The largest "modern construction site of antiquity". The area where the Imperial Forums once stood, the ancient heart of the city of Rome and an architectural complex unique in the world for its vastness and urban continuity, has been the subject of extraordinarily intense excavation, study and research over time. In particular, the archaeological excavations carried out in the last twenty-five years have brought to light a precious treasure. The discovery of an exceptional variety of finds, in some cases unique, has in fact made it possible to broaden the knowledge of the events of the site in the medieval and modern periods. A historical context certainly less known (and less represented) to the general public than the classic one, but highly exemplary of urban settlement continuity.
An interesting and extremely diversified selection of these finds - including ceramics, sculptures, coins, devotional and everyday objects -, among the thousands recovered and mostly exhibited for the first time, will tell these significant historical periods at the interior of the exhibition I Fori dopo i Fori.
As in a journey back in time, archaeological excavations have brought to light rich stratigraphic deposits that have accumulated over the centuries above the majestic remains of the Forum. Here, even before the fateful year XNUMX, several settlements and some small churches had sprung up. The urban landscape changed again at the end of the XNUMXth century, when land reclamation operations were started in the area followed by the birth of an orderly urban fabric: the Alessandrino district, named after the nickname of Cardinal Michele Bonelli, who promoted its construction. In the Thirties of the last century, the district, with its houses and churches, was razed to the ground due to the opening of via dei Fori Imperiali and the "liberation" of the structures of the classical era.
Centuries of history, life and art were thus erased all of a sudden.
Daily life, together with the vicissitudes of places and people – even illustrious ones – will be reconstructed through 310 archaeological finds, consisting of objects that belonged to the inhabitants or were produced in the shops of the area, and conserved in large numbers in the deposits of the Imperial Forums but also in other museums of the Capitoline Superintendency (the deposits of the Museum of the Imperial Forums at Trajan's Markets and the Capitoline Medagliere).
THE SECTIONS
After an introductory part on the transformations of the Imperial Forum area from antiquity to the demolitions of the Fascist era, up to the excavations of the Great Jubilee, accompanied by educational panels and a video with historical images, the itinerary of the exhibition begins, developed in 4 sections.
The first, dedicated to Objects of everyday life, is divided into various subsections. At the opening it is possible to admire a variety of ceramic containers whose evolution, in shape and decoration, follows the taste and fashion of the times. Following are some objects of great interest found inside the wells annexed to the houses, including a pair of XNUMXth century jugs and a pulley with its bucket, both in wood, used to draw water from a well leaning against the church of Sant 'Urban at Trajan's Forum and datable to the beginning of the sixteenth century.
Particularly suggestive are two treasures, probably buried by their owners, who have remained anonymous: the oldest was found in the Forum of Nerva and dates back to the 1550th-XNUMXth century; the other, datable to around XNUMX, was found in the area of Trajan's Forum, with the coins still hidden inside three ceramic jugs. There is no shortage of evidence from the last inhabitants of the Alessandrino district who, removed from their houses destined for demolition, left or lost small objects such as glasses, buttons, cutlery, razors and utensils, found in the more superficial layers and in the fills of the razed houses. to the ground.
Memories of medieval work are kept in a display case: remains of animal bones to make buttons or game pieces and the rare fragment of a goldsmith's mould, dating back to the thirteenth century and used to produce metal plates or buckles, with the double image engraved , on the two sides, of a knight and a figure in a tunic, perhaps an angel.
Between the XNUMXth and XNUMXth centuries, at least three potters' shops settled in the area of the Forum of Trajan. The second section of the exhibition is dedicated to the wide productive panorama of this category: The potters of the Renaissance.
The house and the well-preserved majolica furnace belonged to one of these craftsmen – whose name has been revealed by archival research: Giovanni Boni from Brescia. It is undoubtedly an exceptional find: the study of the furnace and the large quantity of manufacturing waste - which Giovanni had buried in various points of the area and which archaeologists have recovered after five centuries - has returned numerous details on the production process . It is therefore possible to browse among baking tools and badly cooked or discarded forms together with design tests on unfinished ceramics and shop bills engraved or painted on the still fresh containers.
The third section offers a new and curious perspective for lovers of the art and history of Rome, ranging on the theme of The Famous Inhabitants. Illustrious protagonists of cultural and artistic life have favored this area and have established their residence there, living in residences that the urban events of more recent times have erased.
Told through explanatory panels and images, here are some of these: Giotto at Tor de' Conti, Michelangelo and Giulio Romano at Macel de' Corvi, the Longhi and Flaminio Ponzio on Via Alessandrina, the Fontanas still on Via Alessandrina and at Trajan's Column , up to Mario Mafai and Antonietta Raphaël, animators of the School of Via Cavour in their attic of Palazzo Nicolini next door - almost to close the circle - still in Tor de' Conti. And, again, this area housed the garden of antiquities of Joahnn Goritz, prelate and refined intellectual of Renaissance Rome. Not far away, towards the end of the 1933th century, Cardinal Alessandrino had his rich residence built, today Palazzo Valentini. And it was on Via Alessandrina that the antiquarian Francesco Martinetti lived: during the demolition phase, in XNUMX, the workers discovered, hidden in a wall of his house, an extraordinary quantity of coins and ancient jewels, the famous Treasure of Via Alessandrina, conserved in the Capitoline Medagliere and now partly exhibited in the Museum of the Imperial Forums, exceptionally, precisely on the occasion of this exhibition.
At the end of the itinerary, the history of the numerous religious complexes present in the area: the fourth and last section is dedicated to churches and convents. The story flows through the display of notable examples of early medieval marble decoration contrasted with the simplicity of convent ceramics and objects of daily life found in correspondence with sacred buildings.
For example, numerous devotional medals come from the complex of Sant'Eufemia, which a suggestive hypothesis proposes to identify in signs of recognition applied to the girls left in the wheel of the Conservatorio delle Zitelle. This was annexed to the church and in the 400th century came to house up to XNUMX orphans: the spinsters, the little zites, as girls were called in the Roman dialect of the time.
One of the most particular objects comes from the garden of Sant'Urbano: a very rare pilgrimage plaque depicting San Nicola di Bari (XNUMXth-XNUMXth century). Terracotta statuettes have also been recovered here which, already in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, embellished the nativity scenes of the nuns and objects of daily life such as rosaries, pins and sewing kits, used by the nuns.
Finally, examples of the sculptural decoration of the oldest churches in the area are three interesting bas-reliefs sculpted with the typical decorations of the time. They are flanked by a fragmentary funerary slab by an unknown artist from the beginning of the XNUMXth century.
