130
Part I I / T he M o n u m en t s
Fig. 6.17. Curia restored plan with conjecturally placed seats for the senators. (G. Gorski)
that the colonnade in front of the Curia originally continued toward the west59 and states unequivocally that “I was able to ascertain that its facade [that of the Secretarium Senatus] was aligned with the main facade of the Curia.”60 Following Lanciani’s earlier reconstruction, Gismondi’s model in the Museum of Roman Civilization shows a peristyle west of the Curia (the “Atrium of Minerva”) and an adjacent structure (the “Secretarium Senatus”). Given the problems connected with this area, our reconstruction follows that of Gismondi, since a visualization of Nash’s response to Lanciani would show the colonnade in front of the Curia ending abruptly at an otherwise empty lot! Nonetheless, the west extension of the Curia’s colonnade and the close association between Cittadini’s inscription and the inscriptions on several architectural fragments Bartoli found behind the Curia,61 some from its interior (and unmentioned by Nash), suggest reasonable grounds for locating what Lanciani identified as the “Secretarium” adjacent to the Curia and behind the shops in the Forum of Caesar. Were this building and its neighbors similar to at least parts of the structures shown on Sangallo’s plan?
Downloaded from Cambridge Books Online by IP 91.240.2.62 on Wed Sep 30 09:26:36 BST 2015. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511894640.009 Cambridge Books Online © Cambridge University Press, 2015