Tabularium and Galleria Lapidaria

The Tabularium, an imposing late-Republican building on whose remains the Palazzo Senatorio stands, had the function in Roman times of storing the bronze tabulae with the laws and official acts of the Roman state.

Quintus Lutazius Catulus - who was consul in 78 BC - completed the construction as part of a programme of rearrangement of the Capitoline Hill, which had been affected by a violent fire in 83 BC. A now-lost inscription - still visible in the 15th century - mentioned the intervention, also handing down the ancient name of the building Tabularium. A similar but more fragmentary inscription, engraved on squared tufa blocks, is still preserved outside the monument in Via di S. Pietro in Carcere.

On a high basement, leaning against the slope of the hill from the level of the Forum, the actual building was set up on several floors, facing the square behind that covered the valley between two hills. The pre-existing Temple of Veiove was religiously respected. Its area is circumscribed at the western corner of the Tabularium by a quadrangular recess in the plan.

The narrow hallway on the first floor, illuminated by rectangular openings made into the compact surface of the basement, is overlaid by a still walkable and well-preserved gallery with pavilion vaults and large arches framed by architectural elements. It is also conceivable that there was a level above housing the public archives.

A steep staircase inside the basement - whose entrance was later closed because of the podium of the Temple of Vespasian and Titus - connected the floor of the Forum to the Temple of Veiove and, through a second ramp, led to the upper floor of the Tabularium.

In the Middle Ages, a fortress was built on the remains of the Tabularium and later transformed into the Palazzo Senatorio, which has been designated, since then, to functions related to the city administration.

Between the 14th and 17th centuries, some rooms were used for storing and selling salt, and others housed a prison until the middle of the last century.

Photo: Galleria Lapidaria, ph. Capitoline Museums