Art history Sunday: let's get Roman (again)
Marcus Vispanius Agrippa, the M. Agrippa inscribed on the facade of the Pantheon.
To be a Roman of any status become to spend your lifestyles making excellent impressions for your friends and your betters. Wealthy Romans have been obsessed on appearances and being perceived as a hospitable and inviting host. These twin obsessions reached their zenith in the eating rooms (triclinia) of the Empire.
My pals over at Eternally Cool dug up this menu from a Roman banquet from the year 63 BCE. Macius Lentulus Niger was made a Roman priest and the celebratory feast commemorating his elevation was attended by the creme de la creme of Roman society. The menu and hospitality demonstrated by Macius Lentulus set the standard of his day and was recorded by the historian and gastronomer Macrobius:
Before the dinner right came sea hedgehogs; clean oysters, as many because the visitors wanted; massive mussels; sphondyli; subject fares with asparagus; fattened fowls; oyster and mussel pasties; black and white sea acorns; sphondyli again; glycimarides; sea nettles; becaficoes; roe ribs; boar?S ribs; fowls dressed with flour; becaficoes; red shellfish of two kinds. The dinner itself consisted of sows? Udder; boar?S head; fish-pasties; boar-pasties; ducks; boiled teals; hares; roasted fowls; starch pastry; Pontic pastry.
That my pals is what you serve if you have Julius Caesar and the Vestal Virgins over for dinner. Wow.
Roman hospitality changed into severe business and a massive a part of impressing your visitors changed into preserving them entertained. Musicians performed and sang, actors carried out skits, jesters joked and the art displayed in the triclinium became meant to get amusing even as it inspired the viewer with its rarity and price.
Romans reclined on sofas once they ate and threw bones, shells and seeds to the ground. A slave would sweep up periodically, however an awesome feast left a messy ground. The messy, publish banquet floor became the signal of a good host. So a lot so that The Unswept Floor changed into a recurring subject in the mosaic floors loads of rich Romans used in their triclinia.
This is a element of 2d century triclinium floor from the Emporer Hadrian's villa in Tivoli. This floor is now in the Vatican Museum in Rome. The mouse inside the bottom middle of this photo gets all of the eye, but what amazes me is the angle and chiaroscuro on the borders. Incredible stuff.
Roman hospitality and banquet throwing skills fell into a body of knowledge the Romans called Ars Convivialis, the Art of Hospitality. There is a restaurant in Rome called Ars Convivialis that recreates the atmosphere and the menu of a Roman banquet. I've never eaten there but I'd love to hear from someone who has. Anyone? Anyone?
Anyhow, what prompted all of this meandering was something my friends at Mosaic Art Now posted on their site this week. My love of Roman art and life is shared by everybody over there and another friend of Mosaic Art now is an artist named Maureen O'Keene . O'Keene is a contemporary mosaicist, a master. Like all great mosaicists, she has a great love for the history of her art form.
In 2003, Maureen O'Keene and co-director Jane Hubbard based totally this quick, forestall-movement lively film on The Unswept Floor from Hadrian's villa.
Unswept floor from maureen o'kane on Vimeo.
Talk about putting art in ancient context. Bravi!
If you'd like to experiment with some Roman cookery, resources abound. Here's a directory of ingredients and recipes, Antique Roman Dishes . Hint, Liquamen is Garum, the Roman fish sauce condiment that was as common then as ketchup is today. In fact, modern ketchup evolved from garum. You can still buy Garum Colatura from Zingerman's in Ann Arbor, MI . If you like anchovies, you will love garum. If you don't like anchovies, learn to like them. You'll thank me. Di vos incolumes custodiant!