The sculptural complex of the Rione Terra. Preliminary notes
The excavation campaigns which have for several years explored the whole of the Rione Terra quarter in Pozzuoli are not only extending our knowledge of the topography of the ancient city, but have also yielded an enormous quantity of sculptural material (architectural fragments, marble revetments, ideal and iconic statues), especially during the excavation of some subterranean structures situated in proximity to the marble temple of the Augustan period. Identified in the area to the east of the temple, the subterranean structures in question run parallel to the temple from north to south and may be dated to the second century BC. In the Augustan period the Republican structures were linked together by a fifth building laid out at right angles to them, hence aligned from east to west and parallel to the decumanus maximus. The underground structures, which must have formed part of the substructure of a large complex of public buildings, were completely interred in a concerted programme of building work datable, it seems, to the mid–seventeenth century, and probably part of the major restoration promoted by Bishop Martino de Leon y Cardenas of the cathedral, built within the Augustan temple.
The present article describes, albeit in preliminary form, the ideal statues found. They seem to form a gallery of opera nobilia, comprising replicas of already familiar iconographic types, but also sculptures of more complex interpretation. An interesting case, and already attested in Rome with the episode of the Horti Sallustiani, is that of the twinned discovery of two statues of peplophoroi. The Rione Terra has yielded in fact a very fragmentary replica of the peplophoros of Candia–Ludovisi type and a headless copy of the peplophoros of Copenhagen type, a replica in reverse of the latter. The hypothesis of a gallery of opera nobilia would seem to be confirmed by the exceptional find of a female head which shows clear affinities with the famous Palagi head, commonly interpreted as a replica of the ‘Athena Lemnia’ of Pheidias. The exemplar from Pozzuoli hardly matches the Palagi head in its faithful dependence on the bronze model so clearly evoked. But it is not without sculptural qualities of its own and seems almost to grow out of the marble thanks to the skill of a sculptor of the Augustan period. More difficult to insert in the select group of Greek masterpieces is an imposing female figure, which is clearly dependent on models of the severe style. The elaborate rendering of the dress and the imposing physique contrast with the delicate elongated young face, framed by two bands of waving hair which are gathered at the nape of the neck by a tripartite ribbon. The Pozzuoli statue, in which we can perhaps recognize a Kore–Persephone, is distinguished by its unusual, almost exceptional bodily structure on which is placed a head distinctive in the bold volume of its gathered and raised hair; we are perhaps in the presence of a creation of classicizing type, the work of an atelier active in the early imperial period and at the service of high–level patrons. Another statue portraying a female figure, perhaps an Aphrodite, caught in the act of suddenly turning round while majestically advancing, is attributable to the Syon House–Munich type. It is an excellent replica of a masterpiece of the second half of the fifth century BC. Its whole body suggests movement: by the retraction of the right leg, by the folds of the chiton ruffled below the breast, by the torsion of the head; the left arm, modelled separately, must have been stretched forward. To the cycle of ideal statues of recent acquisition would also seem to belong, in size and stylistic characteristics, two previous finds: a male torso of athletic type in pentelic marble, formerly interpreted as an Apollo, and a fragment of a female statue of the Hera Borghese type.
The architectural materials recovered are still being studied. But they suggest that one or more buildings were situated adjacent to the temple, and that the sculptural cycles may have been situated inside them. It should also be recalled that portraits and fragmentary sculptures of iconic type, also datable to the early Julio–Claudian period, have also been recovered from the Rione Terra. All these materials attest to a plurality of interventions and provide an extremely lively and complex picture of this zone of the ancient Puteoli which must have represented the centre of the civic, political and religious life of Pozzuoli throughout the Julio–Claudian period.
