The Arch of Titus: Rome and the Menorah explores one of the most significant Roman monuments to survive from antiquity, from the perspectives of Roman, Jewish and later Christian history and art. The Arch of Titus commemorates the destruction of Jerusalem by the emperor Titus in 70 CE, an event of pivotal importance for the history of the Roman Empire, of Judaism, of Christianity and of modern nationalism. Together with your guide, Professor Steven Fine, you will examine ancient texts and artifacts, gaining skills as a historian as you explore the continuing significance of the Arch of Titus from antiquity to the very present. Course members will accompany Professor Fine on virtual "fieldtrips" to museums and historical sites in Los Angeles and New York where you will "meet" curators, scholars and artists. You will attend an academic colloquium and even "participate" in office hours. Students will participate in the latest advancement in the study of the Arch - the restoration of its original colors. You will learn how color was used in Roman antiquity and apply that knowledge to complete your own 'color restoration' of the Arch of Titus menorah relief.
Other Roman Art: Exploring the Getty, Part 2
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En provenance du cours de Yeshiva University
Arch of Titus: Rome and the Menorah
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The Arch of Titus as a Work of Art
This module explores the Arch of Titus as an artifact. Students will learn to look closely at this and other historical monuments in order to draw out the meanings of its iconography. They will see the Arch and especially its carved relief panels through selected refracting lenses.
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Steven FineProfessor
Jewish History
[MUSIC]
Yeah, aren't we lucky to be here?
>> Yeah.
>> You're lucky you're here all the time.
For me, being here is really an exceptional treat.
Well it's a thrill for us to have you and
all the other scholars here with us here at the Getty Villa.
And I think it's a special occasion for everybody because in comparison to many
research centers this is one of the few museums that's actually built on the model
of ancient Roman architecture, which you are an expert in and which you studying.
So it must be particularly
suggestive to be in a place like this than to be studying argentatus.
>> And to be walking the hallways and thinking about it.
Not as little pieces, and not as broken walls, but as a whole building.
And then knowing all the places they got it right,
and all the places they got it wrong, and smiling.
Seeing a whole building.
>> I think that was Mr. Getty's intention.
He conceived of a wonderful idea, and
that was to build his museum on the model of the Villa de Papyri in Herculanian.
And what we're seeing here now is actually the renovation that occurred
when the villa reopened in 2006.
So a lot of the details of design of color of architecture have been
renewed since that time.
Galleries were reinstalled and they follow a kind of thematic organization so
that one can understand through various works of art,
in different periods some aspects of Greek and Roman life.
>> For me with my office up the hill I can sit there and
look down and pretend, for a moment, that I'm looking out at the Gulf of Naples.
And change centuries, which gives me some empathy for the people I'm studying.
I'm wondering, where your passion lies with Roman art,
and what you find really exciting about it.
Well you know I'm trained as a classical archeologist.
So in my early years I was a field excavator, not only at Roman sites
in Greece at Corinth, but also worked in central Italy with the Etruscans.
And then continually went further and further south to southern Italy and
Sicily as well.
So I worked on a number of sites that covered different periods of history from
the earliest period through the Greek and the Roman.
And so you see the layering of civilizations.
You see how art changes, how it's used from day to day by people.
And then to come here to see the final result of what for us,
is a long an arduous process of recovery and interpretation.
To finally see these objects, to know their history, to know their life stories.
We think of them in terms of their cultural biography.
So what has happened to these sites, these people, over time?
That's what fascinates me.
>> Me too.
It's exactly the point, isn't it?
Real-life people who left things for us.
>> Exactly.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[MUSIC]
I think all of the bronzes that you see out in the garden, those that are outside
are actually replicas of works of art that were excavated in the Villa de Papyri.
And many of them are found close to where the original excavators found them.
So in fact, they're important because the originals change over time, but these
preserve what those sculptures looked like at the moment that they were copied.
So in fact, they can be very useful for study.
>> Which is why we just did a 3D scan of the Arch of Titus panels to preserve it.
So that we'll know what it is when we look at the older photographs or
even the casts that were done in the 19th Century.
>> Yeah.
>> Each is a little different and
gives different information that no one knew we would need.
>> Absolutely and aren't they exposed to the air of
Rome and- >> Sure.
>> Is there some environmental impact on marble?
>> Huge. >> Yeah.
>> Huge and in fact left to their own devices they'd be all black and sooty.
And so they have to be cleaned every few years.
And there are implications as you know to taking the stuff off and
what does it leave behind?
And what does it expose?
But the nice thing about these facsimiles Is that you can do that, and
it's okay, as opposed to the real artifacts.
>> [LAUGH] >> [LAUGH]
>> This is true.
Lightly, very carefully.
>> Very carefully.
[MUSIC]
The reason we're here is because of this candlestick, this candelabra.
That would have provided the only light in a rather large space.
Now the amazing thing about this for me is that the central
artifact in the Arch of Titus reliefs is the seven branched menorah.
But the Arch of Titus has a very strange base.
What you see here is a standard Roman base, three legs, with animal legs.
That's standard.
And if you take a look at menorahs made over the next thousand years,
they all more or less look like that.
But we have that very strange base on the Arch of Titus that looks almost like
a wedding cake.
Now Josephus when he describes the Arch of Titus Menorah says well it's kind of
a lamp stand that looks like it should have branches,
and he has a hard time explaining it cuz no Roman had ever seen such a thing.
But everybody knew what an oil lamp looked like.
But why would it be a symbol of God?
That was the thing a Roman couldn't figure out.
We have to take a step back and say what would a Roman have heard when Mr.
Josephus is describing it, or when they carve it on the Arch of Titus?
A standard oil lamp being used for an unstandard purpose.
>> Which they clearly recognized, because that's the central scene, is this seizure
of this Menorah and the bringing of that and the Temple treasures out of Jerusalem.
>> And all of that we can see by walking into a gallery, looking at a oil lamp
>> And taking all of our knowledge and
applying it such that our imaginations can understand what text and
artifacts in other places bring to bear on this very simple lamp stand.
>> It's a whole world.
It opens up a whole world of understanding into antiquity.
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