Another building that Diocletian was interested in, in the Roman Forum, in terms of associating himself with Caesar and also with Augustus, was the Senate House. The Curia Julia it is called, the Curia Julia, because it was actually not built In the Diocletianic period, but built initially, begun by Caesar, begun by Julius Caesar to provide Rome with a Senate House in the Roman Forum. Begun by Caesar and completed by Augustus, after Caesar's death. But the building was, and that's why it's named Curia Julia, after the Julian family that, that Caesar, and also Augustus were a part of. But that building, the Curia Julia was destroyed, very seriously destroyed, in a fire in Rome in 283 A.D., and so what Diocletian does is he restores it between 284. He begins already in 284, well before the formation of the Tetrarchy, and he completes it in 305 A.D.. This restoration continues to be called the Curia Julia, but it at this point a Diocletianic building, but one that clearly to, where he instructed his designers to try to keep it as close to the original as possible. Now what you're looking at here on the right hand side of the screen is a coin, that comes from the period of the emperor Augustus, and it purports to represent. I don't think there's any question that it represents, given it's inscription and so on, the Senate House in Rome, as it would have looked as completed by Augustus, and he's in fact celebrating the completion of this monument. And associating himself through this coin with his divine adoptive father, Julius Caesar. If we look at the form, if we look at the, the exterior of this monument as it is depicted on the coin. You will see that it is a regular square, the front of the building is, is, it looks like a square with a very large pediment at the top, although I think that was accentuated here, its size. In order to allow the die cutter to include the sculpture in the pediment, and also the sculpture decorating the eves. We see the doorway, right here. We see there seem to be a triple window up above the doorway. And if you look very carefully, you will see that there seems to be a portico, a series of columns, that are there to relieve the severity of the otherwise very geometrically ordered facade. So that's what we, that's, what we think it looked like in the time of Caesar based on that coin. You see it over here in plan. This is a plan of, of the Forum in Rome, in the Augustan period,10 A.D., we see the buildings that were there at that time. The basilicas, the Temple of Divine Julius Caesar; the Rostra, but of course, without the Five Column Monument. No Arches of Septimius Severus. But we do see the Curia. And you see it here in plan, as a very plain, open, rectangular box, in a sense. So even in its Caesarian and Augustan beginnings, it seems to have been a very straightforward, straightforward, matter-of-fact kind of a building. This is a restored view of what we believe it looked like after the restoration by Diocletian. You won't be surprised to hear that the materials were different. That it's a building when in it's restored version it was made out of concrete faced with brick, exposed brick. So very much a building of it's own time. It would not have looked like that in the time of Caesar and Augustus. But they have, in every other way, they have kept to the underlying geometry of the form, to the use of the triple window with the curved top, as you can see here an arcuated top, a pediment up above. We don't know whether the second version had pedimental sculpture in it, or other decorative sculpture. The doorway down below. But the severity of the brick-faced, the exposed brick facade has been alleviated somewhat by the placement of marble revetment at the bottom part of the wall, behind a series of columns. So they have kept that portico, that set of columns, to relieve the severity, but also to make this building look as much as they could like the original Caesarian and Augustan structure. This is what the Curia looks like today. It is extremely well preserved as you can see. Yes, it's lacking it's, it's lacking its marble revetment, and it's lacking its portico. But in every other way, you can see very well, exactly what this building looked like in the time of Diocletian. Concrete faced with brick, with the very simple windows, and this very geometric abstract ordering, which again, I, I believe, you know, I think the explanation for that is two fold. One, that they are trying to maintain the look of the original Julian building, but also because this is again the aesthetic of the time. This decision to make buildings in, in a very geometrically ordered obstruct way, I believe again to reflect the stability of their new government. This building, the Curia Julia, owes it excellent, excellent condition to the fact that it, like so many buildings we've talked about this semester, was reused over time. We know that it was turned into a church already in the seventh century B.C.. That it was restored in the twelfth and in the sixteenth century A.D.. Did I say seventh century B.C.? If I did, I meant A.D., seventh century A.D., twelfth and sixteenth centuries and then again in the seventeenth century. And it was in the seventeenth century, that it, like so many other Roman structures, was transformed into a Baroque church, by an architect by the name of Martino Longhi the Younger. I put his name on the monument list for you. Martino Longhi the younger, and it was re-consecrated as San'Adriano, Saint Hadrian, al Foro Romano, San'Adriano al Foro Romano, Saint Hadrian in the Roman Forum was the church. And when I say Baroque church, I mean a Baroque church. It was deconsecrated by Mussolini in the 1930s, Mussolini returning it to its original ancient form, as you can see over here. But this photograph, shows the work that was being done in the thirties to dismantle this baroque church into which the Curia had become, I mean its really hard to believe that this was the Curia in the seventeenth century. But that's exactly what it looked like as well as in the early twentieth century. And you can see a bell tower had been added, buttresses had been added to this structure, completely encasing the Curia in a Baroque church. And we see that being dismantled in this view over here. And I have a view I can show you also of the interior. This was the interior in the seventeenth century. Impossible to, to see that original box, simple box like interior that was there in the time Diocletian, and probably there in the time of Caesar and Augustus. So filled is it with the usual Baroque paraphernalia of you know, elaborate stucco work and Angels flying through the skies and these, these, you know, not that we haven't seen this kind of thing in Roman architecture. We, of course, have, but you can see that the original shape of this particular building has been completely disguised by Martino Longhi the Younger as he redoes the Curia as a Baroque church. This is what, when they took all of that baroque accretion off this is what they ended up with. This is what the Curia looked like, probably, very similar to this in the time of Caesar and Augustus. What it looked like under Diocletian and what it again looks like today. You can see from this, from this view this very simple box like shape for the interior of this structure. Plain walls, coffered, a flat coffered ceiling. The only the only light brought in by a series of very simple windows with arcuated tops. Allowing light into the system and then down below. Again the brick facing, the concrete and the brick facing expose, but with the down below probably some marble revetment on the wall down here. Very simple niches arcuated in rectangular niches. But very, very simple ones. And then here you see the benches, the stone benches, on which the senators would have sat, when they were deliberating or stood in front of, because they got up a lot and orated. But stood in front of when they delivered their speeches or, or sat. And then down below, the original, the original marble revetted floor is still preserved. And I can show you two views here, in color, of that floor, to give you a sense all done in marbles. Marbles brought from different parts of the world, but the usual colors that the Romans liked for most of their marble. Pavements, or white or of off-white, maroon, green, and black, but very nicely done for this very simple, very geometrically ordered. But very beautiful interior.
