A mean-looking church, called Sa. Maria d’ Ara Cœli, wholly devoid of external ornament, is supposed to stand on the site of the temple of Jupiter Feretrius. A flight of one hundred and twenty-four steps of marble, brought from the temple of Jupiter Quirinus, forms the ascent to it from the Campus Martius; the interior has twenty-two ancient columns of granite, and the whole appears to be an assemblage of fragments of other buildings. It was whilst musing in this church, “whilst the friars were singing vespers in the temple of Jupiter,” that Gibbon says he first conceived the idea of writing his immortal history.
The beautiful temple of Jupiter Tonans was erected by Augustus, in gratitude for his escape from lightning. Only three of the thirty columns of the portico now remain, together with a portion of the frieze. They are of Luna marble, four feet four inches in diameter, with Corinthian capitals, and appear originally to have been tinged with Tyrian purple.
During the time of Claudius, the very curious temple of Faunus was built upon the Celian mount. It was of circular form, and had internally two rows of Ionic columns, with arches springing immediately from the capitals. The upper windows had each a column in the middle, with arches also springing from the capitals; and these two arches were enclosed by a semicircular arch, which had its springing upon the jambs of the windows; and, rising higher, left a considerable space between it and the two before-mentioned small arches, in which space was a circular opening. This is particularly noticed as an early and distinct type of what was afterwards named Saxon, Norman, and Gothic.
The temple of Concord was the place in which Lentulus and other confederates of Catiline were brought before the senate in order to be tried, and whence they were taken to the Mamertine prisons. “For my own part,” says Middleton, “as oft as I have been wandering about in the very rostra of old Rome, or in that of the temple of Concord, where Tully assembled the senate in Catiline’s conspiracy, I could not help fancying myself much more sensible of the force of his eloquence; whilst the impression of the place served to warm my imagination to a degree almost equal to that of his old audience.” Of late years, however, these ruins have been ascribed to the temple of Fortune, burnt in the time of Maxentius, the competitor of Constantine.
The temple of Fortune was, for a long time, taken for the temple of Concord. Its portico is nearly complete; consisting of six granite columns in front, and two behind, supporting an entablature and pediment. The columns all vary in diameter, and have bases and capitals of white marble. From this circumstance it is conjectured that it was erected with the spoils of other buildings; their original temple, burnt in the time of Maxentius, having been rebuilt by Constantine.
The temple of Nerva was erected by Trajan. It was one of the finest edifices of ancient Rome; but all that now remains of it is a cella, and three fine columns of Parian marble, fifty feet in height, supporting an architrave.
The temple of Peace[184], erected by Vespasian, was enriched with spoils from Jerusalem. This temple is related to have been one of the most magnificent in Rome: it was encircled with a coating of gilt bronze, and adorned with stupendous columns of white marble; it was also enriched with some of the finest sculptures and paintings of which the ancient world could boast[185]. Among the former was a colossal statue of the Nile, surrounded by sixteen children, cut out of one block of basalt; among the latter was the famous picture of Jalysus, painted by Protogenes of Rhodes. Here, too, were deposited the candlesticks, and some other of the spoils, which Titus brought from Jerusalem. There was also a curious library attached to the edifice.
Three immense arches, which rank amongst the most remarkable remains in Rome, are all that are left of this once stupendous structure, which, until lately, was supposed to be the temple of Peace, erected by Vespasian at the close of the Judean war. But the great degeneracy of the workmanship, and its being wholly unlike all erections of that nature, has led to the opinion that the remains are neither of the time of Vespasian, nor those of the temple, which, with all the immense treasures it contained, was destroyed by fire, about one hundred years after its erection; but of a Basilica[186], erected by Maxentius on the ruins of the temple, and converted by Constantine into a Christian church. The stupendous proportions of this structure are shown by the three vaulted roofs, each seventy-five feet across, which rise above the surrounding buildings in huge but not ungainly masses. The vault of the middle arch, which is placed further back, forms part of a sphere; the side ones are cylindrical; all are ornamented with sunk panels of stucco-work. The church appears to have consisted of a nave and two aisles, divided by enormous pillars of marble, one of which now stands in front of the church of La Maria Maggiore. It is of a single block, of forty-eight feet in height, and sixteen and a half in circumference.
Of the fine temple, di Venere e Roma,[187] the cella of each deity remains, with the niches, in which were their statues, and a portion of one of the side walls, which prove it to have been of vast size, great magnificence, and a chef-d’œuvre of architecture. The emperor Adrian himself drew the plans, which he submitted to Apollodorus, whose opinion respecting them is said to have been the cause of his untimely death. The temples, although they had each a separate entrance and cella, formed but one edifice; the substructure of which, having been recently excavated, is found to have been three hundred and thirty by one hundred and sixty feet. A noble flight of steps, discovered at the same time, between the arch of Titus and the church of St. Francesco, formed the approach of the Forum, which front, as well as that towards the Coliseum, was adorned with columns of Parian marble, six feet in diameter; and the whole was surrounded by a portico, with a double row of columns of grey granite. The walls and pavement of the interior were incrusted with fine marble, and the roof richly gilt.
The Temple of Antoninus was erected by Marcus Aurelius in 178, in memory of Antoninus and his consort Faustina. The original portico, consisting of ten Corinthian columns of Cippolino marble, and a portion of the temple itself, now form the church of S. Lorenzo in Miranda.