Identifier: destructionofan00lanc (find matches)
Title: The destruction of ancient Rome : a sketch of the history of the monuments
Year: 1901 (1900s)
Authors: Lanciani, Rodolfo Amedeo, 1847-1929
Subjects:
Publisher: London : Macmillan
Contributing Library: PIMS - University of Toronto
Digitizing Sponsor: University of Toronto

View Book Page: Book Viewer
About This Book: Catalog Entry
View All Images: All Images From Book
Click here to view book online to see this illustration in context in a browseable online version of this book.

Text Appearing Before Image:
is made ofmarble statues, except of a head attributed to Cybele,wliicli Camillo Fanucci claims to have seen lying onthe floor near the high altar in the year 1600.^ Another clew as to the state of the Pantheon, whentaken possession of by the Church, is given by theclumsy restorations made by Boniface IV. (610 A.D.),by Vitalianus (663), and Gregory III. (735), withmaterials taken from other edifices, such as the marbleslab containing the honorary inscription of LuciusAlbinus, removed from the Forum of Augustus((7. I. L. I. 285), the beautiful frieze from thetemple of Isis (illustrated by Visconti in Bull. Com.Vol. IV., 1876, p. 92), and other such spoils. Evenmore important is the fact that some of these spoils•belonged to the Pantheon itself, as the two beautifulfriezes, with festoons and candelabras and sacred im-plements, removed from the sides of the great door,and the doorpost taken from one of the side entrances. 1 Camillo Fanucci, Trattato di tutte V opere pie, etc., c. xxxvi.
Text Appearing After Image:
05 H 2 THE MONUMENTS IN THE SEVENTH CENTURY 115 These three pieces had been used in the restorationof the steps leading from the square in front of thePantheon to the pronaos (Fig. 22), and were foundbetween December, 1874, and September, 1875. The designation of S. Maria ad Martyres, given tothe Pantheon by Boniface IV., recalls an interestingfact. According to the Liher Pontificalis^ this namewas given to the newly consecrated church on accountof twenty-eight cartloads of sacred bones which hadbeen removed from the Catacombs and placed in abasin of porphyry under the high altar. This was thebeginning of an important change. I have stated above that burial in the Catacombswas given up in 410, the year of the storming ofRome by Alaric, and that great damage was done tothem in 537, during the siege of Vitiges. As thecountry around Rome became more and more insecureand unhealthy, and was almost completely abandonedby its inhabitants at the time of the Langobardicinroads, it was deemed n

Note About Images