry, in abstraction, in solidity, were characteristic also of Tetrarchic architecture. And we’re going to see some of those features continuing on in the buildings that we’re going to be looking at today. Diocletian stepped down, retired voluntarily, on the first of May in 305 A.D. And Maximian, his co-Augustus, stepped down as well, and the two Caesars were elevated to Augusti, and two new Caesars were chosen. But without the strong presence of Diocletian the Tetrarchy fell apart, and Rome and the Empire were once again plunged into civil war. The two main claimants for imperial power that came out of this civil war were Maxentius–Maxentius who was the son of Maximian–and Constantine–Constantine who eventually became Constantine the Great–Constantine who was the son of Constantius Chlorus. And these two men, Constantine and Maxentius, warred with one another for imperial power, and they went against one another in one of the most famous battles of all time: in fact, a battle that is as well known, if not even more well known, than the Battle of Actium, and this is the Battle of the Milvian Bridge, the Battle of the Milvian Bridge which took place in 312 A.D. And it was at that epic-making battle that Constantine was victorious over Maxentius, that Constantine became sole emperor of Rome – so a move away from the Tetrarchy and the placement of power in the hands of one man.