ROME

Introduction

• Roman culture is the result of different influences:– Primitive cultures of the area Rome was

founded in (they were peasants and warriors)– Etrurian civilization: urban, offering culture to

the ancestors– Greek and Hellenistic: this was the model they

aimed at imitating.

ETRUSCANS

ART

Introduction

• General characteristics of Roman Art– It is practical and utilitarian– Interest in public works and engineering– Large scale– Great technical advances– Colossal to show Roman power– It is commemorative and propagandistic

CLASS

General Characteristics

• Special importance for the internal space

• Integral view of the art combining:– Beauty and sumptuosity with– Utility and practical sense

• Buildings are integrated in the urban space

General Characteristics

• Building systems:– Lintelled:

• Copied from the Greeks

• Spaces are closed by straight lines

– Vaulted• Taken from the Etrurian

• Use of arches

• Barrel vaults

– Use of domes

– Strong walls so that they do not use external supports

General Characteristics

• Materials:– Limestone– Concrete– Mortar

• Arches:– They used half point or semicircular arches – They could use lintels above these arches– Pediments were combined with them

General Characteristics

• Walls were made in one of these ways:

Ashlar Masonry Brick

General Characteristics

• Material combinations in walls:

General Characteristics• Greek shapes assimilation:

– Architectonical orders were used more in a decorative than in a practical way– Order superposition– The use of orders linked to the wall created a decorative element– They used the classical orders and two more:

• Composite• Tuscan

Roman Town Planning

• Cities were the centre of Roman life– Need for infrastructures

• Water and sewer system

• Transport and defence

• Public spaces and markets

– Psychological effect: power and control

• There was a need of linking them through paved roads

Roman Town Planning

• The plan of the city was based on the camp

• It had two main axes– Cardus E-W– Decumanus N-S

• Where the two converged was the forum

• The rest of the space was divided into squares in which insulae or blocks of flats were built

Forums• Forums were cultural centres in cities. • They were often placed at the crossroads of important urban ways: cardo maximus and decumanus.• A great porticated square was the centre of a group of buildings around it. • They were communicated through it. • Temples for Imperial worship, schools, basilicae, markets or even termae had a direct access through

forum. • In many cases even buildings for spectacles -circus, theatres and amphitheatres- were communicated so. • Forums were a way in for important persons to tribunals.

Hypothetical reconstruction of Roman Forum in Imperial times. Watercolor (18th century), Giuseppe Becchetti

FORUM

CICERO

Roman Roads

The Romans built many roads throughout their empire. The roads made it easier to travel and trade with faraway provinces. It also made it easier to collect taxes. Roman roads were straight and

followed an exact design. The expression, “All Roads Lead to Rome” refers to the fact that Rome was the center of modern civilization.

The road system of the Ancient Romans was

one of the greatest engineering

accomplishments of its time, with over 50,000

miles of paved road radiating from their

center at the miliarius aurem in the Forum in

the city of Rome.

TRADE

Roman roads

TRADE

aqueducts

Model of Rome's main aqueducts

Bridges

Ports and Lighthouses

• Roman ships and those for commercial trade should travel from port to port with the speed and security adequate to the life of a great Empire.

• In these ports every necessity for the execution of the usual works in a port ensemble should be found: – gateways with stores and bureaux, – shipyards for stationing ships, – roads for taking ships to earthly

ground, – drinkable water fountains and – machinery for loading and

downloading merchandises. • Indeed, a system of indication was

necessary in order to mark the right access and exit to the port.

Walls

• Defence of cities has been one of the capital problems that civilizations had to solve in order to project the future of their citizens, goods, culture and ways of life.

• Romans were the first in the technique of improving different kinds of defence, using walls.

GODS

Religious: Temple

• It copied the Greek model

• It has only one portico and a main façade

• It tends to be pseudoperiptero

• The cella is totally closed

• It is built on a podium

• Instead of having stairs all around, it only has them in the main façade

                                                                                                   

Religious: Temple

• There were other kind of temples:

• Circular: similar to the Greek tholos

• Pantheon: combined squared and circular structures and was in honour of all gods.

                                                                                                   

The dome meant bigger buildings could be built which were safer and did not need thick walls or large numbers of pillars to support the ceiling.

This piece of technology will be lost to medieval Europeans.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JfyO1w96lUo

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O2rr-yAPgZI&feature=related

Inside the pantheon in Rome.

Spectacles: Theatre

• It is similar to the Greek but it is not located in a mountain but it is completely built

• It has a semicircular scenery• The doors to facilitate

peoples’ movement are called vomitoria

• It does not have the orchestra because in Roman plays was not a chorus

• The rest of the parts are similar to those of the Greek theatre

Merida’s Roman Theatre

Spectacles: Amphitheatre

• It comes from the fusion of two theatres

• It was the place for spectacles with animals and fights (gladiators)

• There could be filled with water for naval battles.

Under the floor were cages and cells for animals gladiators and Christians.

ENTERTAINMENT

Roman Colosseum in Croatia

Spectacles: Circus

• It was a building for horse races and cuadriga competitions.

• It has the cavea, the area and a central element to turn around, the spina.

Commemorative monuments: Triumphal Arches

• They were usually placed at the main entrance of cities in order to remember travellers and inhabitants the Greatness and strength of Roman world.

• At the beginning they were wooden arches where trophies and richness from wars were shown.

• This habitude changed: Romans built commemorative arches with inscriptions.

• They were a Roman creation and they succeeded: many of them have been constructed until the present days.

• Arches were used not only for commemorating Roman victories or military generals: they also marked limits between provincial borders.

Commemorative monuments: Columns

• They were columns decorated with relieves

• In them some important facts were related

• They were built in the honour of a person.

• The best instance of these works is the famous Trajan Column at Rome. It is decorated with a spiral of relieves dealing with scenes of his campaigns in Danube and with inscriptions.

TRAJAN’S COLUMN

Roman baths (England)

Civil Buildings: Baths• There were spaces for

public life• They consisted of different

rooms:• Changing rooms

– Different temperature rooms:• Frigidarium (cold)• Tepidarium (warm)• Caldarium (hot)

– Swimming pool– Gymnasium– Library

Caracalla´s Bath House

Most important of all, flushing toilets!!

These were public toilets and the water continually flowed underneath.

The wealthy had toilets you could flush by lifting a piece of wood that blocked the sluice.

Houses: Insulae

• There are urban houses• In order to take advantage from

the room in cities, buildings up to four floors were constructed.

• The ground floor was for shops -tabernae- and the others for apartments of different sizes.

• Every room was communicated through a central communitarian patio decorated with flowers or gardens.

Houses: Domus• It was the usual housing for important people in each

city.• It was endowed with a structure based on distribution

through porticated patios: – the entry -fauces- gives access to – a small corridor -vestibulum-. – It leads to a porticated patio -atrium-.– Its center, the impluvium, is a bank for the water

falling from the compluvium. – At both sides -alae- there are many chambers used

as rooms for service slaves, kitchens and latrines.– At the bottom, the tablinum or living-room can

be found, and close to it, the triclinium or dining-room.

– This atrium gave also light enough to next rooms. – At both sides of the tablinum, little corridors led

to the noble part of the domus. – Second porticated patio peristylium, was bigger

and endowed with a central garden. – It was surrounded by rooms -cubiculum- and

marked by an exedra used as a chamber for banquets or social meetings.

Houses: Villa

• Houses far from cities, were thought for realizing agricultural exploitations -villae rustica-, or else as places for the rest of important persons -villae urbana-.

• Entertaining villa was endowed with every comfortable element in its age as well as gardens and splendid views.

• Country villae got stables, cellars, stores and orchards apart from the noble rooms.

Palaces

• There were the residence of the emperor

• They consisted of a numerous series of rooms

• Their plan tended to be regular

Diocleciano’s Palace at Splitz

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ExWfh6sGyso