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The tomb of Claudia Semne and excavations in eighteenth-century Rome

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 August 2013

Ilaria Bignamini  and
Amanda Claridge
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Papers of the British School at Rome , Volume 66 , November 1998 , pp. 215 - 244
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Copyright © British School at Rome 1998

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References

1 Wrede, H., ‘Das Mausoleum der Claudia Semne und die burgerliche Plastik der Kaiserzeit’, Mitteilungen des Deutschen Archäologischen Instituts — Römische Abteilung 78 (1971), 125–66Google Scholar, with earlier bibliography. See also von Hesberg, H., Monumenta. I sepolcri rotnani e la loro architettura (Milan, 1994), 213Google Scholar; Kleiner, D.E.E. and Matheson, S.B. (eds), I Claudia: Women in Ancient Rome (Exhibition, Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven, 1996), 182 and 183 fig. 1Google Scholar; Wilton, A. and Bignamini, I. (eds), Grand Tour. The Lure of Italy in the Eighteenth Century (Exhibition, Tate Gallery, London, 1996), 221 no. 169Google Scholar; Wilton, A. and Bignamini, I. (eds), Grand Tour. Il fascino dell'Italia nel XVIIIsecolo (Exhibition, Palazzo delle Esposizioni, Rome, 1997), 229–30 no. 169Google Scholar; Bignamini, I., ‘La tomba di Claudia Semne: gli scavi di Robert Fagan, 1792–1793’, in Via Appia. Suite ruine della magnificenza antica (Exhibition, Fondazione Memmo, Palazzo Ruspoli, Rome, 1997), 40–1Google Scholar, and entries by P. Liverani, F. Sinn and G. Filippi, 42–6.

2 See further, Wrede, H., Consecratio in Formam Deorum. Vergöttlichte Privatpersonen in der Römischen Kaiserzeit (Mainz, 1981)Google Scholar.

3 Wrede, Consecratio (above, n. 2), 83; Hesberg, Monumenta (above, n. 1), 213.

4 Fea, C., Miscellanea filologica critica e antiquaria II (Rome, 1836), 61Google Scholar.

5 Canina, L., La prima parte della Via Appia dalla Porta Capena a Boville descritta e dimostrata con i monumenti superstiti I (Rome, 1853), 75Google Scholar and n. 12; II (Rome, 1853), 12–13 and pl. IX fig. 8.

6 Tomassetti, G., La Campagna Romana antica, medievale e moderna II (Florence, reprint 1979, 83–4Google Scholar. ‘Sepolcro di Catilino e Claudia Semna’ appears beside the entrance to the church in the seventh edition of Roma e dintorni (Guida d'ltalia del Touring Club Italiano) (Milan, 1977), pl. 14Google Scholar.

7 Their scope was to document ancient remains along the road, from Rome to its termination at Brindisi. Labruzzi was employed to make visual records, while Hoare was to take notes and copy inscriptions. The travellers did not go any further than Benevento; Labruzzi fell ill and was left behind at Naples, while Hoare explored other parts of southern Italy, including Sicily. On his way back to Rome, Hoare travelled along the Via Latina, making his own drawings (Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Vat. Lat. 14934).

8 Ashby, T., ‘Dessins inedits de Carlo Labruzzi’, Mélanges d'archeologie et d'histoire 23 (1903), 375–418CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Watson, F.J.B., Carlo Labruzzi (1748–1817). An Exhibition of Fine Watercolour Drawings of the Appian Way (Exhibition, Manning's Gallery, London, 1960)Google Scholar; Lugli, G., Via Appia. Ventiquattro acquerelli di Carlo Labruzzi (Rome, 1967)Google Scholar; Sarazani, F., La Via Appia di Carlo Labruzzi (Rome, 1970)Google ScholarBuonocore, M., ‘I disegni acquerellati di Carlo Labruzzi e Richard Colt Hoare alia Biblioteca Vaticana: tra epigrafia e antichità’, Miscellanea greca e romana 15 (1990), 347–65Google Scholar; Cavazzi, L. (ed.), Una collezionista e mecenate romana: Anna Laetitia Pecci Blunt 1885–1971 (Exhibition, Palazzo Brasch Rome, 1991), 40–6Google Scholar; Massafra, M.G., ‘Via Appia illustrata ab Urbe Roma ad Capuam. Disegni di Carlo Labruzzi nel Gabinetto Comunale delle Stampe’, Bollettino dei musei comunali di Roma 7 (1993), 43–56Google Scholar; Wilton and Bignamini, Grand Tour (1996) (above, n. 1), 219–21 nos. 167–9; Wilton and Bignamini, Grand Tour (1997) (above, n. 1), 226–30 nos. 167–9; Via Appia (above, n. 1), 132–74.

9 Wilton and Bignamini, Grand Tour (1996) (above, n. 1), 220–1 no. 168; Wilton and Bignamini, Grand Tour (1997) (above, n. 1), 228–9 no. 168.

10 The fact that the tower does not appear in Labruzzi's sketch made in preparation of the etching (Fig. 3) is not significant since that is a study for a more picturesque rendering. The lack of other details of the church skyline is understandable in that the church is set in a valley; even the top of the campanile was probably not visible from the viewpoint the drawing was taken from. Labruzzi has simply lifted it up to provide a topographical marker.

11 Compare Castagnoli, F., Appia Antica (Milan, 1956), fig. 10Google Scholar, showing those along the wall beside the entrance to the catacombs of San Callisto.

12 Ripositelli, G. and Marucchi, O., La Via Appia à l'epoque romaine et de nos jours. Histoire et description (second edition) (Rome, 1908), 103Google Scholar; Quilici, L., La Via Appia da Roma a Bovillae (Rome, 1977), 35Google Scholar.

13 Canina, La prima parte della Via Appia II (above, n. 5), 12.

14 The other, also at a scale of 1:2000 and dating from after 1867, has been published by Giuliani, R., in Bisconti, F. and Giuliani, R., Giovanni Battista de Rossi e le catacombe romane (Exhibition, Comprensorio di San Callisto, Tricora occidentale, Pontificia Commissione di Archeologia Sacra, Città del Vaticano, 1994), 92–5 no. 49Google Scholar.

15 Not discovered until 1857.

16 Canina, La prima parte della Via Appia II (above, n. 5), pl. IX, fig. 8.

17 Bianconi, G.L., Descrizione dei Circhi, particolarmente quello di Caracalla, e dei giuochi in essi celebrati. Opera postuma del Consigliere Gio. Lodovico Bianconi, ordinata, compilata, e pubblicata dall'Architetto Angiolo Uggeri con note dell'Avvocato Fea, corredata di tavole in rame, e della versione Francese (Rome, 1789)Google Scholar.

18 Uggeri, A., Journées pittoresques des edifices antiques dans les environs de Rome (Rome, 1804), 46, 97, and pl. XIV fig. 1Google Scholar.

19 Uggeri, Journées (above, n. 18), 46: ‘Inoltrandosi per linea retta verso la Torre di Capo di Bove, cioe il Sepolcro di Cecilia Metella, si entra a sinistra in una vigna di proprietà di Filippo Bellucci, nella quale di vedono avanzi sepolcrali quasi tutti sottoterra, che si manifestano dalla montuosita del terreno, e da qualche foro nelle volte impermeabile./ Un'Edicola laterizia assai ruinata rimane isolata sul colmo d'un pendio, e resta quasi dicontro alia Basilica di S. Sebastiano’.

20 Whether the plans Canina (La prima parte della Via Appia II (above n. 5), pl. IX figs 4–7 and p. 12) gave for the four tombs he marked on the left-hand side of the road are any more relevant is difficult to say; none can be reconciled either with the Labruzzi drawings or any of the structures on the map (here Fig. 9).

21 Mielsch, H. and von Hesberg, H., ‘Die heidenische Nekropole unter St. Peter in Rom. Die Mausoleen E-I und Z-PSF’, Memorie della Pontifida accademia di archeologia 16 (2) (1995), 100, fig. 100Google Scholar.

22 We may note that Uhden, W. (‘Das Grab der Claudia Semne’, in Wolf, F. and Buttmann, P. (eds), Museum der Altertumswissenschaft I (Berlin, 1807), 535Google Scholar), though he was apparently under the mistaken impression that the chamber constituted the entire tomb, reported 12 by 10 Rheinish feet, which Wrede (‘Mausoleum’ (above, n. 1), 126) converted as 3.80 by 3.10 metres.

23 De Rossi, G.M., ‘I monumenti dell'Appia da Porta S. Sebastiano alle Frattocchie’, Capitolium 43 (9–10) (September–October 1968)Google Scholar, tomb 23, fig. 25; Toynbee, J.M.C., Death and Burial in the Roman World (London, 1971), 132–43Google Scholar; Kammerer-Grothaus, H., ‘Der Deus Rediculus im Triopion des Herodes Atticus. Untersuchung am Bau zu polychromer Ziegelarchitektur des 2Jh.n.Chr. in Latium’, Mitteilungen des Deutschen Archäologischen Instituts— Römische Abteilung 81 (1974), 164–5 figs 3–4Google Scholar, and 208–13 pls 123–5; Kammerer-Grothaus, H., ‘Zu den antiken Graberstrassen unter S. Sebastiano an der Via Appia Antica’, Mitteilungen des Deutschen Archäologischen Instituts— Römische Abteilung 85 (1978), 128–31Google Scholar pls 8–9; von Hesberg, H., Römische Grabbauten (Darmstadt, 1992), 72Google Scholar.

24 Gli atti e monumenti de' fratres arvali II (Rome, 1795), 36 note 616Google Scholar.

25 De origine et usu obeliscorum (Rome, 1797), 370 no. 32Google Scholar.

26 Fea, Miscellanea (above, n. 4), 68.

27 For Fagan's sale, see Bignamini, I., ‘I marmi Fagan in Vaticano. La vendita del 1804 e altre acquisizioni’, Bollettino monumenti, musei e gallerie pontificie 16 (1996), 331–94Google Scholar.

28 National Library of Scotland, MS 1543 (SirForbes, William, Journal, V), 1 April 1793Google Scholar; quoted from a copy in Sir Brinsley Ford's Archive at The Paul Mellon Centre, London. For Forbes's Italian journey, see Dictionary of British and Irish Travellers in Italy 1701–1800 compiled from the Sir Brinsley Ford Archive, ed. by Ingamells, J. (hereafter DBITI) (New Haven/London, 1997), 369–70Google Scholar.

29 Corbet, A.E., The Family of Corbet. Its Life and Times II (London, 1919)Google Scholar, table facing p. 357; DBITI (above, n. 28), 240–1.

30 For Fagan, see de Breffny, B., ‘Robert Fagan, artist’, The Irish Ancestor 3 (2) (1971), 71–8Google Scholar; Trevelyan, R., ‘Robert Fagan an Irish Bohemian in Italy’, Apollo 96 (128) (October 1972), 298–309Google Scholar; Trevelyan, R., ‘Robert Fagan un inglese in Sicilia’, Kalòs 5 (6) (November-December 1993), 6–15Google Scholar; Figgis, N., Irish Artists, Dealers and Grand Tourists in Italy in the Eighteenth Century II (Ph.D. thesis, University College Dublin, 1994), 37–46Google Scholar; Bignamini, ‘Marmi Fagan’ (above, n. 27); DBITI (above, n. 28), 346–7.

31 British Library, Add. MS 36497 (Cumberland Papers, VII), fol. 69: Grignon to Cumberland, Rome 16 November 1791.

32 Fagan's licence was renewed on 9 December 1796 and signed by the Tesoriere Generale Girolamo della Porta; see Archivio di Stato di Roma, Camerale I, Diversorum del Camerlengo, b. 706, fol. 67.

33 Archivio Colonna, I.A 631 (Giustificazione del Libro Mastro), lett. S, 1794, pt I, no. 13.

34 Archivio Colonna, I.B 57 (Libro Mastro 1795–1803), fol. 714 (left).

35 British Library, Add. MS 36497, fol. 288v: Deare to Cumberland, Rome 1 March 1794.

36 For Campo Iemini, see Neudecker, R., Die Skulpturen-Ausstattung Römischer Villen in Italien (Mainz, 1988), 134–5Google Scholar. For the ‘Campo Iemini’ Venus, see Bignamini, I., ‘The Campo Iemini Venus rediscovered’, The Burlington Magazine 136 (1097) (August 1994), 548–52Google Scholar; Wilton and Bignamini, Grand Tour (1996) (above, n. 1), 269–70 no. 228; Wilton and Bignamini, Grand Tour (1997) (above, n. 1), 278–9 no. 228.

37 Bignamini, ‘Marmi Fagan’ (above, n. 27), 242–3 and 287–8 no. 4.

38 Gasparri, C. and Ghiandoni, O., Lo studio Cavaceppi e le collezioni Torlonia (Rome, 1994), 207–9 nos. C.9–11Google Scholar. Nothing is currently known of the means by which the Claudia Semne head (Table 1, no. 15) entered the Villa Albani (Bol, P.C. (ed.), Forschungen zur Villa Albani. Katalog der Antiken Bildwerke I. Bildwerke im Treppenaufgang und im Piano Nobile des Casino (Berlin, 1989), 357–9 no. 117, pls 204–5)Google Scholar; it does not appear in Visconti, P.E., Museo Torlonia (Rome, 1880)Google Scholar.

39 Bignamini, ‘Marmi Fagan’ (above, n. 27), 244–7 and 289–90 nos. 8–10; the second inscription in Paris (Table 2, no. 17) came from the Campana collection in Rome, which had been largely purchased through Pacetti.

40 Archivio Storico dei Musei Vaticani, b. IV. For the Descrizione, see Bignamini, ‘Marmi Fagan’ (above, n. 27), 350–1.

41 ‘21. Ritratto di donna con amorino di alto rilievo/ — figura giacenti di circa quattro palmi/ — Frammento di statua della Speranza, alta quasi quattro palmi/ — Due figure togate con scrigno/ — Frammento di donna sedente sopra canestro, o vaso/ = Tutti monumenti trovati à Ostia dentro la stanza sepolcrale di Claudia Semne dal Signor Feghan’.

42 Now in the Museo Gregoriano Profano (ex Lateranense), previously Museo Chiaramonti, inv. 1558. See Amelung, W., Die Sculpturen des Vaticanischen Museums I (Berlin, 1903), 615–17 no. 465, pl. 65Google Scholar; Hausmann, C., in lexicon Iconographicum Mythologiae Classicae 7, 1 (Zurich/ Munich, 1994), 292 no. 2.cGoogle Scholar, with further bibliography; Bignamini, ‘Marmi Fagan’ (above, n. 27), 378–9 no. 54.6; F. Sinn, in Via Appia (above, n. 1), 44.

43 It appears in the Inventario of 1808 (that is to say the manuscript Elenco degli oggetti esistenti nel Museo Chiaramonti al Vaticano, compiled by P.A. Massi with corrections by A. D'Este, Archivio Storico dei Musei Vaticani, b. IV) as no. 571: ‘Frammento di una statua panneggiata sedente ad un capitello/ partita 22’. See also M.A. De Angelis, ‘Il primo allestimento del Museo Chiaramonti in un manoscritto del 1808. Provenienza delle sculture, oggi dislocate fuori del Chiaramonti, nei documenti dell'Archivio Storico dei Musei Vaticani’, Bollettino monumenti, musei e gallerie pontificie 13(1993), 115 no. 571 and 116, fig. 5. The partita number 22 signified purchases from Fagan. Partita, or sale numbers of dealers who, like Fagan, sold marbles to the Reverenda Camera in 1804 or thereabouts were recorded in the Inventario of 1808, and were also painted in red varnish on the objects themselves. A good proportion of them still survives. See Bignamini, ‘Marmi Fagan’ (above, n. 27), 351; Bignamini, I., Review of Andreae, B. (ed.), Bildkatalog der Skulpturen des Vatikanischen Museums I: Museo Chiaramonti (3 vols, Berlin/New York, 1995)Google Scholar, Journal of Hellenic Studies 118 (1998, forthcoming)Google Scholar.

44 Venuti, R., Accurata e succinta descrizione topografica delle antichità di Roma II, ed. by Piale, S. (third edition) (Rome, 1824), 26Google Scholar. C. Fea (Bibliothèque de l'Ecole Française de Rome, MS 2, fol. 24) took a note from Venuti: ‘1793, 1795 a S. Sebastiano t. 2. p. 23 [sic: 26] e nel cartolaro delli scavi verso fine’.

45 Vatican Museums, Galleria dei Candelabri VI.27, inv. 2802, CIL X 6816. See Bignamini, ‘Marmi Fagan’ (above, n. 27), 373 no. 48. The precise location of those excavations is still uncertain.

46 See Archivio Storico del Vicariato, S. Sebastiano, pale. 182, vol. 9.

47 Rem-Picci, A., Monumenti e ruderi antichi che veggonsi lungo i lati delle due prime miglia della Via Appia incisi all'acqua forte in venticinque tavole e con breve indicazione illustrati (Rome, 1844), 19Google Scholar.

48 Documents examined so far include the relevant buste of Archivio di Stato di Roma (Camerale I, Camerale II and Presidenza delle strade); the Visconti manuscripts in the Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana; the San Sebastiano papers in the Archivio Storico del Vicariato (palc. 182, 9 vols) and the Archivio della Pontificia Commissione di Archeologia Sacra. Attempts to identify the name of the vineyard and tenant among the records in the Archivio Storico del Vicariato (S. Sebastiano, Stato delle Anime 8, for the years 1791–9) and in Archivio di Stato di Roma, Presidenza delle strade. Cataste e assegne, b. 434 (Tabelle delle vigne 1796), have also proved unsuccessful.

49 Archivio Storico del Vicariato, palch. 182, vol. 6, fasc. 1: documents relating to the new boundaries, 1839.

50 Emiliani, A., Leggi, bandi e provvedimenti per la tutela del beni artistici e culturali negli antichi stati italiani 1571–1860 (Bologna, 1978), 83–6Google Scholar.

51 For the Viscontis, see Ridley, R.T., ‘To protect the monuments: the Papal Antiquarian (1534–1870)’, Xenia Antiqua I (1992), 142–5Google Scholar; Pietrangeli, C., The Vatican Museums: Five Centuries of History (Rome, 1993), 113Google Scholar; Gallo, D., ‘I Visconti. Una famiglia romana al servizio dei papi, della Repubblica e di Napoleone’, Roma moderna e contemporanea 2 (1) (January–April 1994), 77–90Google Scholar; Pietrangeli, C., ‘Il taccuino di Giambattista Visconti’, Bollettino monumenti, musei egallerie pontificie 15 (1995), 317–34Google Scholar.

52 Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Vat. Lat. 10307, fol. 86.

53 Chirografo, 1 October 1802, in Emiliani, Leggi (above, n. 50), 120.

54 Writing to Fagan, presumably on 26 December 1801, the Cardinale Pro-Camerlengo Giuseppe Doria Pamphilij stated: ‘Al Cardinale Camerlengo appartiene la concessione de' Scavi di Antichità, quando la creda conveniente, riservando egli nelle licenze, che si accordano il diritto del terzo di antichità, che verrà rinvenuto nei scavi a favore della Reverenda Camera Apostolica. Ed al medesimo Cardinale Camerlengo appartiene lo scegliere in natura gli oggetti, che appartengono alla Reverenda Camera per il diritto del terzo’ (Archivio di Stato di Roma, Camerale II, Antichità e Belle Arti, b. 2, fasc. 86).

55 According to Forbes's diary, quoted on p. 234 above, Corbet ‘had a good many labourers at work’. Venceslao Pezzoli employed only four to ten workmen in his larger scale excavations on the site of the Villa dei Quintili in 1788–90 (Schädler, U., ‘Dallo scavo al museo: scavi di Pio VI nella Villa dei Quintili’, Bollettino monumenti, musei e gallerie pontificie 16 (1996), 296 n. 32)Google Scholar. The number obviously varied from site to site. Gavin Hamilton and Robert Fagan had as many as 40 in their most extensive cave. Possibly the Vigna San Sebastiano excavations in 1792–3 only involved the three or four shown in Labruzzi's view (Figs 1–4).

56 Fea, Miscellanea (above, n. 4), respectively 213–26, 185–93 and 44–57.

57 Fea, Miscellanea (above, n. 4), 65–70.

58 Fea, Miscellanea (above, n. 4), 68.

59 Fea, Miscellanea (above, n. 4), 68.

60 Fea, Miscellanea (above, n. 4), 61.

61 Fea, Miscellanea (above, n. 4), 61.

62 For a similar tripartite arrangement on the wall of a tomb garden of Hadrianic date which also contained dining couches and a well, compare Isola Sacra tomb 16 (Calza, G., La necropoli del Porto di Roma nell'Isola Sacra (Rome, 1940), 294–7Google Scholar, pl. III; Baldassare, I., ‘La necropoli dell'Isola Sacra (Porto)’, in Hesberg, H. von and Zanker, P. (eds), Römische Gräberstrassen (Munich, 1987), 133 plan 2)Google Scholar.

63 Fea, Miscellanea (above, n. 4), 62.