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Baths of Trajan

Trajan's Baths (c.105 CE) were the fourth monumental bathing facility provided by emperors to Rome's citizens, rich and poor (after the Baths of Agrippa, Nero, and Titus). Roughly 500 meters across, with huge vaults of concrete decorated with imported marbles and mosaics, the Baths of Trajan exemplify the Romans' ability to create huge buildings to meet the physical and ideological needs of her enormous population. Agrippa, Nero, and Titus had built large public baths, but the Baths of Trajan were a real advance in scale, especially in the surrounding grounds.

The baths Titus and Trajan are mentioned together by the Ancients, and were in reality united, those of Titus having been enlarged by Trajan and joined to his own. Baths of Trajan, partly on the same site, and adjoining those of Titus, were commenced by Domitian and finished by Trajan ; they were more extensive than those of Titus, and extended towards the church of S. Pietro in Vincoli, which they almost touched. They appear, from an inscription, to have been embellished by Julius Felix Campanianus, prefect of Rome. These are the baths of which Vasari mentions the circumstance, in the Life of Giovanni da Udine, of excavations being made near S. Pietro, and the discovery of the pictures and stuccoes, which so much pleased both Giovanni and Raphael that they imitated them in the arabesques of the Vatican. Palladio made a plan of these baths. The plan of the baths of Trajan resembles very much those of Diocletian: it occupies an area of about 1100 feet by 800.

One of the great hemicycles near the northern angle still remains. On the shorter sides, near the eastern and southern angles, are the remains of two hemicycles with niches for statues. The long side opposite the Colosseum contains in the centre the remains of a great semicircular theatre. There are few, and those few are unintelligible, remains of the internal part of the building. Part of the golden house of Nero remains under the baths of Trajan. In the passages and chambers of this house there are still some elegant arabesque decorations, the colors of which in many parts are still very vivid.

The suggestion that possibly these ruins were not the Baths of Titus, but in reality those of Trajan, dates back some little time, but to-day, thanks to the studies of M. Lanciani, this doubt has been removed by the examination of a drawing of Palladio's and in consequence of excavations which have been undertaken between the Flavian Amphitheatre and the Esquiline. So that now we are able absolutely to assert that the ruins hitherto called the Baths of Titus are, in reality, the Baths of Trajan, which in the regional catalogues and inscriptions are named separately.

Nevertheless, even the Baths of Trajan did not lack that air of sumptuosity which was proper to Roman architecture. On the contrary, among the monuments of Home there did not exist many which could compare with these baths.

The word "grottesche" has its etymology in "grotle" or "grotta," that is to say, places dug out, caves, or caverns, and to explain the real meaning we must go back, not to the time of Titus or Trajan, but only to the time of the Renaissance in the sixteenth century. At this time the Baths of Trajan were accessible, and Raphael, with his pupils, just then on the point of decorating the celebrated loggie of the Vatican, went there to study these decoration*, painted in the fantastic taste which smacks much of that Hellenistic art improperly called Pompeian. It is Vasari, the Plutarch of Italian artists, who tells us of these repeated visits to the Baths, which, because of their antiquity, had become subterranean structures like caves, or caverns, or, finally, grolte. Hence the name "grottesche" is given to the decorations which clothe the walls and the vaults of the so-called Baths of Titus, called also " Raphaelesque decoration," which has the same meaning.

The story also goes that Raphael and his pupils, in order that no one might know of their plagiarism, caused these particular portions of the ruins to be filled up - a tale which is wholly unlikely, both because of its contrast with the known archaeological spirit of Raphael and because history does not confirm it. As a matter of fact, the records exist that these ruins were accessible up to the beginning of the eighteenth century, and it was only at this time that they were made inaccessible because of having become the resort of brigands, who in them found a fairly secure retreat. History recounts that in 1776 Ludovic Mirri uncovered them and explored a portion of them; but it was only in 1813, during the French domination, that they were uncovered to almost the extent which they are at present. The writers on the Cinquecento, on the other hand, assert that the decorations of the so-called Baths of Titus excited the curiosity of everybody in Rome, and this, too, shows the unlikeliness of the story that the ruins were filled up in the time of Raphael.