Monumental Building Complexes in Orientalizing and Archaic Central Italy
From the second half of the seventh century and through the sixth century BC, monumental building complexes were erected in proto-urban settlements in Etruria and Latium. Located on prominent positions within settlements and comprising large central courtyards and surrounding building wings, the complexes appear to have been constructed and used by the elite both as residences and as centers of civic authority. Examples of such monumental building complexes are known from Satricum, Rome, Veii, Caere, Acquarossa, San Giovenale, and Poggio Civitate (Murlo). In this study, the social context in which the Italic aristocracy first earned civic authority is examined. Following, details of the architectural form employed as expression of this authority are probed: monumental building complexes are analyzed to determine how plan, possible uses, and decoration conveyed the attributes of economic primacy, achievement, and ancestry necessary for the maintenance of social power. Finally, the abandonment and sometimes violent destruction of the monumental building complexes at the end of the sixth and the early fifth century BC is discussed in relation to socio-political changes that enabled the installation of ruling bodies based on representation in central Italy. While the architectural form of the earlier monumental building complexes was not entirely rejected---open courts surrounded by wings of aligned rooms subsequently appeared in a new architectural form---it was manipulated to serve different socio-political purposes. Fifth-century BC evidence for this new form---known as the courtyard house---has been unearthed at Rome, Roselle, Regisvilla and Marzabotto. Evidence suggests that these buildings too served as expressions of social primacy. Though smaller in scale than their monumental predecessors, they appear to have been both domestic and civic in nature, functioning as homes to the expanded urban elite and as a means for self-representation in a increasingly competitive socio-political environment.
University of Illinois - Urbana-Champaign
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University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign