Note 124 — Chapter III

The reference probably is to the portion of the ancient Basilica Aemilia, which in Vasari’s time still stood erect where recent excavations have revealed the plan and part of the architectural members of this famous structure. We must bear in mind that what Vasari and his contemporaries called the ‘Forum Boarium’ was not the part between the Capitol and the Palatine, near the ‘Bocca della Verità’ which was the ancient Cattle Market and now has resumed its antique name, but the Forum proper, which used even in the memory of those now living to be called ‘Campo Vaccino.’ It seems to have derived the name ‘Forum Boarium’ from this very fragment of the Basilica Aemilia which Vasari has in his mind in this passage. The fragment was figured by Giuliano da San Gallo in a drawing in the Barberini Library, which is reproduced in Monumenti dell’ Istituto, XII, T. 11, 12, and from this, by the kind permission of the Imperial German Archaeological Institute, has been taken Fig. 6. The destruction of this most interesting fragment, which stood over against the arch of Septimius Severus, is one of the many almost inconceivable acts of vandalism of which the men of the later Renaissance period were guilty. The richness of which Vasari speaks can be seen in the illustration.