The Roman Temple Nobody Knows: Temple of Minerva Medica

 

Paolo Anesi, 18th century

The Temple of Minerva Medica, as it's called, is one of the most easily accessible ancient structures in all of Rome. It's right there on via Giolitti, the busy street that runs along the south side of Stazione Termini and the tracks beyond. Not far from Piazza Maggiore, and just a stone's throw from Santa Bibiana, the also-neglected baroque church whose facade was designed by Gian Lorenzo Bernini. 

A Yale University website describes the temple as "forlorn," and that description isn't inaccurate, in that the building is uncomfortably sandwiched between a streetcar line (and via Giolitti) on one side and a swarm of railroad tracks on the other. 

But it's also quite imposing, and reasonably well preserved for a 4th-century CE edifice. And it may be architecturally significant, in that (we read) its decagonal design, which included an oculus, occupies the architectural space between the octagonal dining room of the Domus Aurea--and the Pantheon. The Temple's dome collapsed in 1828, lasting only about 1400 years. The photo below makes it look like the oculus is still there--but it's only one of the arches. 

One might call it the Other Pantheon. 

So you'll want to see it, even if only through the fence by which it is surrounded. (Right, Dianne, wishing she could just walk in.)

The problem is that you won't be looking at the Temple of Minerva Medica. It's called that, yes, but only because, in the 18th century, a statue known as Athena Giustiniani (below) was presumably found there. That statue of the goddess had, and has, a snake at her feet. And because snakes were identified at the time with healing, the "Medica" name was affixed to the Temple. (Minerva is the Etruscan counterpart of the Greek Athena.) About the time the Temple was erroneously named, the artist Paolo Anesi painted the picture of it at the top of this post.

The misunderstanding all started with this statue. 

On Wikipedia and the like, the Temple of Minerva Medica is often described as a nymphaeum, or a "ruined nymphaeum" (as if there were lots of pristine ones around). Because the Temple is not mentioned (at all, apparently), in the ancient literature, no one knows for sure that the building was, in fact, a nymphaeum. That's only one theory among three. It may have housed a dining room, say some, although that seems a curiously minimal use for so large a structure. Others note that a heating system has been discovered beneath the floor, and that a sacred spring once ran under it, allowing the building to serve as a bathing facility for the elites of the day--though that use, too, is far from certain. 

In the right light and from the right angle, the Temple can look quite dramatic. 

Centrale Montemartini, the Ostiense museum that is #22 on RST's Top 40, houses two statues of Roman magistrates that were excavated from the Temple. 

Above: a recent partial restoration used a lot of new brick. 

Below: a newish storyboard, left, in English as well as Italian, provides some history of the Temple. Get there--if you can!--before the taggers render it illegible.

Bill 

Three centuries in one place: 6th Century BC Servian Wall, 1908 Palazzo, 2014 Hotel

Sixth Century Servian Wall in front of 1908 Palazzo Montemartini [more photos of the wall at the end of this post]

I thought I'd start with these two pictures - above, a 1908 palazzo in 18th-century style with the 6th- century BC Servian Wall in its courtyard, and below, the 2014 entry lobby of the Hotel Montemartini IN this palazzo.  Ah, Rome.  What a fabulous conflation of eras.

Registration Desk, Hotel Montemartini

We wanted to see this palazzo because the conversion to a 21st- century hotel was by the architectural firm of King Roselli, praised by one of our favorite contemporary Rome architects, Nathalie Grenon of Sartogo Architetti Associati. King Roselli also are the architects for the Radisson Blu es Hotel, which sports one of Rome's great rooftop bars. The Radisson Blu es Hotel is also near Stazione Termini, but about a mile away, on the other side of the train station.

It took us a while to find Hotel Montemartini, because it's not an obvious hotel building and the address doesn't make its location apparent.  Once we found it, and the Servian Wall, we were duly impressed.

Lobby view into "library"; note the use of see-through
stone block (i.e. Servian Wall) display

The hotel design has been up for awards and received good press when it opened a little over a year ago, January 2014.  King Roselli has commentary on its Web site about the conversion, which clearly wasn't easy.  It appears (see below - like many things in Rome, nothing is totally clear) the building was first designed as headquarters of the Rome transportation system, ATAC.

As the architects say:  "The structure and the original internal arrangement were not immediately suitable to the programme of a hotel.  This meant the design of the 87 guests rooms in seven or eight 'types' which were then adapted to the existing building one by one."

Looking through the stone blocks

Another Web site notes:  "The structure, an early example of a reinforced concrete, mixed with load bearing walls, with a large number of level changes, has given rise to a necessarily complex distribution of the hotel."

King Roselli state they tried to reflect ancient history with their use of stone (the Servian Wall) and water - the ruins of the Baths of Diocletion are, yes, a stone's throw, from the hotel (if not under it).




We think this all works, but then we haven't paid to stay in this 5-star hotel.  There are many meetings here, including those of an ex-pat group that seems particularly fond of the bar, and we would say, appropriate so (photo below).



A view out the entrance -a feel for the 18th century
style in a 1908 building (on ancient ruins)

Another mystery to me was the name of the palazzo.  "Montemartini" is known to Romans as the site of the ancient sculpture collection of the city housed in a former 1920s power plant - hence the name of the museum - Centrale Montemartini.  But that's way on the other side of the city in Ostiense.  Hmmm.  Now (not when we started this exploration) we know that the palazzo originally was a headquarters for ATAC.  And Centrale Montemartini was named for the then head of ATAC, Giovanni Montemartini.

restaurant, featuring the 18th century-style columns
and water streams at left (see next photo below)

Giovanni Montemartini, 1887

Aha!  As stated in one of the Web sites:  "The Palazzo was established by Giovanni Montemartini, first councillor of public transport of the municipality of Rome and, until December 2008, it was the headquarters of the transportation company of Rome, today ATAC."  Should we trust that info?  The same Web site says the building dates from the 1800s, which seems clearly to be wrong.  Was it first Montemartini's residence?  Some evidence suggests that; other evidence that it was built as an administration building.  As the hotel's own Web site says, it was an 18th-century design, in any event.

Seeing the Servian Wall here and having seen it in other places - the McDonald's under Stazione Termini among other sites - maybe our next project is  "walking the Servian Wall" - or at least connecting the dots of the few pieces left - one of which is also next to the hotel.

described as "table fountain," water reflecting
the proximity of the Roman Diocletian baths

Dianne

The bar - one can see its appeal

Another part of the Servian Wall, this one under wraps, at the
entrance area to the hotel.

Another view of the Servian Wall, this one from outside the
hotel grounds, complete with street vendors, which are plentiful
around Termini, this one appropriately selling luggage in front
of the hotel.

Fetish Series: Rome's Body Parts

Rome is the world's center for over-sized body parts.  We first became aware of this some years ago, on a visit to the Capitoline museums, when in the courtyard of the Palazzo dei Conservatori we found the sculptural remains of what once was Constantine's body, or rather a 40-foot statue of it.  There was a hand, feet, part of arm centered by an elbow, and other parts, all of them enormous.

Then just this spring, attending an evening jazz concert in the industrial chic space of the museum at the Centrale Montemartini, a former electrical works built 1910-1912, we noticed a large arm poking out from stage right.  That's our friend J, who narrowly avoided the grasp of that monster arm on her way to the ladies' room.

It makes sense then, that today's sculptors would take part in this curious exercise in gigantism, as one has done in the absolute center of the EUR complex to the south of the Centro, directly under where a great triumphal, imperial arch was to have been constructed, by and in tribute to Mussolini's Fascist regime, to straddle the multiple lanes of via Cristoforo Colombo as it made its made its way to the sea.  That's Dianne (left) and our house-guest,
Judith (right), laboring to strike a pose appropriate to the presence of a big foot.      Bill

28DiVino Jazz Club Swings Again

We’re happy to report another jazz club has risen from the ashes. 28DiVino Jazz is under new management (now as a club with a tessera requirement) and has a full schedule of events.

We tried one of their relatively new Monday night jazz offerings – it’s a night that usually is fairly quiet around Rome. Here too, there was not exactly a crowd (at most, a dozen people), but we who were there were treated to a wonderfully intimate and accomplished set from the duo of Nicola Puglielli on guitar and Fabrizio Montemarano on bass. And the price per person is right, Euro 8 for the show AND a glass of wine plus Euro 2 for the tessera for the remainder of the season. Several people had dinner before the performance, upstairs at this atmospheric club.

Thrown into the mix was great conversation before the concert with the club manager/owner Marc Reynaud and one of the musicians, Nicola, who had studied at the Berklee School of Music and is the teacher of one of our favorite young jazz musicians around town. Puglielli teaches at the legendary and – until recently only offering classical music - Santa Cecilia Conservatory, which opened a jazz program just a year or two ago.

We're happy to see 28DiVino rise again, in part because Rome's jazz scene, while healthy, seem to be going the way of New York, with institutional spaces replacing the more inpiring clubs. Centrale Montemartini, even Cinema Farnese in Campo de' Fiori, are hosting jazz series. And, while these are wonderful new additions, sitting in an auditorium or straight-back chair is not the same as drinking and grooving in a dimly lit club (so say I).

We recommend 28DiVino Jazz and add it to Rome the Second Time’s jazz offerings. Via Mirandola, 21, near Stazione Tuscolana (San Giovanni). http://www.28divino.com/.

In the Update category, we note Be Bop Jazz Club is no longer active, although the website says they will reopen (but then so did La Palma’s website, and, several years later we’re still waiting). Pages 202-203.

Dianne

Jazz, Ancient Statuary and 20th-Century Dynamos

As most of you blog-readers must know by now, we're jazz aficionados, and Rome hosts wonderful jazz concerts at every level and taste.

Rome has outdone itself this Spring as its spectacular Centrale Montemartini museum (see our blog post of March 9; it's #22 on our RST Top 40 list) hosts jazz weekends now through June 5. Run, don't walk, to the museum to buy advance tickets. They're only Euro 7. Wine and snacks will be available (cash bar, as we would say) too.

The concerts are at 8 and 10 p.m. each Friday and Saturday (except none on May 1 or May 14).

The performers are national and international stars, including drummer Roberto Gatto (right) who leads his quartet to close out the "Montemartini Blue Note" series, Danilo Rea, and Enrico Pierannunzi, to name just a few.

You can check out the series on the museum's website - note you can't get the info from clicking "Eng" at the top; you can let Google translate the page for you. The Eternally Cool blogsite also has some information on the series.

See our March 9 blog post (link above) for information on the museum. The easiest way to get there is to take Metro Line B (blue) to Garbatella and walk directly West (back over the tracks). It's more or less a straight line through to via Ostiense and the museum (at # 106); it's open Tuesday-Sunday 9 a.m. - 7 p.m. Closed May 1. Hope to see you at some of the concerts!

Dianne

RST Top 40. #22: Lang's Metropolis meets the ancient world: Centrale Montemartini

One of the stranger museum sites in Rome is Centrale Montemartini, in the post-industrial wasteland (that we like - think of Soho and Chelsea before they became hot) of Ostiense, just outside the city walls near the Pyramid.

Centrale Montemartini was the 20th century thermoelectric plant for the city, opened in 1912, with the 2 large diesel engines installed in 1933. The plant was decommissioned in the 1960s. While the Capitoline Museums on Campidoglio were being remodeled in the late 1990s, the City opened up a new exhibition space in the old plant for much of the Capitoline collection. The result was such a hit, that the City kept the space, even after part of the sculptural collection was returned to Campidoglio in 2005. So Greek and Roman sculptures, new acquisitions by the City, and experimentation in museum display (including how to show the scientific research involved) are the focus of today's museum at Centrale Montemartini.

The spruced up turbines and engines, with classical statuary arranged around them, is a site you simply have to see - hence it rates in our Top 40. It's also Rome the Second Time because the location means many people just don't get there on a first visit to Rome. In fact, we encountered a beleaguered tourist in the Villa Borghese who was asking directions to Centrale Montemartini. He knew it was there, that he wanted to see it, but couldn't afford the time.

Since we, along with Jessica of http://www.romephotoblog.com/, are rather fond of Ostiense's industrial detritus, we included it on Itinerary 4 in Rome the Second Time, right after the Gazometro and just before "Hip Cafes Come to Ostiense."

Open Tuesday-Sunday 9 a.m. - 7 p.m. (early closures Christmas and New Year's Eve), closed Christmas, New Year's, and May 1. Good information is available in English (click on Eng at upper left) at http://www.centralmontemartini.org/. Tickets can be purchased in combination with other City museums.

Dianne