Porticus Aemilia

Closely connected to the new river port built at the end of the 3rd century BC south of the Aventino, the Porticus Aemilia was a vast complex of warehouses located in the area behind the Emporium, a square intended for the market of goods. After twenty years or so, this set of works was further perfected in 174 B.C. with, among other things, the completion and enlargement of the Porticus, the largest commercial building constructed by the Romans, as shown by the plan documented by the Forma Severiana and excavation records.

Parallel to the Tiber and in appearance resembling a shed 487 m. long and 60 m. wide, the portico was internally divided, by means of 294 pillars, into seven longitudinal aisles sloping two by two toward the river and into fifty transverse aisles, covered by series of vaults orthogonal to the façade. The imposing surviving structures still visible between Via Rubattino and Via Franklin offer an idea, albeit a partial one, of the grandeur of the building, which the walls in opus incerta of tufa with regular tufa corners and archivolts reveal as the earliest example of such a building technique in Rome.