Theater of Balbus and the "Crypta Balbi" (Rome)

 museum, monument, Roman Empire, invisible

In 13 BC, proconsul Lucius Cornelius Balbus (minor) built the Theatre of Balbus in the Campus Martius of Rome, likely from the spoils of a military campaign by order of Augustus (Cassius Dio 54.18.2; Pliny the Elder, Natural History (Pliny) 36.59-60).

Very little is mentioned of the theatre in ancient writings. It's location was debated for decades until pieces of the Forma Urbis were finally pieced together in the 1960's. Excavations of the theatre began in 1981 and are still ongoing, however, the main portion of the crypta finished in 2000. Today what has been excavated can be seen at the Museo Nazionale Romano Crypta Balbi (National Museum of Rome), which is located at Via delle Botteghe Oscure, 31, (corner of Via M. Caetani).

The museum is located in what was the crpta or courtyard in the rear of the theater's complex behind the stage. This courtyard was the smallest of all of Rome's major theatres. Here patrons would stroll between acts of a performance and seek refreshments much like a modern theatre's main lobby.


In 13 BC, proconsul Lucius Cornelius Balbus (minor) built the Theatre of Balbus in the Campus Martius of Rome, likely from the spoils of a military campaign by order of Augustus (Cassius Dio 54.18.2; Pliny the Elder, Natural History (Pliny) 36.59-60).

Crypta Balbi

History of the building

In 1981, digging on a derelict city-centre site in the Campus Martius between the churches of Santa Caterina dei Funari and San Stanislao dei Polacchi, Daniel Manacorda and his team discovered the colonnaded quadriporticus of the Theatre of Lucius Cornelius Balbus, the nearby statio annonae and evidence of later, medieval occupation of the site. These are presented in this branch, inaugurated in 2001, which houses the archaeological remains and finds from that dig (including a stucco arch from the porticus).

Collections

As well as new material from the excavations, objects in this museum come from

* the collections of the former Kircherian Museum
* the Gorga and Betti collections
* numismatic material from the Gnecchi collections and the collection of Vittorio Emanuele III of Savoia,
* collections from the Roman Forum, in particular a fresco and marble architrave from the late-1930s Fascist deconstruction of the medieval church of Sant'Adriano in the Curia senatus.
* Museum of the Palazzo Venezia
* the Capitoline Museums
* the communal Antiquarium of Rome
* frescoes removed in 1960 from the church of Santa Maria in Via Lata

Basement

The archaeological remains, guided by a member of museum staff.

Ground floor

The first section ("Archaeology and history of an urban landscape") presents the results of the excavations, and puts them in the context of the history of the area. As well as the remains from the site itself, this section also tells of the Monastero di Santa Maria Domine Rose (begun nearby in the 8th century), of medieval merchants' and craftsmen's homes, of the Conservatorio di Santa Caterina dei Funari (built in the mid-16th century by Ignatius of Loyola to house the daughters of Roman prostitutes) and of the Botteghe Obscura.

First floor

A second section (" Rome from antiquity to the middle ages.") is the Museum of Medieval Rome and illustrates the life and transformations of Rome as a whole between the 5th and 10th centuries AD.