Vouchers devoted to archeology Lucca: I. La Compagnia delle Mura The polygonal
Latin colony in the walls of of Lucca.
New excavation data
Giulio Ciampoltrini
Thanks to Livy (XL, 43), Lucca has a precise date of birth in 180 BC, in the final phase of the war almost twenty years saw Rome and its
socii committed to the north-western Italy between the Arno and the Apennines, the Ligurian tribes against Apuan, on land granted by the city
member of Pisa was founded a colony
of Latin law is intended to consolidate the successes achieved at last (even with the gradual deportation of the Apuan) and serve as a bulwark to the foot of the Apennines, in strict symmetry with the network of foundations and along the northern foothills, from Modena to Parma, consolidate the control of the territory that Rome was restored after the long break of the war against Hannibal
.
Given the highly strategic nature of the new town, situated on the plain where the '
Auser was opened in a range of arms, and was immediately reclaimed and centuries to allow assignments colonial
, the construction of the walls had to be the first task of the Latin
settlers. The archaeological record, in fact, if it reports the rapid colonization of the territory, including the application in the productive rural buildings of the diagram
domus - the event which was not unusual in the Italian late republican
- reveals that the urban area was not extensively built up which in that final glimpse of the second century BC, with the obvious exception of the facilities 'public', and - note - the walls
, on the other hand, beyond the narrative Livy, who sees the exhausted military engagement on the front Apuan own between 180 and 179 BC, the tribes still Ligurian Apennines in 155 BC were able to commit forces strictly Roman, Marcus Claudius Marcellus in that year when he celebrated a triumph over the Apuan, archaeological and evidence, with the singular return of acorns missiles associated with Roman coins of the fifties and sixties of the second century BC on the slopes of Mount Rondinaio Vallimona and, at the southern edge of the massive Apuan, provides significant evidence of a scenario in which it occurs the last resistance to Rome Liguria
.
The apparatus of walls, therefore, was not only essential to enhance the status
of
colony, but could be called, even in emergencies, to support attacks, and to ensure - however - a safe haven for settlers distributed in the territory of a network of settlements - as happened at the system of the third century BC Etruscan settlements
- could be easy and tempting target of the raids in Liguria.
should therefore be considered that the undertaking of the construction of the wall was built in the short space of time, with the collective commitment of the colonial body, and in the 'technical' workers are able to take advantage of the availability of raw land and convenient transportation routes offered by the river network proposed by '
Auser . Is due to Paolo Mencacci identification of cavernous limestone quarry which was created in the external walls, in the Quosa, on the south-west of the Monte Pisano, while the compact white limestone used to rule for less sat and base of the circle could also be provided from the quarries in the area of \u200b\u200bLucca, northern Italy, the same massive, still in the Middle Ages to this feed lithotype large construction projects the city's Roman
.
the different functional use of available materials, as has been repeatedly reported
corresponds to the different processing techniques: the cavernous limestone blocks is reduced in the drafting of a work functional rectangular square with rows tend isodomic, as reflected by the best-preserved stretch, thanks to the re-use such marks the western wall of the church of Santa Maria della Rosa, who stood
, the hard white limestone is to be worked final during those stages of implementation - how to certify the continued presence of machining chips in the foundation level
- and will be reduced subparallelepipedi blocks with trapezoidal outer face often, the practical realization of vertical joints oblique, in a version of 'textbook' of the 'fourth way' polygonal work, as defined by Lugli
. The blocks are laid on horizontal planes, but is systematically pursued the search for connections between the applications, extracting teeth detachable. If you already
to Anchor fundamental review of the remaining sections of the walls of Lucca and Sommella Giuliani stood out due to these technical features
, recent findings on the eastern side of the circuit Late Republican offered spectacular claims of coherence with which the workers applied the lessons learned construction activity in the heat of the Central Italy between III and early second century BC
In particular, the external face of the eastern gate - reconstructed on the basis of the sequence of protection activities developed between 2002 and 2009
- keep on the south side, with access Piazza Santa Maria Foris Portam
(Fig. 1, A) in the southern facade dell'avancorpo security door four appeals (Figs. 2-4, U.S. 5): the session of the bottom, set in the clay-loam soil base where they also finish machining chips of stone, consists of two roughly hewn blocks even on the outside, apparently to the particular location, with a sliver of rinzeppamento to complete the joint. The three actions are intended to remain in view are finished, albeit briefly, and blocks juxtaposed with lines of contact angle, perhaps in a case arising from the fracture regularized one element of the quarry. The tooth that innervates nell'assise Foundation the action below clearly has a functional connotation, preventing any slippage between the two rows. In the late republican structure is leaning in time can not be assessed on the basis of stratigraphic, and in any case back to the late ancient stratigraphic sequence that is overlapping, heterogeneous structure of pebbles, blocks resulting from the reuse of items in cavernous limestone or white limestone of the original apparatus walls (Fig. 3, U.S. 91-92-94).
the technique is slightly different read on the wall of the wall (Figs. 2, 5, U.S. 1): even the use of foundation, housed directly on virgin soil when tampered with, sees the accurate finishing of the external face, and oblique joints - sometimes supplemented by flying shoe triangular - alternate sequences of regular rectangular blocks, with the appearance of a real 'square work'. Also in this area is searched for the connection between the applications working on the upper face of the block housed nell'assise foundation in order to get a tooth projecting able to allow the detachable two blocks of the first row.
A demonstration of consistency of the construction techniques used, the same solutions are immediately readable strip of the tower in 2008 investigated the intersection of Via Sant'Andrea and Via the Guardian Angel (Fig. 1, B) before poliorcetico concrete proof of this measure in the fabric of the walls of the city late republican (Figs. 6-8)
.
The assembly is the foundation of the tower, like that dell'avancorpo security door, roughly hewn blocks or completely irregular in the outer face, put in place with irregular joints, but tend to be oblique, the upper face, however, is regularized accurately, to have a perfect horizontal plane of housing for the base line of rectangular blocks assigned to relatively long and thin, with sides alternately juxtaposed contact oblique or vertical, fitted in a case of detachable tooth above the action, against which are slightly protruding (Figs. 6-8, U.S. 26).
The flap surviving walls of the apparatus, as we just saw in the case of the door, finished in front of blocks is also in the appearance of the base (Figs. 7-8), which recognized at least two rows, with at the upper edge is formed by two boxes superimposed in the innervated base line of the dihedral angle formed by the underside of the block.
The border between the work of the square and octagonal-cut manner, to stay within the classification of July, and, as can be seen, very narrow, the workers work in Latin colony are fully involved in the ductile adherence to the opportunities offered by the available raw material that dominates the building of the late republican geographical catchment area from which, presumably, come. The component-Lazio
bell onomastics Lucca recovered years ago are even meager epigraphic heritage offered by the company's first imperial Lucca
, is indeed a possible indicator of the areas in which they were recruited
that the Latin colony - probably accompanied by an Etruscan northern component, and partly Liguria - formed the body of the city. As part of the colonial foundations of the third and second centuries BC are immediately recognizable planimetric and technical measures applied in Lucca
, and the same 'blinguismo' square in the work material 'soft' (limestone Cavernous) of the polygon material 'hard' (white limestone) Ferentino is a dramatic demonstration that, as in Lucca, could be attributed to the need to simultaneously take advantage of the various quarries of raw material, also has paid workers in the two different fields of activity
. If the walls
Lucca, secured with the dating to the years immediately following 180 BC, posssono rise in precious witness the evolution - still very slow - building techniques in 'colonial' Hellenism unified Italy gradually developed in the contexts' municipal ', however, that solutions should be fully comparable to those used in Lucca are recognizable, as was repeatedly stressed in the city walls of Fiesole
. Uncertainty about the history of this structure, generally referred to the Hellenistic age
, you can refer to at least debate the possibility of training the workers 'Latin' active in Lucca or - more broadly - in the colonial foundations of the final end of the third or early second century BC have also made it popular in Etruria Northern 'ways to build' which until then had been peculiar cultural center of the Roman-Italic-Latin.
Bibliography
Bruni 2010 = S. Bruni , "Fiesole and the middle valley of the Arno," The Etruscans in cities. Sources, research and excavations by S. Bruni, Cinisello Balsamo 2010, pp. 54-61.
Ciampoltrini = 1988 G. Ciampoltrini , "Prosopograhia Lucensis. A contribution to the history of Lucchese society between first and second centuries AD, "Light actum, XVIII, 1988, pp. 71-96.
Ciampoltrini = 1995 G. Ciampoltrini , Lucca. The first circle , Lucca 1995.
Ciampoltrini = 1996 G. Ciampoltrini , "Etruscan settlement in the valley of Serchio between IV and III century BC Considerations over the area of \u200b\u200bBridge of Gini Orentano" Etruscan Studies, LXII, 1996, pp. 173-210.
Ciampoltrini = 2008 G. Ciampoltrini, The door and the tower: new materials for the walls (town planning) of Lucca Roman , Journal of Ancient Topography , XVIII, 2008, pp. 23-34.
Ciampoltrini = 2009 G. Ciampoltrini , Metamorphosis of a Roman city. Cityscapes of Lucca from the foundation to the middle-aged imperial in Lucca: the metamorphosis of a Roman city. The excavation of the Banca del Monte di Lucca Via del windlass, edited by G. Ciampoltrini, Lucca 2009, pp. 10-64.
Ciampoltrini = 2010 G. Ciampoltrini , between the Arno and Rural Construction Serchio Valley: the Etruscan settlement between the sixth and fifth centuries BC and deductions colonial Augustan age, in- Etruskisch italische republikanische Häuser-und römische , edited by M. Bentz and Ch Reusser, Wiesbaden 2010, pp. 135-143.
Ciampoltrini, Cosci, 2009 = G. Spataro Ciampoltrini, M. Cosci, C. Spataro , The landscapes of Roman age from aerial photography and survey research excavation in Las Earth Auser I. The excavation of street Martiori Lunatesi and Roman landscapes on the territory of Capannori edited by G. Ciampoltrini and A. Giannoni, Bientina 2009, pp. 11-62. July 1957
= G. Lugli , The Roman building techniques in particular in Rome and Lazio, Roma 1957.
Mencacci 2001 = P. Mencacci , Lucca. the Roman walls, Lucca 2001.
Sommella, 1974 = P. Giuliani Sommella, CF Giuliani, The plan of Lucca Roman Rome 1974.
