English, italian and french subtitles available. Les sous-titres sont disponibles en français, en italien et en anglais.
Je vous propose une promenade dans l’une des sections des Musées capitolins à Rome. Depuis 1997, une partie des objets d’art antique de la collection de la ville de Rome est présentée dans une ancienne centrale électrique. Ainsi s’établit un dialogue subtil et mystérieux entre le marbre antique et l’acier moderne.
00:02:40 1. La centrale
00:03:00 • Rome et l’électricité
00:08:40 • Montemartini et Franco Tosi
00:10:30 • Un cas : le train du pape Pie IX
00:16:40 2. La collection
00:19:00 • Le temple d’Apollo Sosianus
00:30:00 • Les “horti” Liciniani, Sallustiani et Variani
00:44:10 • Les portraits du Ier siècle av.JC.
00:49:00 3. La centrale Montemartini, un lieu vraiment original
00:49:25 • Reconversion ou mutation ?
00:57:35 • Le dialogue en noir et blanc
Géraud Buffa, La reconversion de la centrale Montemartini dans le quartier d’Ostiense à Rome, 2015 (https://doi.org/10.4000/insitu.11782)
Today I am taking you to the Montemartini power plant, that is to say I am taking you to visit a power plant: the Montemartini power plant is a power plant which produced electricity, it was located in the south of the agglomeration of Rome in the Ostiense district , that is to say along the way, along the road which since Antiquity leads from Rome to Ostia. It is therefore a district which was completely transformed at the end of the 19th century, as I will explain to you, and transformed again at the end of the 20th century. The Montemartini power station was a power station, today it is a museum. Converting a power station into a museum is not something that is really rare, it is actually quite common and there are various forms of conversion. We can, for example, only convert the space and therefore eliminate everything that was in the space in question, completely demolish the buildings and do something else: for example the tile from pit 9 in Lens which became the museum of Louvre-Lens. It’s the same place but it’s not at all the same, if I may say so. Or we can preserve the buildings but not the place: for example the Baltard pavilions of the Halles de Paris, which were demolished except for two of them which were dismantled and reassembled, one in Nogent-sur-Marne and for the other in Yokohama, Japan. So the place has not been preserved but a little bit of the buildings. Or we can keep the building and the place but completely forget the function, completely forget the use we could have of it: when we visit the Musée d’Orsay in Paris for example, it is not absolutely obvious that the We are walking through a train station. Or when we visit the Swimming Pool Museum in Roubaix, we know that in the past we used to swim in the pool but today it is no longer possible to swim in the pool; there is no more water… finally a blade of water but there is no depth. At the Montemartini power plant, we kept everything. We preserved the place, we preserved the buildings, we also preserved the machines. Of course we no longer produce electricity but we could have the impression, without too much effort, that it would take very little for these machines to start up again and for us to be able to regain movement , heat, the noise that once reigned here. In short, visiting the Montemartini power station museum is undoubtedly visiting a museum but it is also visiting a factory. And so we’re going to start with the factory, that is to say the power plant itself. This power station exists essentially because, at the end of the 19th century, the need for electricity arose in Rome as it arose elsewhere, of course, but it arose in the City. And that is basically a real problem. The city of Rome is a very old city, everyone knows that, Rome’s past is particularly brilliant but Rome has never been an industrial city. It never had an important industrial function either in Antiquity (but Antiquity is too far away for this to concern us directly) or in a more recent period. As much as we could say that in Florence for example there was a textile industry in the 14th century, we cannot say the same thing for Rome. Rome became a city with the popes, it became the capital of Catholic Christianity, it developed administrative functions. These administrative functions continued when it became the capital of the unified Italian state. So the question arises at the end of the 19th century, after unification, when Rome is no longer the capital of Catholic Christianity (the Vatican is, Rome is a suburb of the capital of Catholic Christianity) the question arises whether or not industrial activities should be developed in Rome. This is a question that arises for the government. The government of Francesco Crispi, for example, around 1890, addressed these questions. And the answer given is no… we must not develop industrial activities in Rome because that would risk developing, resulting in the appearance of a new category of the population, a working category. And at the end of the 19th century, the development of the working world could, in the eyes of some, pose a problem. “Working classes, dangerous classes” was said at the time and this is how the Italian government saw the city of Rome at the end of the 19th century. So we are not going to develop the industrial function, we will even strive to thwart it, to prevent it. However, we need productive economic activity, we need for example to feed ourselves: there will therefore be slaughterhouses, we have to house the slaughterhouses somewhere. We need to store food, we will also have to find space to store this food. You should know that at the end of the 19th century, between 1871 and 1914, the population of the city of Rome doubled. There are needs that appear which justify the creation, along the Ostiense road so south of Rome towards Ostia, the appearance of productive activities, the appearance of industrial activities… not a large industry but when even industrial activity. And so we need electricity: we need electricity for motors, we need more and more electricity for lighting. There is therefore a factory which appears, which will also produce electricity, it is a gas factory which is built, which is developed by a private company, the Anglo-Roman Company, which continued to work in the 20th century. century and of which there remain, as you see, a few elements, notably the gasometer which measures 90 m high and which can actually be seen from afar in Rome. This is not the factory we are going to talk about. We are going to talk about the factory which is actually next door, which is a factory which was installed… well the work began in 1908 and it was completed in 1912. We can say that this factory is the direct result of the elections municipal elections of 1907: the industrial question in Rome, the question of the industrial vocation of Rome, the question of industrial activities in Rome, it is a question which is at the heart of the municipal electoral campaign of 1907. Both sides diverge on these questions: we can do a political reading, if you want, of the thing, right/left let’s say. So a municipal majority of the "popular bloc" won the elections of 1907 (let’s say the center left) and this municipal majority had in its program the installation not only of a factory which would produce electricity but of a municipal factory . A municipal management of electricity production: this is a first point that must absolutely be remembered, the Montemartini power station from the beginning and until now, it is municipal property, property of the city of Rome. This power plant is named after Giovanni Montemartini who is a member of the municipal council elected in 1907: it is the municipal council which develops the file of the power plant, which brings together the projects, which advances the projects, which finds financing, which is the linchpin, so to speak, of this power plant. It was he who inaugurated it in 1912 with the King of Italy and he died in 1913: so obviously we gave his name to the newly created power station. This is also what explains why during the Mussolini era the power station was renamed precisely to forget this memory of the municipal majority of 1907 which governed the city until the 1914 war in fact. So a power plant which has a particular significance, which is therefore SPQR, which is owned by the city of Rome and which is installed, which begins to work, which begins to produce in 1912. For this it was necessary to find machines, motors ; these engines were purchased from the Franco Tosi firm which has been, since the end of the 19th century, a company which produces machines: steam engines, turbines, engines of all kinds; it is an important firm at the beginning of the 20th century, it is a firm which was important in the 20th century, which still exists – finally its capital structure has necessarily evolved over time but the firm still exists – and it is one of the world leaders in the sector. In this electrical factory, in this power plant, there are from the start, for practical reasons initially, there are from the start two types of motors, two types of manufacturing if we can say: there are boilers and steam turbines and on the other hand there are engines, let’s say diesel engines, heavy fuel oil engines. This can be explained in various ways. Franco Tosi took time to deliver the machines we asked for and so he had to adapt. But then we, I would say, rationalized this situation, we understood that steam engines could produce the bulk of electricity production and that diesel engines were better able to intervene quickly to cover peaks in consumption. So until the end, there was this double power supply, you could say, this double technique in use in the Montemartini power plant. This power plant therefore worked, produced electricity, produced more and more electricity because the needs increased; we modernized the techniques; the power station was enlarged; we increased the number of machines. This power station became one of the highlights of industrial activity in Rome during the 20th century. When you walk through the Montemartini power station, you come across Pope Pius IX’s train. So in my presentation I wondered where I was going to talk about Pope Pius IX’s train, I think it’s in this location… By chance we enter a room and we find Pope Pius IX’s train. Pope Pius IX was elected in 1846, he is the record holder for pontifical longevity: he is a completely important character – I mean of course as a pope – but among the popes, he is an important character in the nineteenth century. He was elected at a time, in 1846, when the question of railways was at the forefront, so to speak. Everyone is interested in the development of railways: in England, in France of course. Cavour, one of the pillars of Italian unity, published a famous article in 1846 on the railways in Italy. That is to say the role of the railways in Italy, the role of the railways in the future economic development of Italy, this is the theme that Cavour deals with. It is quite striking to note – we are in 1846, well before unity – that Cavour reasons on the scale of Italy and not on the scale of the Kingdom of Sardinia. But Pope Pius IX is not going to think on the scale of the Kingdom of Italy, which is not yet unified of course. He will reason on the scale of the Papal States. And so he awarded concessions to companies that were going to build railway lines to connect the different cities of the Papal States to Rome, mainly towards the south and towards the north. There are therefore two large railway companies which are formed, which build the infrastructure and on this infrastructure, on the rails therefore, we will make the cars circulate. What we see there are the cars that were used by Pope Pius IX from 1859. Pius IX traveled the Papal States with this train, with these cars and we see him there arriving at the station of Velletri therefore to the south of Rome in 1863. This installation, this special Pope train is very well designed: there are essentially three main cars which meet the needs that the Pope may have while traveling in the Papal States. For example, we have a first car, which is the loggia of blessings, which is equipped to allow the pope to appear in public and to address the crowds and to give his blessing. This car is perfectly organized, it is decorated, you see, with a balustrade, there are the arms of the Pope which are installed on the top of this loggia. All being in gilded copper. On the other hand, here is the second car; we say Throne Room; it is the car where there is actually the papal throne but it is the car where there is also an area where the pope can stand when he has no particular activity, so a little bit out of sight, a little private area. And then there is on the other hand a chapel car which is entirely covered with a material which is in fact silver-plated copper, made by Christofle in Paris. And see this car is carefully decorated with statues that evoke theological virtues. We find the monogram of the pope “pius pontifex” number 9, therefore Pope Pius IX. And then we find a whole series of decorations outside and inside, there are paintings which have been installed, painted canvases which have been stuck on the ceiling (we call them mounted canvases) which have therefore been installed and which evoke both the message of the Church and which also evoke the pontifical dignity. This train was used by Pope Pius IX in the 1860s, from 1859 until 1870… Because in 1870 obviously… it was the achievement of Italian unity, it was September 20 is the entry of the Pemontese into Rome via Porta Pia. And so the pope chooses to retreat to the Vatican from which he will never leave and the train therefore ceases to have any use. Pope Pius IX did not leave the Vatican again until the end of his reign in 1878. And his successors did not leave the Vatican either after being elected. The Pope no longer uses the train in question. The train is first put at Civita Vecchia, it is then put at Termini station. It was the Italian state which used it, which captured it, which preserved it. I say "used"… that’s a mistake, the train is not used but the train is preserved, stored in Termini station. In the 1930s the Italian state decided to give ownership of the train to the city of Rome: the train became a municipal train, so to speak. And therefore we will exhibit it at the Museum of the City of Rome, at the Historical Museum of the City of Rome, at the Palazzo Braschi. And then when the Montemartini power station was established, that’s where the train was dropped off… the train of Pope Pius IX. The power station is municipal property and the train is municipal property, so the train naturally finds shelter in the Montemartini power station while there is no connection between the train and the production of electricity and no connection between the train and the ancient works that are exhibited in the Montemartini center… it is truly a special case. So not only are there machines and even trains in the Montemartini power station, but there is also a collection of works of art, which are presented in the Montemartini power station. It should be understood that the Montemartini power station is a section of the Capitoline museums: the Capitoline museums are the museums of the city of Rome. They are very old: their origin can be traced back to the 15th century; they are organized as museums from the 18th century on Capitol Hill. And so for centuries ancient works, ancient masterpieces have been presented in the Capitoline museums: consequently all these famous works which for centuries have been presented on the Capitol… well, they will be works that we will not present in the Montemartini center since they are already presented at the Capitole. But on the other hand, in Rome, we regularly discover ancient objects by chance or through excavations. There is therefore, if I may say so, a continuous supply of municipal museums with antique objects, sometimes important objects, important works; and over time obviously all this represents a considerable mass; and so we need space to present these findings. On the Capitol, there is no longer any war for space available. We are therefore going to present antique objects at the Montemartini center , therefore very old, but which have not necessarily been known for centuries: the objects known for a long time are on the Capitol. So I chose three examples in fact to explain what the Montemartini power plant is, three examples which basically – especially the first two – have the same meaning. We will see ancient remains of buildings, of places that no longer exist; remains which are sufficiently substantial to be interesting, to be shown, to be seen but not sufficiently important to be reinstalled on site when a building is rebuilt in whole or in part. What we are going to see is not enough, is too fragmentary let’s say, to be presented in situ. As my first example, I chose the temple of Apollo Sosianus. The temple of Apollo Sosianus is a temple which was located on the Champ de Mars, in the southern part of the Champ de Mars, near the theater of Marcellus: we are, let’s say, at the foot of the Capitoline hill. This temple of Apollo Sosianus is built in a place where literary tradition tells us that there has long been a temple dedicated to a divinity ensuring well-being, health, able to promise… that’s it… victory , which can be favorable in various ways. So very ancient deity. And when Rome left Latium, when it left Italy, the Romans established a connection between this divinity and the god Apollo, the Greek god Apollo. Apollo is both the oracular god (Apollo Loxias) but also the helpful god (Apollo Epikourios) so we put a link, we have – the technical term is interpretation – we interpreted the Greek god Apollo as being this traditional Roman divinity at the foot of the Capitol. So there was a cult paid to Apollo, there was a temple dedicated to Apollo, Apollo Secourable, Apollo Medicus. Temple which was built, which was transformed several times over time in this part of the Champ de Mars. And it is not surprising, in these conditions, that the parades of the triumphant generals who toured the city before going up to the Capitol, passed in front of the temple of Apollo Medicus, Apollo Sosianus as we will say later. .. since these triumphal processions crossed the Flaminius circus, passed in front of the temple of Bellona (Bellona, it is the goddess of war), passed in front of the bellic column which was there; before going back to the forum. So the temple of Apollo Sosianus is placed in a very precise place, completely historically attested. We were even able to raise columns – this is the process of anastylosis – to raise columns recently on the temple site. You therefore have three columns which were raised next to this building which is the theater of Marcellus: it is a theater which: like many theaters or amphitheaters, had been transformed into a residential area in the Middle Ages and in the case precise of the theater of Marcellus, the residential area continues to exist… at least there are buildings which have not been eliminated for the moment. So the temple of Apollo Sosianus may be these three columns which have been restored. So it obviously remains to explain what this name of Sosianus is that is given to him: the divinity is Apollo Secourable, Apollo Medicus… Sosianus, this evokes a character called Caius Sosius who participated to the civil wars after the death of Caesar on the side of Mark Antony. Sosius is one of the leaders of Mark Antony’s fleet during the battle of Actium: therefore he took the side in these civil wars for Antony against Augustus. As a result, in 31 after the battle of Actium, his situation is extremely fragile, extremely dangerous: he is very likely to be eliminated – after all these are civil wars – he is very likely to be eliminated and the idea has just taken charge of the reconstruction of a temple to praise Augustus, to praise Octavian who became Augustus in 27 BC. The temple of Apollo Sosianus, a temple rebuilt by Sosius, this temple of Apollo Sosianus will therefore show a whole series of elements which are all symbols of the glory and influence of Augustus. This can be seen very well through the few elements which are presented at the Montemartini power station: then obviously not the three columns which are on the site but the rest… The rest, that is to say for example the room where presented the pediment of the temple of Apollo Sosianus – the machines have been preserved! – then this pediment of the temple of Apollo Sosianus, this is what remains of it; here it is presented at the Montemartini plant. Of course these are vestiges, not shapeless but still very degraded, which we would not show in the beautiful galleries of the Capitoline museums on Capitol Hill but which are nevertheless of interest when we look at them, when we put them in context: this is the vocation of the Montemartini power plant. Here for example is an interpretive drawing which allows us to understand what this pediment is: it is a pediment which depicts episodes of the struggle between the Greeks and the Amazons, therefore the Greeks and the Amazons who fight to obtain the trophy: it is a question of recovering… it is one of the labors of Heracles which is mentioned here, it is the 9th of the labors of Heracles therefore; the 9th of these works which were imposed by the king of Mycenae Eurystheus. The idea is to recover the belt worn by the queen of the Amazons in order to give it to Eurystheus’ daughter . The expedition led by Heracles leaves for the country of the Amazons and they fight. So who is fighting? We see under the presidency of Athena who protects the Greeks, here we see Theseus fighting an amazon and we see there Heracles fighting another amazon; This is what we see on the interpretation drawing; now on the pediment itself what do we see? Here we see Athena presiding and protecting the Greeks, here we see Theseus fighting an Amazon and here we see a victory, a Nike, who is preparing to place the crown of victory on Theseus’ head . Another side of the pediment shows us the presidency of Athena, shows us Heracles, shows us an Amazon: here you have Athena, what remains of the Amazon and what remains of Heracles. So a very explicit fronton, which clearly shows us what we call in technical terms an amazonomachy, therefore a fight against the Amazons and it is therefore one of the works of Heracles. I say Heracles because we now understand that these sculptures are in fact Greek originals which date from the middle of the 5th century BC, which were made – since Athena is at the center of the composition – which were made by Athenian artists, in any case evolving in an Athenian universe: there is Athena, there is Theseus, the founding hero, one of the founding heroes of Athens. So an Athenian universe and specialists today estimate that this pediment probably was to decorate the temple of Apollo Daphnephorus in Eretria, in Euboea, and that it was dismantled and reassembled in Rome to adorn the temple of Apollo Sosianus. Consequently a temple to the glory of Augustus and a temple displaying on its pediment Greek originals from the 5th century BC. Inside this temple… obviously the temple is very much in ruins, you have seen it, but finally we have enough elements to be able to reconstruct the interior of the temple, to show that there was a double colonnade superimposed and show that there is a frieze here, a sculpted frieze of which an important part has been preserved. Here is the sculpted frieze, the architrave frieze of the temple of Apollo Sosianus which shows us very understandable, very clearly visible scenes of sacrifice: we see bulls being led to sacrifice, there are three bulls being led to sacrifice, we sees the sacrifice being prepared, music is played to avoid extraneous noise. And then we see here on a display – we call it in technical terms a ferculum – we see a set of elements, trophies, shields, a set of elements evoking the captives. So the triumph that will be achieved is not a triumph because there are three bulls, it is three triumphs, three sacrifices which are celebrated in honor of Mars at the end of the victory of August. This most likely evokes the three triumphs that Augustus celebrated in 29 BC after the Battle of Actium: triumph over the barbarians on the first day, triumph over Mark Antony and Cleopatra on the 2nd day, and triumph over Egypt the 3rd day. That inaugurates, so to speak, the reign of Augustus and the temple of Apollo Sosianus very well evokes this event, this aspect. So the temple is in ruins, very much in ruins, it is far too much in ruins for us to imagine rebuilding it in one way or another, but in the end there remain sufficiently important elements for us to be able to raise three columns on the site of the temple itself and so that, at the Montemartini plant, sufficient elements are shown that allow us to have an idea of what the temple looked like, even inside the "cella" as they say, inside the temple. There are elements of the frieze, there are also elements of these small aedicules which were built inside, these small niches which had been made inside and under these niches there must have probably been works of art. art, statues which were deposited. Everything has completely disappeared but finally we can consider that the temple of Apollo Sosianus, although very mutilated, is still completely understandable today thanks to the staging that we were able to make of it at the Montemartini power station. Second example of what is presented at the Montemartini plant, the “Horti”. Horti is a Latin word in the plural, it is the plural of the word “hortus” and the word hortus means garden (this is the word you have in horticulture for example). So the Horti are gardens. That said, we present at the Montemartini plant the gardens, the horti yes… but the word hortus, horti in the plural is reserved in fact to designate a particular moment, a particular stage in the evolution of the residence in Rome of the great families Roman patricians. Until the first century BC, the established family, the patrician family showed its power in its house, in its “domus”, its patriarchal domus, its traditional domus; but from the 1st century BC, we will add to the domus in the city, we will add outside the city, on the outskirts of the city, we will therefore add a hortus, that is to say say a large property in which there will be a sumptuous residence, a “villa” and in which there will also be a park, a wooded garden, a decorated garden. And so we go, in these gardens, in these horti, we will reconstitute the universe which could reign in the countryside, in the “villae” in the countryside… simply in the city, around the city. Over time, as we see on this map, over time Rome found itself surrounded by a sort of green belt, made up of gardens, made up of horti which have partly been preserved to the present day. The buildings themselves, no; but the wooded area, yes in part. There are, as you well know, in Rome a certain number of parks, which we call "villas", the Villa Borghese for example and these are largely gardens of Antiquity which have been preserved over time by ecclesiastical properties obviously and which then became these large green areas which contribute greatly to the charm of the city of Rome. I took three examples of horti as we can see them at the Montemartini power plant obviously. We will also see the horti mentioned in other Roman museums, notably on the Capitoline Hill: for everything that is a work, a masterpiece, a beautiful statue, it is rather on the Capitol that they have been presented for centuries. At the Montemartini power station, we tried to evoke the whole. So these horti that we are going to talk about, I chose to show three of them: these horti are presented, these remains of the gardens are presented, in the boiler room of the Montemartini power station. So I chose to present three of them and the first is the gardens of Sallust, “horti sallustiani”… sorry the gardens of Licinius, “horti Liciniani” which will therefore occupy us first of all. These Liciniani horti are located in the south-eastern part of the city of Rome: we can point out the area on a simplified map; we are located between the Porta Maggiore here and Termini station. This is where there are, this is where the Liciniani horti, the Liciniani gardens, once extended. There are some remains archaeological site that we can see, notably this area which in Rome is called temple of Minerva Medica but which in fact is not a temple of Minerva: it is a nymphaeum which was found preserved and which appeared in the Liciniani horti. What exactly did we keep? So there aren’t really any preserved buildings… What exactly have we preserved? Some statues which are shown on the Capitol and specifically, at the Montemartini power station, mosaics, a surface of quite remarkable mosaics, more than 90 square meters of mosaics showing hunting scenes. Very lively, very animated hunting scenes, very colorful too; hunting scenes featuring animals that are being chased, animals that are chasing hunters who are trying to catch the animals and obviously with relative success… There we are still trying to show the success that is. that is to say the captured animals, possibly put in cages. We also seek to show the valor of the hunters, in particular the one who is on a horse and who is apparently the master of the place, finally a very important character who is therefore represented in glory in some way on this hunting scene. So obviously this hunting scene reminds us a lot of the mosaics of Piazza Armerina with two differences: in Piazza Armerina, the covered surface is much larger but here still 90 m²… and then on the other hand in Piazza Armerina, the mosaics date from the beginning of the 4th century, that is to say roughly 300 AD; here the mosaics date from the beginning of the 5th century, roughly 400 AD. So they are less old but they evoke quite well the splendor of these patrician residences outside – or close to outside – the City, on the outskirts of the City which have been developed since the 1st century BC. With one clarification, it is that, initially, these were private properties but over time these private properties became state properties, that is to say imperial properties, the private owners having were led to bequeath, to give their property to the emperor… more or less willingly one can assume. For example the horti Liciniani probably resulted from a confiscation but in any case, in certain cases, there was actually a gift, a bequest from the owner to the emperor. This is the case for the second example that I will take now, the horti Sallustiani, therefore the gardens of Sallust, which are located on the slopes of the Pincio hill, between the Pincio and the Quirinal. This is where the horti Sallustiani were located, the gardens of Sallust of which there are still a few traces in the landscape, we can see some elements, some fragments of the foundation of the buildings. What are these gardens of Sallust? Well these are gardens that were first established by Julius Caesar probably but ended up being the property of the historian Sallust and then the nephew of the historian Sallust, who had the same name Sallust. And this Sallust the nephew, Sallust the Younger so to speak, is a character from the court of the Emperor Augustus a bit like Caius Sosius… Initially, he is a political opponent during the civil wars but he ends up rallying around Augustus and therefore he becomes a figure of the Augustan court to the point that he will organize the residence in the gardens a little to the glory of Augustus as did Caius Sosius. We will find in these Sallustiani gardens, in these horti Sallustiani, we will find a residence decorated with statues, decorated with trophies like this one for example: a trophy evoking the military glory of Augustus. And buildings decorated with pediments decorated with capitals: you have some vestiges of this decoration there, acanthus leaves, foliage , mythological animals, a sphinx here. The sphinx is the heraldic emblem so to speak of the Emperor Augustus, the seal of the Emperor Augustus included a sphinx: putting sphinxes on the decoration of the gardens is an act of allegiance to the Emperor Augustus. And quite naturally Sallust the Younger bequeaths his gardens to the emperor: then he does not bequeath his gardens directly to the emperor Augustus who died in 14 AD, he dies in 21 AD; It was to Emperor Tiberius that the gardens of Sallust, the horti Sallustiani, were bequeathed. There will therefore be in the imperial domain a residence of very great prestige, a residence sumptuously decorated in the Augustan style, on the slopes of the Pincio hill, on several terraces, several floors so to speak, a pleasant residence that the emperors, with Tiberius and after Tiberius, will not hesitate to live a little. The main residence is located, after Domitian, on the Palatine but there it will be, so to speak, the secondary residence inside the City, finally on the outskirts of the City. We know that over time the emperors resided quite frequently in the residence of the horti Sallustiani: we know that this is where Emperor Nerva died, for example. This is an important point in understanding the curial mechanism, the mechanism of the court of the Roman emperors. It’s not just the residence on the Palatine, there are also the horti Sallustiani of which not much remains but which we can evoke a little at the Montemartini power plant while obviously admiring the finesse of the sculptures, the finesse of the sphinx, emblem of the Emperor Augustus. Third and final example of horti, the “horti Variani” which are located not very far from the horti Liciniani, therefore to the south-east of the City. these horti Variani, I took a plan from Google Maps to show a little bit where they are: we are located further south than the Liciniani gardens, we are located near the Aurelian wall. In fact the Aurelian wall was established on the horti Variani, it divided them in two in a way, that is to say that some of the buildings of these gardens were annexed to constitute the wall of Aurélien: we know that this wall integrated several buildings, the Major Gate for example is part of the Aurélien wall in the same way. What was integrated into the Aurelian wall belonging to the horti Variani was the amphitheater that had been established there, a small amphitheater but an amphitheater nonetheless. There was also a circus in this imperial residence which was established at the time of Septimius Severus, therefore the beginning of the 3rd century AD, and which was transformed over time, transformed in particular at the time of the Emperor Elagabal, who reigned at the beginning of the 3rd century and whose main name was Varius. So these gardens which could have been called the gardens of Septimius Severus, we called them the gardens of Varius, horti Variani. Elagabalus was a great great fan of chariot racing, a great fan of amphitheater shows and so he developed these facilities that Septimius Severus had already started to install, he developed the amphitheater, he developed the circus. Elagabal personally participated in the chariot races in the circus of this area. So we see that the imperial residence from the 3rd century included a sumptuous residence but also an amphitheater and a circus: this is what we still see today at the residence of Maxentius, the villa of Maxentius, along the via Appia south of Rome. So what are we being shown of the horti Variani at the Montemartini power plant? Well not much… because it was all very ruined: we didn’t find any big statues that could be presented on the Capitol, we didn’t find much but still… Some statues were spotted and in particular this one which is a marble statue from Paros which shows us… there… what it is. It’s difficult to say… It’s a female face, it’s a woman to whom the artist has given a dreamy character, it’s a character who is, one could say, actually sketched for this which concerns the body. This statue is interpreted today as being a muse, perhaps the muse Polymnia. Polymnia being the muse of rhetoric. Well, without any particular guarantee because, as you see, there are no tools, no emblems which are characteristic of the muse. So it’s a hypothesis, perhaps Polymnia… In any case we know that there are statues of Greek muses which had been made by a sculptor named Poliskos of Rhodes in the 2nd century BC: statues of muses who had been brought to Rome; We know that… and perhaps it is one of these statues which is now presented at the Montemartini power station. Especially since it’s made of Paros marble… so that could be a clue. This statue is therefore not precisely identifiable but we can propose a hypothetical identification. In any case, it is a very beautiful piece of sculpture which is sumptuously displayed in the boiler room of the Montemartini power station in Rome. this was our second example of the remains presented at the central Montemartini, the gardens after the temple of Apollo Sosianus. The third example will be a portrait gallery. Portraits from the 1st century BC which are collected at the Montemartini central station: these are not the great masterpieces which are presented on the Capitol Hill but they are interesting portraits, which have been classified, which have been organized to bring out two characteristic features of Roman statuary from the 1st century BC : on the one hand realism and on the other hand, one could say, the ideological idealization which manifested itself little by little in Roman sculpture. As for the realistic side of things, here are some examples. For example this tombstone, this funerary relief of three brothers: three brothers whose sculptors have strived to offer individualized, different faces. Are these portraits? We don’t know, we don’t have the originals so it’s difficult to judge the resemblance. It is likely that an effort had been made in this direction. It’s difficult to say because to sculpt a portrait, or finally a bust, it takes time and if the interested parties have not taken the precaution of having their portrait sculpted in advance, before their death, it is difficult to do at the time and if you have taken the precaution of having the portrait sculpted in advance, with the passage of time you get older and you end up no longer really resembling your portrait. So portrait… it’s a somewhat vague notion but in any case certainly individualization and realism of the representation. Here is another example: the spouses of via Statilia are represented here in full length, and not simply in bust, with – therefore the same remark – with a finesse of the sculpture and very great attention paid to the representation of the physiognomy and to the deep personality of this man and this woman about whom we know absolutely nothing because there is no inscription. And then the second current in Roman statuary, exploitation, one could say ideological: here for example is a known sculpture which is called… we can say in Italian “Togato Barberini”; in French we hesitate, we don’t really know what to name this statue since we don’t have the word "togato" in French… Finally it shows us a patrician in a toga carrying in his hands the wax busts of his ancestors, of his father in the left hand and his grandfather in the right hand. So three portraits in fact which were represented on the same statue, three portraits for which the sculptor, the artist endeavored to personify, to improve, to give a vision as realistic as possible obviously. Except that he dealt with the character but not with his father or his grandfather, so how can he remember the facial features? The Roman patricians kept the busts of their ancestors and exhibited them in their tablinum: it is part of the way of life and the lifestyle of the Roman patricians. We see on the “imagines”, on the busts of these ancestors that we were keen to give a message: it is the gravity, it is the very severity of these characters who are the Roman citizens, who have founded the glory of Rome over time. This is actually what this very famous statue which is presented at the Montemartini power station shows us. There are other portraits, for example this one, which I chose to finish. It is the portrait of the emperor Augustus but Augustus around 20 BC therefore at the beginning of the reign; a relatively young Augustus who already presents the characteristic physiognomy which will be his throughout his official portraits, in particular the design of the curls of hair. We can consider that the official portrait of the Emperor Augustus is frozen in this image of a 30-35 year old character that Augustus will preserve over time… well that the official portraits of Augustus will preserve over time. over time, the emperor dying at the age of 77 but the portraits show a thirty-year-old… So here is presented the collection of the Montemartini power plant, of the Montemartini power plant museum: we talked about the power plant, we talked about the collection and now we must try to show the originality of this Montemartini powerhouse. It’s a double originality, one could say. On the one hand and this is not very original, the Montemartini power plant is an industrial installation which has been reconverted, which has changed activity, which has changed attribution and therefore we must talk a little about this reconversion which was operated at the end of the 20th century. The power station was established in 1912, it began operating in 1912 and it was closed in 1968 and after 1968 it was abandoned. We must basically imagine this power station which was buzzing with activity, which was noisy with activity, we must represent it as being dead, silent, immobile for decades after 1968. So the question arises of knowing what what we can do; the question has arisen in many industrial regions: what can be done with industrial installations that are now abandoned? what can we do with it? For example, we can get rid of the machines and save, if possible, the buildings if they are of architectural interest: it is clear that this building on the left has an architectural interest that the buildings on the right do not have. … it’s clear… so if we reconvert the factory, what are we going to do? Do we keep the building if it deserves it? But in the building, there are machines: are we going to keep the machines? Or will we demolish the buildings or transform them into offices? There are questions that need to be asked and answers that need to be found. The response which is provided, initially, by the municipal electricity production authority in Rome (there is a company which has this function), is to establish in fact an electricity museum: make the power station a museum of electricity and therefore not demolish, or demolish very little, not eliminate the machines or at least not all of them and that’s it… establish this project. So a project we could say didactic, a project consisting of showing the history of techniques, of showing an industrial history. This is where we are heading towards 1980-1990 at slow speed… without this museum of techniques having a real existence; in any case without it having any real influence, without it being really known. In any case we have preserved the buildings, most of them; there is space and the museographic activities of the electricity museum are still extremely underdeveloped. And in 1995, on Capitol Hill – therefore no connection with the Montemartini power plant at this stage – on Capitol Hill, work was undertaken. We are undertaking work which will lead to the metamorphosis of the Capitoline museums, which you certainly know well, in particular the use of the underground gallery which joins the palace of the Conservators to the Palais Neuf and which is today the lapidary gallery, which is a quite impressive place. So work is being undertaken; we are going to reorganize the presentation of the collection and therefore we have to move works, we have to put them in reserve works ; we must completely transform into reality the presentation that is made at the Capitoline museums. There are a good thousand statues that will have to be moved: where should they be put? Especially since some of these sculptures are studied by specialists: I presented some examples of sculptures for which hypotheses have been formulated; to hypothesize that the fragments of the pediment of the temple of Apollo Sosianus are in fact Greek originals from the 5th century BC … it takes a lot of reasoning to arrive at this conclusion. So there is work that is carried out by specialists, work that involves perhaps moving the works but not putting them in storage so that they are inaccessible. They must remain accessible so that we can still work on them. And so we’re looking for a place to exhibit these works that are going to be moved, these works that are going to be transported far from Capitol Hill. Furthermore, there are also all these objects which were discovered in the 20th century during excavations or during town planning work in the city of Rome. Think for example of what the construction of the Imperial Forums road or the construction of the Conciliation road to go to Saint-Pierre of the Vatican could have meant: entire neighborhoods were demolished and there are obviously archaeological excavations that have been carried out, there is considerable archaeological material which was accumulated in the 1930s and which was not completely inventoried in fact at the end of the 20th century. So we also need space for all that. And the idea comes from using the space available at the Montemartini power plant while the work is completed on Capitol Hill. So it’s a little bit fortuitous in a way, without any specific intention, that we are going to place some of the sculptures from the Capitoline museums in the buildings of the Montemartini power station. It is understood that the electricity museum has not had a significant influence; therefore there are no definitive decisions that have been taken for the Montemartini power plant; it is understood that the movement of the ancient statues and their presentation at the Montemartini plant is not an end in itself, it is not a definitive project; and all of this is intended to be transformed later. So we did not make any radical choices, we did not make a definitive choice in 1997 when the presentation began at the Montemartini power plant. And the result that is obtained is therefore the juxtaposition between ancient statues and machines… We had not eliminated the machines before 1995-97, we are not eliminating them in 1997. The result is so particular, so original, so impressive; and the exhibition which was presented in 1997, when the collection opened and was shown to the public, this exhibition was so successful, it struck people so much that we decided in 1997 that what was conceived as temporary, as provisional, well will be final. And therefore the Montemartini power station which was municipal property becomes a section of the Capitoline museums which are municipal property. All this obviously must also be related to the Ostiense district, this district in which there were industrial installations, general stores, slaughterhouses, a tobacco factory, a former automobile factory… all of this ruined, all of which has been lying fallow for decades. All this has been reworked, all this has been undertaken and this district of Ostiense, which was abandoned until the 90s, is experiencing a new lease of life today. There is a section of the University of Rome that is housed in several of the buildings; there is a whole series of infrastructures that are developed… and therefore this district of Ostiense becomes a fashionable district. We could say that, at the beginning of the 21st century, the Montemartini power station evolved in accordance with this general evolution of the district; where the district has evolved in accordance with the evolution of the Montemartini power station. This of course leads us to return to what we should think of this idea a priori strange to place ancient statues in front of industrial machines. The originality of the Montemartini power plant comes from the fact that we did not just reuse a building; the machines remained in place. So not all of them in fact… we still removed a few but most of the machines remained in place. And as you see, there is not necessarily much space in this installation: the size of the machines is so exceptional that we cannot consider these machines as being a decor, a backdrop where the we will present ancient works. The ancient works are here; we see clearly that we cannot see ancient works without seeing the machines at the same time and we cannot see the machines without seeing the ancient works at the same time. That ‘s very original: I don’t know of many examples comparable to this point, at least in Europe; It really is the trademark, you could say, of the Montemartini power station. We were also struck by what we could call the ellipse of centuries, that is to say old works – 25 centuries sometimes – and 20th century machines which are side by side: the works are placed on the machines almost or in any case in the immediate vicinity of the machines. All of this is obviously still intriguing, all of this is strange, everything basically contrasts these ancient works and these machines. Whether it’s the shape, whether it’s the material, whether it’s the color… it’s black and white, it’s steel and marble… There really is a contrast and even a completely radical opposition which intervenes and which leads us to ask questions, to think about what a museum is, what an art object is, what it is an antique art object and what an industrial art object is too. We are also sensitive, we can also be sensitive, to the difference in scale already noted: difference in scale between ancient statues which are on a human scale and industrial machines which are on a non-human scale. On the one hand, the measure of man, so to speak, on the other hand, the excess of the machine. And if we consider the arrangement of these ancient statues, in a row a bit like soldiers, we could almost wonder if we did not want to stage a struggle between man and machine , a sort of encounter between… a fight between man and machine. This is a theme that has often been addressed since the 18th century and which could be brought to life here by this presentation. We could also say that there is a sort of substitution for the bodies of the workers who worked for decades on these machines, substitution therefore of antique marbles, substitution of antique bodies for the bodies of the workers; which is a way of paying tribute to the work of the workers, which is a way of recalling the working conditions that were those of the workers at the power plant. So a power plant is not a coal mine, it is not a steelworks, the working conditions are undoubtedly a little different but still… the noise, the temperature, the vapors too which were able to be breathed, all this is a little solemnized, is glorified by the presentation which is made on this location, precisely, of the ancient marbles. We can also say that, basically, comparing ancient marbles to industrial machines is to offer an answer to the following question: are these industrial machines emblems of modernity or not? modernity, what is it? is it that, today, in 2024, when we see Franco Tosi’s machine (this one was installed in the 1930s in fact), is it an emblem of modernity? is a steam engine an emblem of modernity in the 21st century? Isn’t this rather obsolete technology? Isn’t it rather a completely outdated technical system that these machines represent and embody? If we juxtapose, next to these machines, ancient marbles then the machines are referred to the side of modernity since we obviously cannot assimilate them to very ancient objects. For all these reasons, we would say that there is truly great originality in the Montemartini power station. A sort of dialogue has been organized between the white marbles of Antiquity and the black steels of the 20th century; we organized a dialogue between the cold marbles of Antiquity and the hot steels of the 20th century. And we could have feared that this dialogue would be a dialogue of the deaf, that there would simply be a radical opposition and that we would wonder what whim had seized the organizers of the exhibition in making this kind of choice. But it is interesting to note that machines were designed to be used for a certain period of time, there is a life cycle of the machine which eventually ends: these machines were designed to be in motion, while at least to have moving parts, whereas ancient statues, initially they are cold marbles, they are frozen marbles, they are simply stones which have no human aspect other than the shape that the sculptor gave them . It is our eye which, over time, recognized in an ancient statue an incarnation of humanity, it is our eye and our admiration which gave these ancient works their meaning, basically. And now these ancient statues find the machines, the visitor’s gaze at the Montemartini power station is struck by the incorporation of the machine into the museum: the machines have become works of art, the machines have become a museum because the museum came to her. There is now a proximity, there is now a common life, one could say, of the machine and the statue, a sort of stone face and iron mechanism which live side by side in a sort of immobile eternity and silent. This is the impression we get when we visit the Montemartini power station. This is what we have just done. And therefore I thank you for listening to me.