(The street on the left—passing the Arco dei Pantani—the Via della Salita del Grillo, commemorates the approach to the castle of the great mediæval family Del Grillo; the street on the right leads through the ancient Suburra.)
At the corner of the next street (Via della Croce Bianca)—on the left of the Via Alessandrina—is the ruin called the "Colonnace," being part of the Portico of Pallas Minerva, which decorated the Forum Transitorium, begun by Domitian, but dedicated in the short reign of Nerva, and hence generally called the Forum of Nerva, on account of the execration with which the memory of Domitian was regarded. Up to the seventeenth century seven magnificent columns of the temple of Minerva were still standing, but they were destroyed by Paul V., who used part of them in building the Fontana Paolina. The existing remains consist of two half-buried Corinthian columns with a figure of Minerva, and a frieze of bas-reliefs.
"Les bas-reliefs du forum de Nerva représentent des femmes occupées des travaux d'aiguille, auxquels présidait Minerve. Quand on se rappelle, que Domitien avait placé à Albano, près du temple de cette déesse, un collège de prêtres qui imitaient la parure et les mœurs de femmes, on est tenté de croire qu'il y a dans le choix des subjets figurés ici une allusion aux habitudes efféminées de ces prétres."—Ampère, Emp. ii. 161.
"The portico of the temple of Minerva is most rich and beautiful in architecture, but woefully gnawed by time, and shattered by violence, besides being buried midway in the accumulation of the soil, that rises over dead Rome like a flood-tide. Within this edifice of antique sanctity a baker's shop is now established, with an entrance on one side; for everywhere, the remnants of old grandeur and divinity have been made available for the meanest neccessities of to-day."—Hawthorne.
It was in this forum that Nerva caused Vetronius Turinus, who had trafficked with his court interest, to be suffocated with smoke, a herald proclaiming at the time, "Fumo punitur qui vendidit fumum."
Returning a short distance down the Via Alessandrina, and turning (left) down the Via Bonella, we traverse the site of the Forum of Julius Cæsar, upon which 4000 sestertia (800,000 l.) were expended, and which is described by Dion-Cassius as having been more beautiful than the Forum Romanum. It was ornamented with a Temple of Venus Genetrix—from whom Julius Cæsar claimed to be descended—which contained a statue of the goddess by Archesilaus, a statue of Cæsar himself, and a group of Ajax and Medea by Timomacus. Here, also, Cæsar had the effrontery to place the statue of his mistress, Cleopatra, by the side of that of the goddess. In front of the temple stood a bronze figure of a horse—supposed to be the famous Bucephalus—the work of Lysippus.
"Cedat equus Latiæ qui, contra templa Diones,
Cæsarei stat sede Fori. Quem tradere es ausus
Pellæo Lysippa Duci, mox Cæsaris ora
Aurata cervice tulit."
Statius, Silv. i. 84.
The only visible remains of this forum are some courses of huge square blocks of stone (Lapis Gabinus), in a dirty court.
Part of the site of the forum of Julius Cæsar is now occupied—on the right near the end of the Via Bonella—by the Accademia di San Luca, founded in 1595, Federigo Zuccaro being its first director. The collections are open from 9 to 5 daily. A ceiling representing Bacchus and Ariadne, is by Guido. The best pictures are:—
Bacchus and Ariadne: Poussin.
Vanity: Paul Veronese.
Calista and the Nymphs: Titian.
The murder of Lucretia: Guido Cagnacci.
Fortune: Guido.
Innocent XI.: Velasquez.
The Saviour and the Pharisee: Titian.
A lovely fresco of a child: Raphael.
St. Luke painting the Virgin: Attributed to Raphael.