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X.—On Wall Decorations in Sectile Work as used by the Romans, with special reference to the Decorations of the Palace of the Bassi at Rome

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 January 2012

Alexander Nesbitt
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Extract

It is proposed in the following memoir to do two things : one, to give some account of that species of mosaic decoration which by the Romans was distinguished as “opus sectile,” particularly as applied on walls; the other, to describe the very remarkable building which has afforded by far the most important examples of work of that character of which we have any knowledge, viz., the church of San Andrea in Catabarbara, which was probably originally the great hall or basilica of the palace of the Bassi on the Esquiline hill in Rome.

Type
Research Article
Information
Archaeologia , Volume 45 , Issue 2 , 1880 , pp. 267 - 296
Copyright
Copyright © The Society of Antiquaries of London 1880

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References

page 268 note a Stuart and Revett, Antiquities of Athens, vol. ii. p. 73, note a. These authors say “coloured stones or glass,” but Mr. H. March Phillips informed me that he had noticed these decorations, and that they were pieces of coloured glass.

page 270 note a Lect. Ant. lib. 26, c. 32, p. 1,480. Geneva, 1620.

page 275 note a Herr v. Minutoli says that the chamber was that the floor of which consisted of the beautiful mosaic now in the museum of the capitol, in which doves perched on the lip of a vase are represented. But this is said to have been found in Hadrian's villa near Tivoli.

page 277 note a Cav. de Rossi warns his readers against the supposition that the building was a temple because the consul dedicated it.

page 277 note b Vide Sac. Vatican. Basil. Crypt. Mon. by P. L. Dionysins, Eome 1773, p. 201.

page 283 note a De Rossi describes him as “un personaggio insignito del lato clavo o piuttosto della lena senatoria attraverso il petto.” But the proper external vestment of the consul on solemn occasions seems to hare been the embroidered toga, otherwise called trabea. “Cape tunicam palmatam, togam pictam … namte consulem hodie designo, &c,” are the words addressed by the Emperor Aurelian's representative to the newly-nominated consul. (Vopiseus, in vitâ Anrel.) The latus–clavus would seem to have been a tunic with stripes of purple. In vol. i. cap. 1, of Gori's Thes. Vet. Dipt., the consular vetments are treated of at length and with much research.

page 283 note b It is clear from Pliny's Nat. Hist, (book ix. c. 36–39) that red, true purple (i.e., a mixture of red and blue), and blue, were all varieties of “purpura;” one was the “color sanguinis concreti” (the Tyria or Tarentina) ; there were also the “color violaceus” (cap. 39), the “amethysti color” (cap. 38), and the “color austerus in glauco et irascenti similis mari” (cap. 36), a deep blue ; the Mediterranean, it must be remembered, may often be seen, even in a storm, of a dark blue. “Dibapha Tyria,” he says, were first used by P. Lentulus Spinter, ædile, a.u c. 700, in the prætexta (sc. toga). The fashion may have changed, and, indeed, Pliny asserts in the same chapter that Cornelius Nepos said that when he was young “violacea purpura vigebat nee multo post rubra Tarentina. Huic neccessit dibapha Tyria.” Dibapha may, however, have always remained the colour appropriated to magistrates. Dalechamps, in a note on cap. 38, says, that Hadrianus Junius, cap. 2 (of his Animadversiones ?), asserts that Sextus Pompeius changed the colour of the “paludamentum Imperatorium” from “phœniceum” to blue in honour of Neptune, and in memory of shipwrecks suffered by his enemies. Hadrianus Junius was a Dutch physician of the sixteenth century; it does not appear what his authority for the statement was.

page 283 note c The diptych preserved in the Uffizi at Florence and engraved by Gori (Thes. Dipt. Antic, t. ii., tab. xx.) is generally so assigned, but it, perhaps, more probably is that of Anicius Faustus, consul a.d. 483.

page 283 note d The “lorum” appears to have been originally a scarf, given as a distinction ; it is seen in a simple form, on the necks of several of the courtiers of Constantine, in a bas-relief on the arch of that emperor. (Vide Marriott, Vestiarium Christianum, pl. iv.) It is no doubt the same thing as the “orarium,” given, according to Trebellius Pollio, by Aurelian, “ad favorem,” and from hence originated the pallium of the Western, and ὠμοϕόρτον of the Eastern, Church. Orarinm, as Mr. Marriott has pointed out, probably derives from “Os,” and means merely a handkerchief.

page 285 note a One curious anecdote, which will not be found in the authors quoted, deserves mention. Pliny (Nat. Hist. lib. x. c. 24) tells us that Cæcina, a knight and “quadrigarum dominus,” was accustomed to announce to his friends at Volterra, his native city, the result of the race, by releasing swallows brought from that city, “illito victoriæ colore,” with the colour of the winning faction smeared on them, which flew back to their nests. Domini factionum are mentioned by Suetonius (In Nerone, c. 22), and others. The story seems to suggest that the citizens of Volterra were accustomed to put money on the races.

page 286 note a Cav. de Rossi says that they resemble the horns from which coins are poured by boys, as shown in a piece of woven stuff in the Louvre (Mélanges d'Archéologie, tom. iv. pl. xx.), but the “cornua” in this case are rhytons ending in animals' heads, and very unlike the instruments in the mosaic.

page 286 note b Ducange has written a long dissertation—“De l'exercise de la Chicane ou du Jeu de Paume à cheval” (one of those on the history of St. Louis)—on the subject of this game; he is much puzzled to find a proper etymological derivation for the word, declining to accept that which some one had proposed, from the English “chicquen” (because fowls run after and persecute one of their number which has caught up a dainty morsel); but, finding that mall was played in Languedoc under the name of “jeu de la chicane,” he expresses an opinion that it originated in France and was carried thence to Byzantium. The verb used by the Greeks to express playing at this game was τζυκανιζειν, and this no doubt derives from a root in some oriental dialect (perhaps the same as that from which comes the Turkish “shaka,” game), for the game is called in Persia as well as in India Choghān. Our name for the game, “Polo,” is derived from Little Thibet, where it seems indigenous and national ; polo in the language of that country means a ball. John Cinnamus gives a full account of the manner in which the game was played, the Greek text of which is given by Ducange, and an English translation by F. Drew (The Jummoo and Kashmir Territories, p. 380). Cinnamus remarks on the game that it is conducive to falls and altogether dangerous, an observation the truth of which has been shown by many fatal accidents in ancient times at Constantinople and in India, and in modern, in India and in England.

page 288 note a “Alexandrina belluata conchyliata tapetia.” Pseud, act 1, sc. 2, v. 14.

page 288 note b “Le tigre … est selon toute apparence le portrait d'un acteur rénommé. Pourquoi les tigres n'auraient-ils pas en leurs portraits à Rome, les gladiateurs qui n'étaient pas beaucoup moins féroces que les tigres y avaient bien les leurs ?” (Ampere, l'Histoire Romaine à Rome, vol. iv. p. 28.)

page 291 note a This last sentence does not appear in the English edition of 1851; I borrow it from the article Mosaics, in Smith's Dict, of Christian Antiquities.

page 292 note a Both Ciampini and Sante Bartoli's engravings would seem to have heen taken from the drawings of the well-known antiquary Cav. del Pozzo.