Encyclopedia Ichnographica

Equiria

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Equiria


Naumachia Domitiani
1998.12.01




Aedes Vulcani
Officinae Armorum
Officinae machinarum militarium
1998.12.01



The military machine complex of the Aedes Vulcani, the Officinae Armorum, and the Officinae Machinarum Militarium, which Piranesi postions near the north end of the Equiria, is both literally and figuratively the star of the Equiria's overall military program. This group of buildings represents the manufacturing headquarter's of ancient Rome's armed forces. It is thus a center of civic pride as well as a tribute to Mars, and its placement along the Equiria is entirely fitting, even though the whole design is without historical or archeological substantiality.






In the center of the Officinae machinarum militarium is the Aedes Vulcani, a small circular temple or shrine surrounded by a circular pool of water and dedicated to the god of fire. The Officinae machinarum militarium itself is a six pointed star shaped plan within a circular perimeter wall, with two small cruciform wings at either end. The Officinae Armorum is essentially four sets of linear celled buildings divided into pairs with a long pool building inbetween. Together, the three buildings comprise a bi-laterally symmetrical composition whose many openings create a complex of abundant connectivity.

On a purely figurative level, the complex's plan resembles a military insignia of honor.

27 February - the 1st Equiria
1999.02.27 17:24

The Equria is the annual horse-races held on the 27th of February and the 14th of March in the Campus Martius, in honor of Mars.




mistakes
1999.05.17




Tertullian's De Spectaculis
2001.01.29

It is becoming more and more clear that Piranesi was well aware of Tertullian's text, and indeed utilized it while planning out the Ichnographia Campus Martius. First it was the passage regarding the Equiria, and now there are passages regarding "munus", a death rite, where death games accompanied the funeral day. It is this new knowledge that explains the two circuses within the Bustum Hadriani.

Since Tertullian is a Christian convert from Paganism, it further fits that Piranesi should implicitly rather than explicitly reference Tertullian. I still have to check the 'Catalogo' to see if Piranesi actually ever does reference Tertullian, but I kind of doubt it.




It rocked Eisenman on his chair...
2007.11.09 10:56

Giovanni Battista Piranesi died today in 1778, on the feast of the dedication of the Basilica Constantiniani (known today as the Basilica of St. John Lateran), the first Christian basilica in Rome.

"Piranesi uses the Rome that was extent in the eighteenth century as a starting point, but that possesses no original value; it is merely a being in the present. From this existential moment of being, he takes buildings that existed in the first and second centuries, in Imperial Rome, and places them in the same framework of time and space as the eighteenth-century city."
--Peter Eisenman, "Notations of Affect. An Architecture of Memory" in Pathos, Affect, Gefühl (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter GmbH, 2004), pp.504-11.

If you actually study the Campo Marzio you'll find the starting point, framework and the millennium's worth of buildings that Piranesi utilized. First there are the altar and race course dedicated to Mars by Romulus in the mid-eighth century BC. Incidentally, this is how the Campo Marzio received its name--the fields of Mars. And to manifest the framework there is the last Imperial artifact of the Campo Marzio, the sepulcher of Empress Maria, wife of Honorius, from the early 5th century AD. Indeed the sarcophagus of Empress Maria holds a key position within the Il Campo Marzio publication. And to complete the framework, the last page of Il Campo Marzio depicts a double theater.



2013.12.27 21:01
27 December
In the course of the "play" the most egregious "mistake/inversion" is the misplacement and disorientation of the Circus Flaminius and its actual exchange with the Theater of Balba. This "mistake" manifests a composition of inverted theaters--essentially a double inverted theater. This configuration becomes one of the Il Campo Marzio's final scenes and thus represents the double inverted "theater" of Rome's own history--the narrative of pagan Rome and the narrative of Christian Rome, and in the Ichnographia the one story is indeed a reflection of the other.

2001.11.26
Piranesi's Continual Double Theaters
The subject of double theaters starts with Bernini's play--the Baroque ending for sure--and it is Piranesi that continues this Baroque design technique. Oddly, the double theater aspect of Piranesi's design methodology has yet to be recognized by designers or design theorists or critics.

A short list of Piranesian double theaters:
1. check for possible examples in the Prima Parte.
2. the two states of the Carceri.
3. Wilton-Ely's example of mirrored precedent for one of the Carceri.
4. the overall double--Pagan-Christian--narrative of the Ichnographia Campus Martius, with the Scenographia as the empty stage set.
5. the double directional Triumphal Way.
6. the axes of life and death.
7. the axes of love and war.
8. the Mars - St. Agnes axis.
9. the theatrics of satire--Horti Luciliani.
10. the (literal) double theaters-- Marcellus and Balbi.
11. the "circus act".
12. the back versus front of the altar.
13. the two sets of cochinae--is the snail its own double theater in that it self propagates, i.e., fulfills both sex roles individually? does this relate to the intercourse building?
14. the "rise and fall" (of Imperial Rome) as delineated by the two Busti Busti.
15. it seems a case could be made regarding the working together of two mediums--plan delineations in combination with Latin labels.



750 BC     Ara Martis
750 BC     Equiria

1150 years

400     Sep. Mariae Honorij Congiig




Position of the Altar of Mars, the Equirra, and the Sepulcher of Maria, wife of Honorius.

The name campus Martius was derived from an ancient altar of Mars, ascribed by tradition to Romulus...

According to Festus, it was Romulus who instituted the first horse-races in honor of Mars. These races became an annual event, and, due to their origin, are rightly considered the "proto" festival or feast of Roman tradition. According to Varro, the races took on the name of Equiria, which is derived "from the equorum cursus 'running of horses'; for on that day they currunt 'run' races in the sports on the Campus Martius." Furthermore, Ovid's Fasti lists the dates of the races as the 27th of February and the 14th of March, and, since the Roman calendar began the 1st of March, the holding of the first horse-race the day just before the new year further attests the Equirria's premire "fest" position.

The sarcophagus of Maria may well be the last substantial imperial artifact of (the city of) Rome, and, after an illustrious title page and a frontispiece, it is an image of the sarcophagus of Maria that Piranesi uses to begin his Campo Marzio publication. In a most elegantly covert way, Piranesi began the 'history' of the Campo Marzio with what is really it's ending, and what is probably the world's greatest designed architectural inversionary double theater goes on from there.


After removing all the "the armories and military exercise yards; the stadia and gymnasia; the amphitheaters and circuses; the gardens and pleasure fountains; the crypts and tombs... ...and the funerary monuments," what remains are temples and porticos, offices, stores and warehouses, etc., patrician and plebeian houses, diets, curias, and sundry other governmental buildings, and even a number of streets.

"The level plain of the campus Martius was particularly well adapted to this characteristic form of Roman architecture--the porticus--which conformed to a general model, while varying in proportions and details. The porticus consisted of a covered colonnade, formed by two or more rows of columns, or a wall on one side and columns on the other. lts chief purpose was to provide a place for walking and lounging which should be sheltered from storm and sun, and for this reason the intercolumnar spaces were sometimes filled with glass or hedges of box. Within the porticoes or in apartments connected closely with them, were collections of statuary, paintings, and works of art of all kinds, as well as shops and bazaars. In some cases the porticus took its name from some famous statue or painting, as the porticus Argonautarum.

While the erection of the first porticus in the campus Martius dates from the early part of the second century B.C., the period of rapid development in their numbers and use did not begin until the Augustan era. The earliest of these structures seem to have been devoted exclusively to business purposes. By the time of the Antonines, there were upwards of a dozen in region IX, some of them of great size, and it was possible to walk from the forum of Trajan to the pons Aelius under a continuous shelter. They were usually magnificently decorated and embellished, and provided with beautiful gardens."
Samuel Ball Platner, The Topography and Monuments of Ancient Rome





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