Schola Praecomun (Scuola degli Araldi)

The building is located on the southern slopes of the Palatine, at the base of that portion of the Hill that was affected over time and on different levels first by the edifications of Augustus, then by the construction of the Palaces of the Flavian dynasty (Domus Augustana and Domus Flavia) who also built the Paedagogium there, and finally by a general renovation work carried out by the Severans who added the Baths district, the monumental fountain of Septizonium and precisely the Schola Praeconum.

The Schola Praeconum is located in the lowest terrace of the southern slope of the Palatine, but in a relationship of possible connection, even and especially in ancient times, with the building of the Paedagogium. These are two contexts that, despite their temporal distance (the Schola is from the Severan period, the Paedagogium is of Domitian design but remained in use for a long time even later), performed a service function: the Paedagogium, as the word itself intuitively says, was a kind of college in charge of the education of imperial slaves and can be visited today pungo the southern route: an extraordinary maintenance operation has brought back the original mosaic floors; the Schola Praeconum was the seat of the guild of heralds, praecones, that is, those who announced the circus pompae.

The construction of the Schola dates to the 3rd century AD, no doubt setting itself on pre-existing buildings and at a historical moment in which the Severan dynasty carried out a general restructuring of the southern slope of the Hill. Its construction follows an orientation that respects that of the axis of the Circus Maximus. Architecturally, it is characterized by the presence of a rectangular courtyard surrounded by a portico with pillars (no longer legible today except for the open space that can be walked on), overlooked by a tripartite system of vaulted rooms with masonry made entirely of brick, the central of which is larger than the lateral ones. The continuity of use up to the 5th century AD has been established mainly from reading the sequence of vertical and horizontal decorative apparatuses.

The first intervention, in fact, concerned the pictorial decoration, dated 200-240 CE, depicting male figures in a standing position, dressed in servile garb, inserted within an aedicule architecture, each holding a staff, map, serum or box in his hands, interpreted as tricliniarii. Later the walls were covered with cipolin slabs, and on the floor was laid the large mosaic floor that gave the building its name: a unique black-and-white tessellated figural in which eight male figures dressed in short tunics and organized in two groups of four appear, holding a caduceus, a standard, and a staff. The dating of this floor could go back as far as the beginning of the 4th century CE, a time when Emperor Maxentius undertook further renovation of the southern slope of the Hill.

These figures have been variously interpreted now as heralds, or indeed praecones, now as civil servants in the service of the state, also called apparitores, now even as charioteers: what is fairly certain is that the building and those who 'lived' there performed functions closely connected with the Circus and related events. Some even speculate that the building had a second floor used as an imperial grandstand for circus performances.