Tomb of Giulio Metrodoro and the Giulii Freedmen

Roman art

This tomb, which is in the shape of a parallelepiped, stands on a high base. There are three inscriptions on the front. The one in the middle, framed in a laurel wreath, commemorates the deceased, four-year-old Caio Giulio Metrodoro, to whom the monument is dedicated, while the inscriptions to the sides list the family’s freedmen.

Mentioned in the collection of the archbishop of Taranto at the end of the fifteenth century, when he died it passed to Mario Bonaventura and, finally, to Monsignor Ferratini, archbishop of Amelia, in whose house it was still mentioned in 1602. Starting in the middle of the eighteenth century, it is mentioned in the Borghese family’s Villa di Mondragone, in Tuscolo, where it remained until it was moved to the Villa Pinciana in 1820.

Object details

Commentary

Rodolfo Lanciani mentioned the tomb, in about 1498, in the Tigeti Collection, belonging to the archbishop of Taranto: ‘prelato, già secretario apostolico, e protonotario, aveva ottenuto il vescovato di Taranto, al tempo di fra Giocondo. E venuto a morte, in sullo scorcio del secolo, la casa, che stava nel r. di Ponte vicina a Tor Sanguigna, passò a Mario Bonaventura, e, più tardi, a monsignor Ferratini, arciv. di Amelia’ (‘priest, former papal secretary, and protonotary, appointed bishop of Taranto, in the time of Fra Giocondo. And after he died, at the turn of the century, the house, which was in the Ponte district near Tor Sanguigna, passed to Monsignor Ferratini, archbishop of Amelia’; Lanciani 1989, pp. 160, 162, fig. 88). In the second half of the sixteenth century, the sculpture was reproduced in a drawing by Giovanni Antonio Dosio now in the Biblioteca Nazionale, Florence, with the inscription ‘in casa di Mos.re Ferratino, vescovo di Amelia’ (‘in the home of Mos.re Ferratino, bishop of Amelia’; Tedeschi Grisanti 1983, p. 95, n. c. 44 v, a). In 1602, Gruter also attested that it was apud Ferratinos (Gruter 1602, pp. DCCCCXV, no. 13; DCCCCLXXX, no. 1). In about the middle of the eighteenth century, Volpi mentioned it in the Borghese family’s Villa di Mondragone in Tuscolo, where it was attested by Grossi Gondi until the early nineteenth century (Volpi 1742, pp. 143–144; Grossi Gondi 1901, p. 291). A letter from Minister Evasio Gozzani to Prince Camillo Borghese dated 1819 discusses the plan to move a few sculptures from the Villa di Mondragone to the Villa Pinciana in order to prevent their further deterioration. The restoration project was assigned to Felice Festa and Francesco Massimiliano Laboureur. In 1820, the cleaned sculptures were on view in the Palazzina (Moreno, Sforzini 1987, pp. 346–347, 355).

This sculpture, which is in the shape of a parallelepiped, preserves its base, composed of an overturned cyma and a high plinth. The front is decorated with three inscriptions, the two on the sides within a simple frame and the one in the middle framed by a laurel wreath.

To the left of the wreath:

Dis Manibus /

Julio. C. L. /

Metrodoro /

Juliae. C. L. /

Pherusae /

Julio. C. L. /

Mercurialis. vixit /

An. XIX.

Inside the laurel wreath:

C . Julio . C. F. /

Metrodoro /

Vix. Ann. IIII /

Mens. IIII /

XVII /

To the right of the wreath:

Julio. C. L. /

Agathopodi /

Juliae. C.L. /

Sympherusae

F  A

Beneath the wreath are the words Sibi et Suis / and, on the base, Posterisque Aeuorum, probably added at a later time.

The funerary monument is dedicated to Caio Julio, son of Caio Metrodoro, who died at a very young age, while the family’s freedmen are listed to the sides: Caio Giulio Metrodoro, Giulia Ferusa and Caio Giulio Mercuriale on the left; Caio Giulio Agatopode and Giulia Sinferusa on the right. From the sixteenth-century drawings, we know that the three inscriptions were topped by the words Dis. Man, which are now no longer visible and were probably removed when adapting the work for use as a statue base. 

Giulia Ciccarello