The single most important building that I am going to show you today is the one that I want to turn to now. And this is the so-called Basilica Nova or the Basilica of Maxentius-Constantine. I can't overemphasize the significance of this import-, of this incredible building. It is a building that demonstrates to us that Constantine not only completed commissions that had been begun by his father, such as the palace at Trier and the Porta Nigra but also by other tetrarchs. And in this case by his rival Maxentius. We know that this building was begun by Maxentius. Which is why it is sometimes referred to as the Basilica of Maxentius-Constantine, or more easily the Basilica Nova. It was begun by Maxentius in 306 AD, when Constantine was victorious over Maxentius at the battle of the Milvian Bridge. He took it over and he completed it in his own name. So hence the Basilica of Maxentius-Constantine or again more, more easily the Basilica Nova. Now let me show you where it is. And by so doing it takes us back to a Google Earth image that we've looked at time and again in the course of this semester. And I suppose in the last lecture it's very appropriate to go back to this particular aerial view to remind ourselves of everything we've covered in the center of Rome. Just reminding you, of course, the Circus Maximus up here, the Palatine Hill originally with the huts of Romulus and later with the Palace of Domitian. the, the Capitoline Hill over here as redesigned by Michelangelo, the wedding cake of Victor Emmanuel down here, the Villa dei Fori Imperiali, the Imperial Fora with the forum of Trajan. The area that was built up by Diocletian are one of the areas, was the area over here. Which is where we see the curia which was restored by Diocletian and also the five column monument are located on this side closest to the Capitoline hill. But Maxentius was particularly interested in the area, the uppermost area closer to the Colosseum. If you look right under the Colosseum, you can see the remains of the Temple of Venus and Roma, which we looked at earlier in the semester. The Temple of Venus and Roma. That was the Greek import that Hadrian built and may have designed himself, in Rome. And it was that, and I mentioned this at the time. But you may have forgotten by now. That the building burned down in a fire. Remember that fire of 283 that destroyed the that destroyed the quarry also destroyed a part of the Temple of Venus and Roma. And it was rebuilt by Maxentius, by Maxentius, by the tetrarch Maxentius. He built, he rebuilt the the temple of Venus and Roma and you'll recall the niche that is well preserved with his rebuilding. So it is not surprising to see him choosing the location right next door. Right underneath the temple of Venus and Roma for his Basilica Nova and Rome when it begins to be built. And it still is preserved on that site today. I show you a panorama that includes the Basilica Nova. And you see it right here. And you can see how very large a building it is, and they're only, essentially, three barrel vaults. A small part of the building still preserved. But it gives you a sense of its scale when you compare it to some of the other structures here. But you can see many. That we've studied. You can see the Temple of Antoninus and Faustina. You can see the Arch of Septimius Severus. You can the Curia over here. You can see the Tabularium and the the Michelangelo palazzo that was built into that. You can see the Victor Emmanuel monument over there. And you can see on this side the Arch of Titus, the remains of the temple of Venus and Roma and so on. So a very large building in the midst of an area that Maxentius was particularly interested in restoring. Here's a view of the, of the Basilica Nova as it looks today. Its taken from the side, the other side of the, with the, with the ones back to the Palatine Hill. And we can see here that it is a building made out of brick, it is, it, it out of concrete, excuse me, faced with brick. We can see that the artist are better than ever at dematerializing the architects and designers better than ever. dematerializing the wall. They have used very large, round-headed windows here on two stories. There's more window than there is wall. That's how good they've become at at, at manipulating the brick faced concrete medium. You see it in this wall over here, as well, and you see these three giant barrel vaults with soaring vaults, a very impressive work of architecture. Let me show you a restored view of what the Basilica Nova would have looked like in its heyday. And then let me say a little bit more about what happens when Constantine takes over construction of this particular building. This restored view is very, very interesting because it shows us that although this building was used without question as a basilica. That was it's purpose, a basilica. We will see that it is unlike, we see here that it is unlike any basilica that we have seen in the course of this semester. And I wonder, as you look at this, whether you can tell me if it's, it's not built like a customary basilica, it doesn't look like the Basilica Ulpia in Rome, it doesn't look like the Basilica at Trier. But it does look like what other kind of building, that we've seen time and again in the course of this semester? Look at the vaulting. Look at the barrel vaults on either side. Look at the shape of the windows in the upper tier. Look at the shape of the exterior of the building that is created by the choice of vaulting. What does this look like? If not a basilica? Someone said a market. Yes. Which, who said bath structure? That's the answer. Which part of a, of a typical Roman imperial bath does this look like? The frigidarium. The frigidarium. The frigidarium, the great, large, rectangular space with a triple groin vaulted roof. With windows that are usually divided into three parts on the uppermost part. And then buttressed by great barrel-vaulted chambers. This is a basilica that is built in the form of a frigidarium. That's an awfully creative thing to do. It shows us once again this interest in the interchangeability of form. That you can take a plan that was used for one kind of building and use it for another. As they have done so effectively here using a frigidarium plan for a basilica and capitalizing on that to make it work in this environment as well. So some very creative minds I think, at work in the time of Maxentius and in the time of Constantine. When the building was first designed for Maxentius, the idea was to have the entrance way on the eastern part of the building, the eastern part of the building, the part of the building that faces the Coliseum. And to enter into that way and to have the main apse be over here on the western end of the structure. To give it a longitudinal focus, and the kind of focus one would have seen in a typical frigidarium as well as in a typical basilica. Constantine comes in, takes it over, and decides he wants to change the orientation. He wants the entrance way not to be closest to the Colosseum but rather to the Roman Forum and to the Sacred Way and to the Velia, which is on, the part on which this was built. To the Arch of Titus. And he, and he instructs his architects to change the orientation from an east west orientation to a north south orientation. And to place the entrance way on the forum side on the south. He also instructs them to put four columns here, and these columns are made out of porphyry. That purplish stone that cut, that's quarried in Egypt and that was used so extensively for tetrarchic art, tetrarchic portraiture. We see that here. Then he's very tempted to change the orientation of the niche to, instead of to put his portrait as Maxentius, Maxentius intended to put his portrait in this, his own portrait, that is, of Maxentius, in this apse. Constantine was probably tempted to put his own portrait in this apse over here on the northern side so that it would be the first thing that you saw when you came in. But he resisted that temptation and decided to leave, or to place, a seated portrait of himself in this niche, leave it where Maxentius intended it. So, you would have to enter the building and take an abrupt left to see that statue. But we think, we're not absolutely sure, we think he may also have put another statue of himself. In this case, a standing statue in this niche. But as we'll see there are lots of niches in the wall of, of the northern end. And we think that there were statues of all of his lieutenants. The lieutenants that had helped him win his great battle at the Milvian Bridge, that were located in this niche. so. And so he may have been shown there, surrounded by his most his most worthy and his most loyal lieutenants. And then another statue of him seated in the niche over here. So we see him again. The most important thing is he shifts the orientation. Another restored view, which perhaps, in color, which perhaps gives you a better sense of the majesty of this particular building in it's time. The entrance, the Constantinian entrance way through porphyry columns, through the doorways, into the main body of the structure. The same kind of marble pavements with maroon and green and white that we've seen in so many other buildings, used here. Marble revetment on the wall. You can get a sense of the groin vault, and the way in which they were probably also decorated either with paint and stucco or maybe even mosaic. The great offered ceilings of the barrel vaults. And look at the way in which they've created lateral entrance, arched entrance ways in each of these piers to create a greater flow of space, just as you would see in a typical frigidarium. And then again, this opening up of this very impressive opening up of the walls with these exceedingly large round-headed windows that allow again light to stream into the structure. A real tour de force of Roman architecture. In my opinion one of the greatest buildings ever built by Roman architects. Believe it or not we have the portrait of Constantine still preserved and I can show it to you, at least bits and pieces of it. A fairly significant number of bits and pieces including the head which I show you here. Which is now on view in the courtyard of the conservatory palace. On of the, one of the palaces on the Capitoline Hill that belongs to the Capitoline museums. We see Constantine here, and you can see how similar he is to that transformed portrait that showed him as a neo-Augustus with a neo-Trajanic hairstyle. Beardless, very clean shaven very large eyes but very much in the mode of the earlier emperors, Augustus and Tragan rather than in the mode of the tetrarchs, and yet, a very abstract geometric image. Very much in keeping with Tetrarchic and Constantinian art in that regard, and truly colossal in scale. We have a lot of the body parts that are also preserved in that same courtyard, from the same statue. Including the shin of the leg from the knee down, the knee itself. And the way in which the knee is depicted tells us that the knee was bent and that consequently this did indeed come from a seated statue of Constantine. That statue that would have been in that left hand niche. We also see the famous hand from the statue as well as part of an arm. And the arm is very impressive because if you look at it carefully you will see that the musculature is very clearly delineated and you can even see the veins of the arm showing through the skin. Which shows you how adept artists still were during this time period. These are right out in the courtyard of the conservatory palace. everybody, there's hard-, there's no tourist with a camera who goes by here without taking a photograph in front of it, including yours truly. I've done that I, I'm absolutely incapable I've, I'm totally incapable of going into this piazza and not taking a picture, either of whoever I'm with or them of me. And I have tons of these from, you know, years and years of posing in front of this. This is a pretty good Mediterranean tan, I must say in this slide. h, but, but you know, posing with these, with these hands and feet and so this is my son, Alex posing on the foot. [COUGH] as you can see here. so, you know, one, one can't, can't and you can, you can only imagine. I, I mean I, I imitate the the exact gesture up there in this image. But you can only imagine the kinds of photographs that are taken in front of that hand. And, you know, as tourists, you can find these actually on, if you go on Google images, you can find them quite readily out there. So if you do go, this is one of those other places that I hope that then you can travel there and feel. The the and, and, and inspiration so moves you to take a picture of yourself and send it to me. I'd love to see it. At any rate, if you put all of those pieces together and there are actually two feet preserved. Two feet, the shin, the knee, part of the chest, which we also have that arm that I showed you. The hand and the infamous hand and the head of Constantine. This is what you get. A seated statue. 30 feet tall. You've got a big building, you need a big statue. 30 feet tall that sat in the main niche, that niche to the left as you entered into the basilica of Maxentius Constantine from the Roman Forum. Here's another picture of me, although you can barely see me. This was taken, it's amazing that I was able to take this picture at one point. With no one else in it. Because the forum is usually so crowded. But here I'm standing with my back to us looking at the Basilica Nova and you can see how vast the great barrel vaults of the Basilica Nova are. There are scholars who argue that Roman architecture declined in late antiquity. And not only architecture but painting and sculpture as well. And one could make an argument, I believe, that Roman painting and sculpture did decline. I'm not saying I necessarily agree that they did because art can sometimes change for reasons that have to do with trying to articulate a different message than you tried to articulate before, and a new style maybe more appropriate for that than the style that you've been using up to that point. So I think it's a very complex matter when you think about whether style, whether, whether art declines or not. But I, but I will go so far as to say without going into it in great detail, although I'll say a little bit more about it momentarily when we look at the Arch of Constantine. But without saying whether I believe that Roman art, sculpture or painting declines, I want to say categorically that I do not believe that Roman architecture declines. And I think a building like this is a case in point. This in my opinion is again, one of the greatest buildings. If you compare this to the Colosseum, if you compare this even to the sacred Pantheon. If you compare this to some of the bath buildings that we talked about. As impressive as they are, I think this takes its place. The Basilica Nova takes its place among the most impressive works of architecture that were left to us by the Romans. And I think you can see what I mean just by looking at this image. Because to still be able to create these kinds of soaring vaults out of concrete. To face them with brick, to create windows that are large enough to essentially dematerialize the wall, and the building still stands and still stands today. The soaring vaults those soaring rib vaults or groin vaults that we see in the center of the space. To do that, at this kind of scale, is an incredible architectural feat. I don't think there's any way that one can say that architecture declines during this period when one looks at a building like this. And also keep in mind how creative they've been. That at this point in time they've decided to, to create a basilica in the form of a frigidarium from a typical imperial bath. That's a very creative thing to do and I think it couldn't have happened were it not, that architect, the creative juices were not continuing to flow for architects, and artisans, working on major projects like these in the time of Constantine the Great.
