Curia Julia

The Curia Iulia at the Roman Forum in Ancient Rome was the meeting of the Senate building.

It was partially restored in recent times. Begun by Caesar, which was not completed until the reign of Emperor Augustus in 29 BC, was partly built on the earlier Curia Cornelia again, which in turn was built on the ruins of the Curia Hostilia, of which one remains under the adjacent Church of Santi Luca e Martina has found.

The Curia Iulia allowed direct access to the new, immediately following Caesar Forum, which was inaugurated by Caesar in 46 BC and on which the senators often gathered, as long as the new session building was not yet available.

Your current effect owes the Curia Iulia reconstruction from 1932 to 1937, trying wherever possible to reconstruct the appearance of the building in the wake of last reconstruction under Emperor Diocletian ( after a devastating fire in the year 283 AD). The induced state under Mussolini gives the impression to represent one of the best preserved monuments of late antiquity in Rome. However, this is due to the fact that the building was converted in the 7th century AD in the church of S. Adriano. The last baroque interior of the church was in the sense of the zeitgeist of the 1930s turned into something that Antonio Cederna "a kind of backdrop for The Last Days of Pompeii " called.

The Diocletian Curia has a rectangular plan. Outside it is supported by broad pillars that lie flush with the facade and are crowned with gables. In the facade at different heights nor the traces of medieval burial niches in the wall to see.

Marked with relieving arches outside walls made ​​of bricks, which are pierced by large windows were originally covered the lower part with marble slabs, of which few remains have been preserved left of the entrance, in the upper part they were covered with stucco, which should make marble slabs. A short staircase, which was renewed in our time, leading into the hall of the Curia.

The bronze entrance doors are replicas, the originals were in the 17th century, mounted at San Giovanni in Laterano, the first house of worship of the Catholic world.

The large interior with a height of 21 m, a width of 18 m and a length of 27 m corresponds in dimensions more or less the proportions suggested by Vitruvius for the construction of a Curia. According to the proposal of the Augustan architecture theorist, the height is half the sum of the width and length are ( Vitruvius, De Architectura, V. 2.)

The space is still largely equipped with the floor from the time of Diocletian, the (green) and porphyry (dark red), was formed in marble inlaid with different colored rock, including serpentine. It is a particularly valuable floor which sectile due to the technique used opus, " cut work" is called. This technique was the beginning of the late Republican period, a common alternative to mosaic floors. In late antiquity it was used almost exclusively in public and sacred buildings.

The hall is divided into three elongated sections. The left and right each make three broad, low steps, and on them were the chairs of the 300 senators. Between the two doors in the rear wall is a broad base on which the chairman took place.

In the Curia today two large reliefs are issued, which are known as plutei or Anaglypha Traiani. They were found in the middle of the Forum square. On the reliefs depicting scenes from the principate of Trajan are shown. On the left, are incomplete citizens adopt their tax liabilities and burned the lists of debt in the presence of the Emperor. On the right the alimenta low-interest loans for agriculture, the proceeds should be used to support needy children are employed. As a contemporary representations of the forum on which to play the scenes, the two reliefs of high value.