The name and date of the little round temple in the Forum Boarium at Rome (popularly known as the ‘Temple of Vesta’) are long-standing problems of Roman topography. Its identification is still quite uncertain. On the chronology, however, general opinion seems to have hardened and, for reasons which are discussed below, most scholars appear now to believe that the building is Augustan, rejecting the attractive theory of Altmann and Delbrueck that it was erected some time in the later second century B.C. The present article is not concerned at all with the problem of identification, nor does it attempt the full and detailed study of the design and construction without which a definitive solution of the problem of dating is clearly impossible. Its purpose is twofold: to draw attention to some significant features of the architectural design and decoration, and to illustrate and discuss some surviving fragments which can be shown to belong to the lost entablture, but which seem hitherto to have escaped attention.

The foundations of the temple were first exposed by Valadier in the early nineteenth century, in the course of restoration work undertaken to free the building of later accretions and to consolidate the ancient remains.

The article discusses the date, content and historical context of the lapis Pollae, a Latin inscription set alongside the road from Capua to Regium, recording the distance to various places and listing the achievements of an unknown Roman magistrate. Comparison with a milestone associated with the same road prompts a dating earlier than 131 bc, and internal evidence suggests a date prior to the Servile Wars, which broke out around 138 bc. It is further argued that by listing his achievements the magistrate was attempting to secure the political support of the colonial elites of Lucania. The article also uses the inscription as evidence for three historical themes: (1) the role of local communities and Italian entrepreneurs in the exploitation of public land in Sicily; (2) the role of local and Roman elites in southern Italian agricultural intensification; (3) Rome's use of road building to support colonization.

This paper illustrates some aspects of rural lordship in thirteenth-century north and central Italy, namely the territorial framework for the exercise of seigniorial powers and the seigniorial officials who administered the lords' dominions. How were seigniorial territories organized from an institutional point of view? How did the lords manage the adjustments and changes occurring in their lordships due to inheritance, purchases and sales of seigniorial rights? How was that framework connected to the institutional organization of rural communities? Who were the men who administered those lordships and how long did the connection between the families of those officials and the lords last? These are the questions I have tried to answer through the study of deeds (recorded in charters and notarial registers) regarding the Guidi counts, a family belonging to the upper aristocracy of north-central Italy. This study focuses on institutional matters, but in the section devoted to the relations between lords and seigniorial officials a prosopographical approach is adopted. The dynamics investigated in this study were fundamental in the historical evolution of the north-central Italian countryside, and their analysis provides useful material for further comparison with analogous phenomena in other parts of Europe.

Attingendo alla nozione di Jaś Elsner della ‘visione mistica’ e le contestuali fonti scritte che descrivono la decorazione degli interni della chiesa e l'importanza simbolica della luce e delle stele nell'esegesi paleocristiana, questo articolo riesamina le volte mosaicate con cieli stellati, principalmente quelle all'interno del cosiddetto ‘Mausoleo’ di Galla Placidia a Ravenna. Esso enfatizza il ruolo attivo dello schema decorativo nella tarda antichità; e il ruolo dell'arte non solo come esemplificazione, ma anche come mediazione del culto paleocristiano. La proposta avanzata è che gli effetti visivi esibiti dai mosaici sono strumenteli nel creare una particolare relazione con lo spettatoie antico, relazione in cui le stelle potevano essere state viste non solo come una rappresentazione del cielo, ma come una concreta manifestazione del potere raggiante dei santi nel loro ruolo di intermediari tra la terra e il paradise.

Questa gazzetta ha lo scopo di presentare ad un lettore fuori Roma notizie della recente attività archeologica (principalmente del 2009, ma anche degli inizi del 2010) tratte da conferenze, convegni, mostre e relazioni sulle riviste.

The first two years of the reign of Charles IV, the last Capetian king of France, witnessed detailed negotiations between the French court and the papal curia on the question of organising a crusade to the East. The negotiations are striking proof that on crusading matters the papacy still looked to the French crown to take the lead, attempting to continue a tradition of Franco-papal cooperation on the crusade which was rooted in the mid-thirteenth century. In the earlier period this policy of close cooperation was expressed in the expeditions and projects of St. Louis and Charles of Anjou, the aspirations of such popes as Urban IV and Clement IV, and the exemplary crusading zeal of French nobles like Geoffrey of Sergines, Oliver of Termes and Erard of Valéry. But was Franco-papal cooperation still fruitful in the first decades of the fourteenth century? To answer this question definitively would require an exhaustive survey of the achievements of this aspect of papal crusading policy, of the obstacles facing it and of the various alternative approaches which were open to the Roman church.

When Maio of Bari was assassinated at Palermo on 10 November 1160, a remarkable career was brought to a premature end. Maio, a commoner and a layman, had risen in the Sicilian curia to the rank of chancellor of the Norman kingdom under Roger II; William I had created him Grand Admiral immediately upon acceding to the throne in 1154. William lacked the political acumen of his father, and left the administration of Sicily entirely in his minister's hands. Maio asserted the prerogative of the crown against the feudal nobility and the large towns, and successfully intervened in the affairs of the Italian peninsula at a time when the struggle between emperor and pope was at its height. His strong, harsh policy provoked inevitably the implacable hatred of the Sicilian barons, who resented his tyranny and envied his power. They accused him of boundless personal ambition, even of sinister designs on the throne, and in the end organised the plot which led to his murder.

The story of his lowly birth, his immorality and wanton cruelty, reported with relish by the chronicler Hugo Falcandus, has been discredited by modern scholarship. Falcandus favoured the claims of the nobility, and did his best to blacken the reputation both of King William and of the all-powerful minister who executed the king's policy. Even Maio's enemies had to recognise his brilliant gifts. He was the son of a protoiudex of Bari, an eminently capable administrator, and a man of education. He was friendly with some of the leading scholars of the day: it was at Maio's suggestion that Henricus Aristippus translated Diogenes Laertius, and it was to Maio that Cardinal Laborans dedicated one of his legal treatises. Maio was even capable of writing a commentary on the Lord's Prayer, dedicated to his son Stephen, composed in correct and fluent Latin and showing a commendable familiarity with patristic and scholastic literature.

Of all the remains of Angevin Naples that have come down to us, few have received so little attention as the large series of tombs and tomb-slabs preserved in the city's churches and museums. With the exception of certain of the royal tombs, almost none has been the object of detailed study. And yet, not only do they offer a valuable record of the persons and families commemorated, but they constitute an unrivalled repertory of the taste, costume and craftsmanship of fourteenth-century Naples.

The present note is intended to be no more than a brief introduction to the more extended study which we hope one day to be able to undertake. For this purpose we have chosen a few characteristic examples from what is the largest single group, the tomb-slabs and effigies of persons in military costume. The tombs selected belong to the earlier part of the century, and we have deliberately excluded the more elaborate of them, since they involve problems of style and artistic attribution which cannot usefully be discussed except in the context of a more general study. With this exception the monuments that form the subject of this note may be taken to offer a representative picture of the tombs of the Neapolitan nobility during the first half of the fourteenth century.

Il monumento funerario del camerorius papale Alfanus nel portico di ingresso della chiesa di S. Maria in Cosmedin a Roma, databile circa al 1123 d.C, si erge all'inizio di una fila di tombe tardo-medievali che impiegano la stessa formula strutturale: un sarcofago sormontato da un arco. La formula stessa deriva dal periodo tardo-antico, e specificamente dalle tombe ad arcosolio nelle catacombe, e ci si domanda se il monumento di Alfanus rappresenti la rinascita o la sopravvivenza della tradizione classica. Benchè le testimonianze di monumenti funerari nei secoli intermedi siano scarse, resta abbastanza da permettere la conclusione che le tombe importanti seguivano questo modello, e in tal modo la formula del disegno della tomba può essere considerata come il continuamento della tradizione nel Medio Evo. Il vocabolario scultoreo, però, non ha precedenti alto-medievali, e questo si colloca meglio nel contesto della renovatio del XII secolo.

In October 1963 a deposit of pottery was exposed on the low ground below the Veii escarpment, south of the Cremera (Fig. 1), adjacent to the line of the Ponte San Silvestro (Formello) Etruscan road as it wound up to the gate (Carta d'Italia, 1:25,000, Istituto Geografico Militare, Sheet Formello, Grid Reference 845565).

The deposit superficially appeared to consist almost entirely of sherds of poorly made bucchero and of coarseware cooking pots. In order to verify this and to establish a type series, members of the British School, at the request of the Superintendancy of Antiquities, Southern Etruria, carried out a brief exploration of the site under the direction of Mrs. Anne Kahane and the writer.

The excavation showed (Fig. 2) that the sherds lay closely packed in dark soil, together with occasional tufa lumps, in a shallow pit dug into soft brown earth against a low vertical rock-face. Both this face and another low vertical edge above it give the general appearance of quarry faces and evidence of other quarrying can be seen in the tufa at the river's edge.

Lydus quotes a Capito three times, a Fonteius four times, Capito and Fonteius together twice, and adds that they were contemporaries of Varro and Sallust. He calls Capito a ἱερεύς, makes him an interpreter of the Etruscan Tages, and attributes a few oracles to him as well as some calendary matter. He calls Fonteius a ῾Ρωμαῖος, refers to his oracles, his interpretation of the Etruscan discipline and his work περὶ ἀγαλμάτων, and gives his ‘Tonitruale’ in Greek translation. Modern scholars identify Capito with the antiquarian Sinnius or the jurist Ateius Capito, and they assign Fonteius to the imperial period but leave him unidentified. There is nothing in the texts to support these suggestions. My conjecture is that we have to deal with one man, C. Fonteius Capito, who was ‘ad unguem factus homo, Antoni, non ut magis alter, amicus’ (Hor. Sat. 1, 5, 32 f.). Born c. 80, he became pontifex apparently after 44, when, with the help of Antony, Lepidus was elected pontifex maximus. He soon received another office from Antony—according to Groag that of a tribune—and went with him to the East. These facts emerge from an (unpublished) inscription from Cos, of c. 39, which calls him a ἱερεύς and records that, on his request, the rule of Antony was accepted on Cos.

The late P. Antonio Sartori published a great number of documents concerning the Chapel of S. Giacomo (now S. Felice) in the Santo, Padua, and the nearby Oratory of S. Giorgio. To him, they proved the sole authorship of Altichiero of both fresco decorations, and the final impossibility of Avanzo's having been his collaborator. However, although the crucial documents concerning Altichiero were published in his 1963 article, both the most recent major discussions of this subject have produced variations on the collaboration theory. The documents have still not been fully discussed. Such a discussion will result in a much clearer dating of the frescoes and in the clarification of the position concerning the possible intervention of Avanzo. This latter purpose will also be aided by a more thorough examination of the attributional history of the two chapels than has hitherto been undertaken.

Briefly, the most important of the documents show that in 1379 Altichiero was paid by Bonifacio Lupi for painting the Chapel of S. Giacomo and its sacristy, and that on 30 May, 1384, Altichiero and Bonifacio Lupi mutually agreed that each had fulfilled his part of the contract for Altichiero's decoration of S. Giorgio. This latter included the decoration of the tomb of the man who had originally commissioned the work from Altichiero, Raimondino Lupi, who had died on 30 November, 1379, leaving Bonifacio as his commissary. The initial contract for building the chapel of S. Giacomo is dated 12 February, 1372.