Roman Funerary Architecture

I have translated into English for scholars who wish to compare to the Italian this very valuable article on the history and excavations on the Mausoleum of Augustus.  I find it a thorough study of the ownership and archeological projects on the Mausoleum  (mentioning its other names). 
    I am not an author, merely an translator.  The authors are Nadia Agnoli, Elisabetta Carnabuci, Giovanni Caruso, Ersila Maria Loretti.  I have replaced four black and white photographs with color, two of them my own.  An English-only version sits on my Academia page.
  The article was published in _Da uomini a dei. Il Mausoleo di Adriano. Catalogo della Mostra_ (Roma 2014), 214-29.

I have translated into English for scholars who do not read Italian this very valuable article on the history and excavations on the Mausoleum of Augustus.  I am not an author, only an translator.  The authors are Nadia Agnoli, Elisabetta Carnabuci, Giovanni Caruso, Ersila Maria Loretti (Academia would not allow me to add them all below).  This is the English-only version, but you can find a bilingual version on my Academia page and the Italian original on Carnabuci's page. 
    I have replaced four black and white photographs with color, two of them my own. 
    I find it a thorough study of the ownership and archeological projects on the Mausoleum  (mentioning its other names). 
  The article was published in _Da uomini a dei. Il Mausoleo di Adriano. Catalogo della Mostra_ (Roma 2014), 214-29.
(= Apotheosis from men to Gods.  Hadrian’s Mausoleum_ Catalogue of the Exhibition.

Tombs seldom appear in isolation; their builders must negotiate the pre-existing context in order to express meaning within dynamic funerary landscapes. This is especially true for imperial mausolea. Drawing on elements of monument biography and concepts of ‘the past in the past,’ this poster will examine how the mausoleum of Romulus, built by his father Maxentius as part of a tripartite complex near the 3rd mile of the Via Appia, reacted to, competed with, and transformed earlier monuments. Building the Maxentian complex necessitated the destruction of many pre-existing structures, both funerary and non-funerary, radically altering its surrounding landscape. However, some structures, such as the Augustan-period tomb of the Servili, were treated with respect and immured into the entrance of the mausoleum’s surrounding quadriporticus, thereby transforming and preserving this structure down to the present. Nearby, the enormous Late Republican tomb of Caecilia Metella stands on a low hill, overshadowing this Tetrarchic monument. The need to respond to this earlier tomb’s overpowering size may help to explain a notable feature of the mausoleum of Romulus: it is significantly larger than most other Tetrarchic-period imperial mausolea. By examining these and other details of the mausoleum of Romulus and its context, this contribution will shed new light on one of the most iconic and important burial areas in the Roman Empire. It will also consider how monument biographies extend well beyond their original construction and encompass both the fate of their own innate architecture, and the reactions of others to them in subsequent generations

Rome’s northern suburb and, in particular, the territory included between Via Cassia to the west and
Via Flaminia to the east, can be considered as a specific territorial context. Indeed, it has to be related
to the close city of Veii which, since the Etruscan period, had a wide share of influence on its
surroundings. After the roman conquest, in 396 BC., the area was occupied by Veii’s citizen and
gradually organized to make it more productive through the realization of rural complexes and
infrastructures. This territory, also known as southern Ager Veientanus, has been globally studied and
investigated by the British School at Rome between 1960s and 1980s. In recent times, several excavations and preservation activities carried out by the “Soprintendenza Archeologica di Roma”
brought to a great amount of new archaeological discoveries in terms of villas/farms, secondary roads,
infrastructures for water supply and funerary monuments, which needs to be read in a system, compared
and integrated to the previous results. In order to reach this purpose, the study summarize old and new
discoveries and put them onto a map, through which it will be possible to notice relations among
viability, residential/productive buildings, funerary monuments and other infrastructures. The work is
particular focused on the area around the so called “Sepolcro dei Veienti”, one of the most significant
funerary monuments of Rome’s northern suburb, and the Via Veientana, an important secondary road
which detached from Via Cassia and led directly to Veii. The map itself is a “work tool”: through the
reconstruction of the ancient landscape, it allows an immediate comprehension of territorial and social
dynamics, evidencing the economical relevance of Rome’s surroundings. Moreover, it shows the
relation between geomorphological features and human settlements, underlining the impact of the
context’s elements over the territorial planning.

In appendice al contributo di A. Donati e F. Cenerini si pubblicano alcuni frammenti lapidei iscritti ancora inediti dallo scavo del Parco Novi Sad (Modena). Le iscrizioni, molto lacunose e di difficile lettura, si datano tra la metà del I secolo a.C. e il secolo successivo e appartengono a diversi monumenti funerari: una stele, tre lastre e diversi cippi con indicazioni relative alla pedatura e alla proprietà dei recinti funerari.
Parole chiave: archeologia romana, epigrafia funeraria, onomastica latina, stele, cippo, Mutina.