One of the columns of the Crypta Balbi (northern side).
The Crypta Balbi, one of the 4 seats of the National Roman Museum, is truly unique, providing an incredible overview of the area in which it stands. A sector of the city, almost 2 acres, is documented with incredible continuity over the centuries, from the antiquity till the present days. As with time lapse photography a slow process was recorded with a large number of ‘pictures’ and something that happened very slowly is shown as happening very fast. Twenty years of excavations and research, still ongoing, brought to light the transformations of the site. Rome accumulated layers upon layers and in this small area, Classical, Medieval, Renaissance and Modern Rome coexist in a fascinating chaos, with the multiple stratifications that evolution left on the urban pattern.
Rome is a palimpsest and here, more than anywhere else, we can experience that. The term, originally refers to a manuscript, reused, after earlier writing has been erased, where traces of the older writings are still visible. The definition can be applied also to the urban fabric of a city. The earliest ‘writing’ in our case is the small theatre (13 BC) built by the Spanish proconsul Lucius Cornelius Balbus Minor who obtained Roman citizenship after campaigning with Julius Caesar in the civil war. Consul under Augustus, in 21 BC, he became proconsul in Africa, where he defeated the tribes of the Lybian Garamentes. He was the last general to be granted a Triumph in Rome. With the immense wealth accumulated with his campaigns he financed the construction of a stone theatre, one of the three in Rome, the smallest, after the one of Pompey and Marcellus. Small but sumptuous: 4 precious onyx columns decorated the scene. Remains of its cavea survive under Palazzo Mattei Paganica.
The Crypta Balbi was its cryptoporticus (porticus post scaenam); a colonnaded square with gardens, located behind the stage, where spectators could relax, stretch their legs, cool off from the heat between the acts of a performance and eventually find a shelter in case of sudden rain. Only in 1979 the archaeologist Guglielmo Gatti found out exactly what the Crypta Balbi was, analyzing some fragments of the Forma Urbis Severiana, a large marble map of Severan age (203- 211 AD). The eastern side of the portico was occupied by insulae (ancient multi storied apartment buildings) which appear also in the Forma Urbis.
Excavations directed by archaeologist Daniele Manacorda, started in 1981, when the Italian state acquired various blocks corresponding to the area. The idea of turning it into a museum was almost immediate and the site, inaccessible for many years, has risen to a new life from the year 2000: the archaeological remains illustrate the evolution of the area through the centuries as if one could possibly go back in time pushing a rewind button.
Under the museum, walking on steel walkways we see the remains of street stratifications, surviving elements of the Porticus Minucia Frumentaria built by Domitian for the distribution of wheat to plebeians (two columns of the temple of the Nymphs which was in the centre of the square are still visible in Via delle Botteghe Oscure). A cistern was built between the Northern portico of the Crypt and the Southern wall of the Porticus Minucia.
In the Middle Ages the northern side of the Crypta Balbi became a street occupied by artisans, their shops (botteghe) were poorly lit, established in the dark arches of what they believed to be the Circus Flaminius, the so called ‘dark shops’ from which the street name derives: Via delle Botteghe Oscure.
The most spectacular section in the Museum is undeniably the external Exedra of the eastern wall of the Crypta Balbi. It was decorated with niches and statues, the floor is still partly covered with mosaics and probably, originally, water spouted from some fountains. Under Hadrian it was converted into a monumental latrine that could comfortably accommodate at least 40 people. Some marble fragments of the seats still survive. Its walls were frescoed with floral motifs. In the IV century a glass workshop was established in the exedra as well as a tiny Medieval ‘spa’ functioning precisely as a Roman bath. An early Medieval quicklime kiln was also found, probably used for the reconstruction of the nearby monastery of San Lorenzo in Pallacinis. At the end of the VII century the Exedra became a dump used by the Monastery of San Lorenzo and the small workshops close by. En enormous quantity of ceramics and glass fragments were found. The material is displayed in the museum. In the 847 the vaults of the exedra collapsed for a big earthquake.
In the garden of the Exedra we can also admire the remains of the church of Santa Maria Domine Rosae which became by order of Ignatius of Loyola an institution to sustain the daughters of the prostitutes. Some frescoes of the church are still visible. By the Exedra you can enter a small medieval ‘laundry’ used by the nuns.
We can also see along the way the remains of a mithraeum converted into a stable, an ancient trattoria with its VI century marble counter and its blackened kitchen walls, a workshop with a furnace for metal artifacts, a lava stone oven, a II century laundry (fullonica).
On the three floors of the museum the material found during those excavations is displayed (marble fragments, pottery, coins) with useful reconstructions. As well as some precious frescoes from the no longer existing churches of St Hadrian in the Forum and the Oratory under Santa Maria in Via Lata.
The visit of the Exedra, the ancient Roman street, the mithraeum and the fullonica is possible only on Saturday and Sunday (at 10.45, 11.45, 12.45; 14.45, 15.45, 16.45) for a maximum of 20 people.
Better to doublecheck opening times and possibly reserve. Find more
