The secrets color of Minerva Medica, Virtually reconstructed
The so-called Temple of Minerva Medica there would have been the Hagia Sophia in Istanbul. ” He has no doubt the Superintendent of Cultural Heritage of Rome Mariarosaria Barbera when she speaks of the majestic architectural structure that survives in the Esquilino district, with its romantic charm of ‘ruin’, for seventeen centuries. Today, the colossal building that borders with its dome thirty-two feet high, appears set to via Giolitti, between the tracks of the Termini railway station and the tram rails. Jewel of desolate loneliness drowned in modernity.
Yet the great hall of “Minerva Medica”, a masterpiece of the Roman Emperor Constantine (early fourth century AD) is one of the most important monuments of antiquity. And after almost a century of neglect, it is the Barbera to drive a complex and ambitious project of restoration and consolidation for the first time allowed a comprehensive study of the monument and innovative. The results will be presented today in Spain, Merida, on the occasion of the International Congress of Classical Archaeology, housed at the National Museum of Roman Art in the Spanish town.
DISCOVERIES
The work began in 2011, with a plan for funding of € 2 million. The real discovery have reserved the traces of mosaics, marble and glass pastes original. Evidence which has been prepared for the first time the reconstruction of ‘virtual’ whole complex decorative interior of the building. “The data found in some wall structure were compared with decorative elements of contemporary monuments,” says Barbera. What comes out is “A triumph of light, an architecture that marks the point of transition between the Late Antique and Byzantine art,” says Barbera.
The structure, from plant rare and unusual, with ten-sided where there are nine semicircular niches, it was completely covered with rich ornaments. The surfaces were covered with polychrome marble inlays games combined in style “opus sectile ‘, which went up from the floor along the walls, in the recess of the niches and on up to the drum of the dome.
MARBLE ‘Tricolore’
“We know what were the colors – warns Barbera – in the name of the flag, with white marble, combined with the ancient African red and green porphyry Spartan.” The most likely hypothesis is that the mosaics in the apses would fill the niches and the mighty dome of the dome (one of the widest in Rome with a diameter of over 25 meters) with a repertoire of floral motifs, animals and symbolic figures. Heart of the yard were, then, the archaeological excavations conducted for the first time: “We were able in this way to develop a diagnosis of the collapse of the monument – warns Barbera – we have identified all existing structures on which was built the monument, dating back to the Republican and even before. “
At the risk collapse, the classroom has remained forgotten for a century, left to stand at the mercy of sporadic maintenance (the last partial intervention dates back to the 40s of the last century). No coincidence that between 1904 and 2006, the surface of the dome has been reduced by almost 50 percent. Now you go ahead with the consolidation: “The project aims to integrate two arches resting on a pillar century in order to restore the continuity of the dome and to avoid the collapse of roofs survivors,” warns Cianetti Marina Magnani, director of the work. Its goal: to enhance the monument and open to the public during the first half of 2015.
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