Page 91 - (DK Eyewitness) Travel Guide - Rome

FORUM  89

r Santa Francesca
Romana
Piazza di Santa Francesca Romana 4.
Map 5 B5. Tel 06-679 5528. @ 85, 87,
117, 810. v 3. q Colosseo. Open
10am–noon & 3–5pm daily. 5 9
Every year on March 9, devout
Roman drivers try to park as
close as possible to this Baroque
church with a Romanesque bell
tower. The aim of their pilgrim-
age is to have their vehicles
blessed by Santa Francesca
Romana, the patron saint of
motorists. During the 15th
century, Francesca of Trastevere
founded a society of pious
women devoted to helping
the less fortunate. After her
canonization in 1608 the
church, originally named Santa
Maria Nova, was rededicated
to Francesca.
The most curious sight inside
the church is a flagstone with
what are said to be the imprints Dedication to Titus and Vespasian on the Arch of Titus
of the knees of St. Peter and
St. Paul. A magician, Simon exhumed from the Forum’s make out a triumphant
Magus, decided to prove drains. When the reorganization procession of Roman soldiers
that his powers were is complete, fragments of carrying off spoils from the
superior to those of the statues, capitals, friezes, and Temple of Jerusalem. The
Apostles by levitating other architectural decoration booty includes the altar, silver
above the Forum. As taken from the Forum’s trumpets, and a golden seven-
Simon was in mid-air, buildings should be on show. branched candelabrum.
Peter and Paul
dropped to their u Temple of Venus
knees and y Arch of Titus
prayed fervently See Visitors’ Checklist, p85. and Rome
for God to See Visitors’ Checklist, p85.
humble him, This triumphal arch was erected
and Simon in AD 81 by the Emperor The emperor Hadrian designed
immediately Domitian in honor of the this temple to occupy what had
Bell tower of plummeted victories of his brother, Titus, been the vestibule to Nero’s
Santa Francesca to his death. and his father, Vespasian, in Domus Aurea (see p177). Many
Judaea. In AD 66, the Jews, of the columns have been
t Antiquarium weary of being exploited by reerected, and though there is
no access, there is a good view
unscrupulous Roman officials,
Forense rebelled. A bitter war broke out; as you leave the Forum and
ending four years later in the from the upper tiers of the
See Visitors’ Checklist, p85.
fall of Jerusalem and the Colosseum. The temple, the
The former convent of Santa Jewish Diaspora. largest in Rome, was dedicated
Francesca Romana is now occu- Although the reliefs inside the to Roma, the personification of
pied by the offices in charge arch are badly eroded, you can the city, and to Venus because
of the excavations of the she was the mother of Aeneas,
Forum and a small muse- father of Romulus and Remus.
um. The latter is currently Each goddess had her own cella
being reorgan ized and (shrine). When the architect
the rooms are being Apollodorus pointed out that
restored. They contain the seated statues in the niches
Iron Age burial urns, were too big (had they tried to
graves, and their skeletal “stand,” their heads would have
occupants, along with hit the vaults), Hadrian had him
some ancient bric-a-brac Frieze of Aeneas in the Antiquarium Forense put to death.

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