ANTIQUARIANS AND DIGGERS

DURING THE COURSE OF the fifteenth century, the first humanists tried to relate ancient buildings with literary sources. Yet, the identification of the complex of SS. Cosma e Damiano became confused and controversial. At the beginning of the century, the testimony of the Anonimo Magliabechiano – “ecclesia Sancti Cosmae et Damiani, quae fuit aerarium imperatoris, et primo templum Latonae unde denominatur arcus Latonae, et non Latronae, ut vulgariter dicitur” – was still influenced by the medieval Mirabilia. Later there was general agreement that the complex was either the Temple or the Palace of Romulus. In the Middle Ages, the Basilica of Maxentius had been called the Templum Romuli, replacing an earlier identification with the Templum Urbis Romae (in fact, the Temple of Venus and Rome), but during the course of the fifteenth century, the name Templum Romuli shifted to the Basilica of SS. Cosma e Damiano and, eventually, to the rotunda alone.

Around 1444–1446, Flavio Biondo claimed that Honorius I (625–638) restored the roof of Old St Peter's with bronze tiles removed from the Temple of Romulus, which Biondo identified with the Basilica of SS. Cosma e Damiano: “Et Honorius primus omnem ipsam basilicam tegulis aeneis, quarum magna pars etiam extat, cooperuit, quas tegulas ex Romuli templo, in quod partim mutata, partim aedificata est Sanctorum Cosmae et Damiani ecclesia, imperatoris Phocae consensu accepit.” He proposed the same identification in another passage: “templum Romuli sive Sanctorum Cosmae et Damiani, in illo extructam ecclesiam.” A few years later (in 1448), Poggio Bracciolini confirmed the identification of the whole basilica with the Temple of Romulus in his Historiae de varietate fortunae: “Erat pone, Capitolium versus, Romuli templum, cuius pars muri vetustissima quadrato lapide nunc quoque mirandam speciem sui praebat, hodie Cosmae et Damiano consecratum.” Instead, John Capgrave, who visited the basilica around 1447–1452 and was struck by the inscription of Pope Felix IV below the apse mosaics, still mentioned the identification of the Palace of Romulus with the Basilica of Maxentius, although he believed that the latter was the Temple of Peace (“There is also a palace that is called the palace of Romulus, and I absolutely believe that it is the Temple of Peace”); indeed, in his view the Basilica of SS.