24-Lecture Yale Course: Roman Architecture (HSAR 252)

August 24, 2010 · 0 comments

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Rome and its empire are responsible for some of the most magnificent architecture known to man. This course is an introduction to those buildings. The course not only studies architecture in Rome, Pompeii, and Central Italy, but also looks to structures in North Italy, Sicily, France, Spain, Germany, Greece, Turkey, Croatia, Jordan, Lebanon, Libya, and North Africa.

Diana E. E. Kleiner is the a Professor of History of Art and Classics at Yale University. She has written numerous books on Roman art, including Roman Sculpture, a well known reference on the topic.

Course Materials

1. Introduction to Roman Architecture (#1)

- Roman Architecture (HSAR 252) Professor Kleiner introduces the wide variety of Roman buildings covered in the course and links them with the theme of Roman urbanism. The lecture ranges from early Roman stone construction to such masterpieces of Roman concrete architecture as the Colosseum and Pantheon. Traveling from Rome and Pompeii across the vast Roman Empire, Professor Kleiner stops in such locales as North Africa and Jordan to explore the plans of cities and their individual edifices: temp...

2. It Takes a City: The Founding of Rome and the Beginnings of Urbanism in Italy (#2)

- Roman Architecture (HSAR 252) Professor Kleiner traces the evolution of Roman architecture from its beginnings in the eight-century B.C. Iron Age through the late Republican period. The lecture features traditional Roman temple architecture as a synthesis of Etruscan and Greek temple types, early defensive wall building in Rome and environs, and a range of technologies and building practices that made this architecture possible. City planning in such early Roman colonies as Cosa and Ostia is al...

3. Technology and Revolution in Roman Architecture (#3)

- Roman Architecture (HSAR 252) Professor Kleiner discusses the revolution in Roman architecture resulting from the widespread adoption of concrete in the late second and first centuries B.C. She contrasts what she calls innovative Roman architecture with the more traditional buildings already surveyed and documents a shift from the use of concrete for practical purposes to an exploration of its expressive possibilities. The lecture concludes with a discussion of the Sanctuary of Fortuna Primigen...

4. Civic Life Interrupted: Nightmare and Destiny on August 24, A.D. 79 (#4)

- Roman Architecture (HSAR 252) Professor Kleiner explores the civic, commercial, and religious buildings of Pompeii, an overview made possible only because of an historical happenstance--the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in A.D. 79, which buried the city at the height of its development. While the lecture features the resort town's public architecture--its forum, basilica, temples, amphitheater, theater, and bath complexes--Professor Kleiner also describes such fixtures of daily life as a bakery an...

5. Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous: Houses and Villas at Pompeii (#5)

- Roman Architecture (HSAR 252) Professor Kleiner discusses domestic architecture at Pompeii from its beginnings in the fourth and third centuries B.C. to the eruption of Vesuvius in A.D. 79. She describes the plan of the ideal domus italica and features two residences that conform to that layout. She then presents the so-called Hellenized domus that incorporates elements of Greek domestic architecture, especially the peristyle court with columns. The primary example is the famous House of the Fa...

6. Habitats at Herculaneum and Early Roman Interior Decoration (#6)

- Roman Architecture (HSAR 252) Professor Kleiner discusses domestic architecture at Herculaneum and the First and Second Styles of Roman wall painting. The lecture begins with an introduction to the history of the city of Herculaneum and what befell some of its inhabitants when they tried to escape obliteration by Vesuvius. She features three houses in Herculaneum, two of which--the Houses of the Mosaic Atrium and the Stags--are among the best examples of a residential style popular in Campania ...

7. Gilding the Lily: Painting Palaces and Villas in the First Century A.D. (#7)

- Roman Architecture (HSAR 252) Professor Kleiner discusses the development of Third Style Roman wall painting in late first century B.C. villas belonging to the imperial family and other elite patrons. Third Style painting, as Professor Kleiner demonstrates, is characterized by departure from the perspectival vistas and panoramas of the Second Style toward an attenuation of architectural elements and a respect for the inherent flatness of the wall. The Third Style remains popular until the middl...

8. Exploring Special Subjects on Pompeian Walls (#8)

- Roman Architecture (HSAR 252) Professor Kleiner discusses special subjects in Roman wall painting that do not fall within the four architectural styles but were nonetheless inserted into their wall schemes: mythological painting, landscape, genre, still life, history painting, and painted portraiture. The lecture begins with an in-depth examination of the unique Dionysiac Mysteries painting in Pompeii in which young brides prepare for and enter into a mystical marriage with the god Dionysus and...

9. From Brick to Marble: Augustus Assembles Rome (#9)

- Roman Architecture (HSAR 252) Professor Kleiner discusses the transformation of Rome by its first emperor, Augustus, who claimed to have found Rome a city of brick and left it a city of marble. The conversion was made possible by the exploitation of new marble quarries at Luna (modern Carrara) on the northwest coast of Italy. The lecture surveys the end of the Roman Republic and the inauguration of the Principate and analyzes the Forum of Julius Caesar and the Forum of Augustus. Professor Klein...

10. Accessing Afterlife: Tombs of Roman Aristocrats, Freedmen, and Slaves (#10)

- Roman Architecture (HSAR 252) Professor Kleiner explores sepulchral architecture in Rome commissioned by the emperor, aristocrats, successful professionals, and former slaves during the age of Augustus. Unlike most civic and residential buildings, tombs serve no practical purpose other than to commemorate the deceased and consequently assume a wide variety of personalized and remarkable forms. The lecture begins with the round Mausoleum of Augustus, based on Etruscan precedents and intended to ...

11. Notorious Nero and His Amazing Architectural Legacy (#11)

- Roman Architecture (HSAR 252) Professor Kleiner features the architecture of Augustus' successors, the Julio-Claudian emperors, whose dynasty lasted half a century (A.D. 14-68). She first presents Tiberius' magnificent Villa Jovis on the Island of Capri and an underground basilica in Rome used by members of a secret Neo-Pythagorean cult. She then turns to the eccentric architecture of Claudius, a return to masonry building techniques and a unique combination of finished and unfinished, or rusti...

12. The Creation of an Icon: The Colosseum and Contemporary Architecture in Rome (#12)

- Roman Architecture (HSAR 252) Professor Kleiner features the tumultuous year of 68-69 when Rome had four competing emperors. Vespasian emerged the victor, founded the Flavian dynasty, and was succeeded by his sons, Titus and Domitian. The Flavians were especially adept at using architecture to shape public policy. Professor Kleiner demonstrates that Vespasian linked himself with the divine Claudius by completing the Claudianum and distanced himself from Nero by razing the Domus Aurea to the gro...

13. The Prince and the Palace: Human Made Divine on the Palatine Hill (#13)

- Roman Architecture (HSAR 252) Professor Kleiner investigates the major architectural commissions of the emperor Domitian, the last Flavian emperor. She begins with the Arch of Titus, erected after Titus' death by his brother Domitian on land previously occupied by Nero's Domus Transitoria. The Arch celebrated Titus' greatest accomplishment--the Flavian victory in the Jewish Wars--and may have served as Titus' tomb. Professor Kleiner also discusses the Stadium of Domitian, the shape of which is ...

14. The Mother of All Forums: Civic Architecture in Rome under Trajan (#14)

- Roman Architecture (HSAR 252) Professor Kleiner analyzes the major public architectural commissions of the emperor Trajan in Rome. Distinguished by their remarkably ambitious scale, these buildings mimic Trajan's expansion of the Roman Empire to its furthest reaches. Professor Kleiner begins with Trajan's restoration of the Forum of Julius Caesar and proceeds to the Baths of Trajan. Situated on the Oppian and Esquiline Hills, these Trajanic baths follow the basic model of the earlier imperial B...

15. Rome and a Villa: Hadrian's Pantheon and Tivoli Retreat (#15)

- Roman Architecture (HSAR 252) Professor Kleiner features the architecture built in and around Rome during the reign of Hadrian. The lecture begins with the Temple of Venus and Roma, a Greek-style temple constructed near the Colosseum in Rome, which may have been designed by Hadrian himself. Professor Kleiner then turns to the Pantheon, a temple dedicated to all the gods that combines the marble porch and pediment of a traditional Greco-Roman temple with a vast concrete cylindrical drum, hemisph...

16. The Roman Way of Life and Death at Ostia, the Port of Rome (#16)

- Roman Architecture (HSAR 252) Professor Kleiner focuses on Ostia, the port of Rome, characterized by its multi-storied residential buildings and its widespread use of brick-faced concrete. She begins with the city's public face--the Forum, Capitolium, Theater, and Piazzale delle Corporazioni. The Piazzale, set behind the Theater, was the location of various shipping companies with black-and-white mosaics advertising their business. Professor Kleiner examines the Baths of Neptune and the Insula ...

17. Bigger Is Better: The Baths of Caracalla and Other Second- and Third-Century Buildings in Rome (#17)

- Roman Architecture (HSAR 252) Professor Kleiner discusses the increasing size of Roman architecture in the second and third centuries A.D. as an example of a "bigger is better" philosophy. She begins with an overview of tomb architecture, a genre that, in Rome as in Ostia, embraced the aesthetic of exposed brick as a facing for the exteriors of buildings. Interiors of second-century tombs, Professor Kleiner reveals, encompass two primary groups -- those that are decorated with painted stucco an...

18. Hometown Boy: Honoring an Emperor's Roots in Roman North Africa (#18)

- Roman Architecture (HSAR 252) Professor Kleiner discusses two Roman cities in North Africa: Timgad and Leptis Magna. Timgad was created as an entirely new colony for Roman army veterans by Trajan in A.D. 100, and designed all at once as an ideal castrum plan. Leptis Magna, conversely, grew more gradually from its Carthaginian roots, experiencing significant Roman development under Augustus and Hadrian. Septimius Severus, the first Roman emperor from North Africa, was born at Leptis and his home...

19. Baroque Extravaganzas: Rock Tombs, Fountains, and Sanctuaries in Jordan, Lebanon, and Libya (#19)

- Roman Architecture (HSAR 252) Professor Kleiner features the baroque phenomenon in Roman architecture, in which the traditional vocabulary of architecture, consisting of columns and other conventional architectural elements, is manipulated to enliven building façades and inject them with dynamic motion. This baroque trend is often conspicuously ornamental and began to be deployed on the walls of forums and tombs in Italy already in the late first century A.D. But baroque architecture in Roman ...

20. Roman Wine in Greek Bottles: The Rebirth of Athens (#20)

- Roman Architecture (HSAR 252) Professor Kleiner discusses the rebirth of Athens under the Romans especially during the reigns of the two philhellenic emperors, Augustus and Hadrian. While some have dismissed the architecture of Roman Athens as derivative of its Classical and Hellenistic Greek past, Professor Kleiner demonstrates that the high quality of Greek marble and Greek stone carvers made these buildings consequential. In addition some structures provide evidence for the frequent and crea...

21. Making Mini Romes on the Western Frontier (#21)

- Roman Architecture (HSAR 252) Professor Kleiner explores the architecture of the western provinces of the Roman Empire, focusing on sites in what are now North Italy, France, Spain, and Croatia. Her major objective is to characterize "Romanization," the way in which the Romans provide amenities to their new colonies while, at the same time, transforming them into miniature versions of the city of Rome. Professor Kleiner discusses the urban design of two Augustan towns before proceeding to an in...

22. Rome Redux: The Tetrarchic Renaissance (#22)

- Roman Architecture (HSAR 252) Professor Kleiner characterizes third-century Rome as an "architectural wasteland" due to the rapid change of emperors, continuous civil war, and a crumbling economy. There was no time to build and the only major architectural commission was a new defensive wall. The crisis came to an end with the rise of Diocletian, who created a new form of government called the Tetrarchy, or four-man rule, with two leaders in the East and two in the West. Diocletian and his coll...

23. Rome of Constantine and a New Rome (#23)

- Roman Architecture (HSAR 252) Professor Kleiner presents the architecture of Constantine the Great, the last pagan and first Christian emperor of Rome, who founded Constantinople as the "New Rome" in A.D. 324. She notes that Constantine began with commissions that were tied to the pagan past (the Baths of Constantine in Rome) but built others (the Aula Palatina at Trier) that looked to the Christian future. Professor Kleiner makes an impassioned case that some of the finest and most innovative ...

Paper Topics: Discovering the Roman Provinces and Designing a Roman City (#24)

- Roman Architecture (HSAR 252) Kleiner presents the three options for the course's term paper, which fall into two main categories: a research paper or a project to design a Roman city. For the research paper, she suggests cities and monuments not covered or mentioned briefly in the lectures, which embody some of the themes and issues raised in the course. Such topics include, in the Eastern Empire, the Roman cities of Corinth and Gerasa (Jerash), the Library of Celsus at Ephesus, and the Temple...

Instructor: Diana E. E. Kleiner
Location: Yale
Length: Full Course
Subjects: Architecture, Full Course

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24-Lecture Yale Course: Roman Architecture (HSAR 252)

1. Introduction to Roman Architecture (#1)

2. It Takes a City: The Founding of Rome and the Beginnings of Urbanism in Italy (#2)

3. Technology and Revolution in Roman Architecture (#3)

4. Civic Life Interrupted: Nightmare and Destiny on August 24, A.D. 79 (#4)

5. Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous: Houses and Villas at Pompeii (#5)

6. Habitats at Herculaneum and Early Roman Interior Decoration (#6)

7. Gilding the Lily: Painting Palaces and Villas in the First Century A.D. (#7)

8. Exploring Special Subjects on Pompeian Walls (#8)

9. From Brick to Marble: Augustus Assembles Rome (#9)

10. Accessing Afterlife: Tombs of Roman Aristocrats, Freedmen, and Slaves (#10)

11. Notorious Nero and His Amazing Architectural Legacy (#11)

12. The Creation of an Icon: The Colosseum and Contemporary Architecture in Rome (#12)

13. The Prince and the Palace: Human Made Divine on the Palatine Hill (#13)

14. The Mother of All Forums: Civic Architecture in Rome under Trajan (#14)

15. Rome and a Villa: Hadrian's Pantheon and Tivoli Retreat (#15)

16. The Roman Way of Life and Death at Ostia, the Port of Rome (#16)

17. Bigger Is Better: The Baths of Caracalla and Other Second- and Third-Century Buildings in Rome (#17)

18. Hometown Boy: Honoring an Emperor's Roots in Roman North Africa (#18)

19. Baroque Extravaganzas: Rock Tombs, Fountains, and Sanctuaries in Jordan, Lebanon, and Libya (#19)

20. Roman Wine in Greek Bottles: The Rebirth of Athens (#20)

21. Making Mini Romes on the Western Frontier (#21)

22. Rome Redux: The Tetrarchic Renaissance (#22)

23. Rome of Constantine and a New Rome (#23)

Paper Topics: Discovering the Roman Provinces and Designing a Roman City (#24)

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