The Museums and Ruins of Rome Volume 2 (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1906 Excerpt: ...200 metres of reliefs with their 2500 and more figures--either in the casts in the Lateran Museum (see vol. i. p. 163), or in some modern publication--can appreciate the high historical value of this work, which represents Trajan's expeditions against the barbarians on the lower Danube. It only remains to mention that the Forum of Trajan did not receive its required completion until the time of his successor, who built a temple, in a rich and massive style, to the memory of his adopted parents; it stood close to the little square occupied by the great column, where now rise the domes of two churches, with a palazzo between them. GRAVE OF BIBULUS.--Trajan's foundations had already overstepped the line of the old wall of Servius Tullius; near at hand but, in accordance with immemorial rule, outside the wall, still stands, built into a house in the Via di Marforio, the facade of the tomb of Bibulus, dating from the first century before the Christian era. From a base, with an inscription, rise four Doric pillars, supporting an entablature, the frieze of which is adorned with the bucranion, that is to say, with skulls of oxen wreathed with garlands; in the two side spaces are penthouses as though for niches or windows. THE CAPITOL.--Our wanderings have brought us to the foot of the Capitol on the north side. To mount the hill and inspect the ruins of ancient buildings will repay only the archaeologist and the architect, who can admire, in the garden of the German Embassy, a piece of the substructure of stone blocks belonging to the Temple of Jupiter, which crowned the southern head of the hill. The student of art must be satisfied with remembering that the temple retained its original Etruscan ground plan, from its foundation under the last kings, through all it...