Author Description

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1909 Excerpt: ...colossal columns, mentioned above (p. 97 f.), may have been erected. A few years later the Prefect of the City Junius Flavianus (311) restored the Secretarium. At the close of the fourth century the altar of Victoria was the subject of a bitter strife between the Christian and the heathen party in the senate (see p. 25). When Alaric captured Rome (410), the whole north side of the Forum was devastated by fire: the Prefect of the City Flavius Annius E1charius Epiphanius restored the Secretarium in 412, as we learn from a monumental inscription preserved in the apse of the old church of S. Martina down into the xvn. century. Even in the time of Theodoric the building served for the sessions of the shadowy "senate"; the name 'Liberty-court' (Atrium Libertalis), which was given it at this time instead of the classic 'Curia', was derived from an entirely distinct building in the neighbourhood. But when in its turn the kingdom of the Goths had fallen, the senate house was abandoned: in the middle of the Vii. century the two churches of S, Adriano and S. Martina were built in it, and it is to this that we owe" all that is left of the Curia. At the beginning of the xv1. century, in connection with a projected alteration of both churches, which however was never carried out, A. da Sangallo, the elder, and Peruzzi made important studies of the remains that were preserved. Many old parts were destroyed when the Via Bonella was built, in the reign of Sixtus V (1585-90); and still others in connection with the restoration of S. Martina by Pietro da Cortona (1640). At that time the floor of the church was raised a whole story above the level of the mediaeval structure, which now serves as a crypt for the modern church. In front of the Curia is a space pave...