Schola Praeconum (seat of the guild of heralds)

In the imperial age, the southern slope of the Palatine was affected by various interventions, first by Augustus, then by the Flavian dynasty (who built the Domus Augustana, the Domus Flavia and the Paedagogium, a sort of school for the education of imperial slaves) and finally by the Severans, who added new buildings and carried out a general restructuring of the area.

The building of the so-called Schola Praeconum, which was partially unearthed at the end of the 19th century, dates back precisely to the Severans, and thus to the 3rd century AD. Located on the lowest terrace of this portion of the hill and overlooking the Circus Maximus, whose axis it follows, the Schola had been built partly reusing pre-existing structures. Excavations undertaken in the 1930s made it possible to better clarify the plan of the building, composed of three main vaulted rooms facing a rectangular courtyard surrounded by a portico. A corner pillar and a cipollino marble column are still visible on site. The most recent archaeological investigations have also led to the discovery of an apsidal structure, still of uncertain function.

The stratigraphy and the pictorial and mosaic decorations preserved in one of the three rooms (room F) testify to the building’s continued use until at least the 5th century AD, before the frequent earthquakes documented until the 6th century led to a series of collapses. The first intervention concerned the pictorial decoration: a painted frieze with the façade of a building with columns between which appear a number of male figures at full height, dressed in servile clothes and intent on holding objects such as a staff or a garland of flowers and giving orders, in a context possibly referring to a banquet. In a later period, the walls were covered with cipollino marble slabs and the floor was covered with a large mosaic floor in which eight male figures dressed in short tunics appear in two groups of four, holding a caduceus (emblem of the god Mercury, herald of the gods), a banner and a staff.

The symbols in this unique black and white tessellated mosaic led archaeologists, as early as the end of the 19th century, to identify the figures depicted with public heralds (“praecones” in Latin), free men assembled in guilds, protected by the State and used to announce ceremonies and processions (religious or generically public) or to proclaim the winners of games and competitions. Although a margin of uncertainty remains, the proximity to the Circus Maximus and the direct connection to the north with the Paedagogium validate the hypothesis that the building was the seat of the guild of heralds of the spectacles in the Circus, carried out in the region most intimately connected with their duties, the Palatine and Circus Maximus. For archaeological and iconographic reasons, the floor dates back to the beginning of the 4th century AD, when Emperor Maxentius undertook a further renovation of the area.

After a long and articulated interdisciplinary intervention, the Schola has been open to the public since February 2025. Accessibility to the site is guaranteed by a new ramp that terminates in the frescoed and mosaic-covered hall, with a glass window allowing visitors to admire the decorative apparatus; a tactile map with the plan of the Schola, the new archaeological remains and short texts in Italian, English and Braille has also been installed to welcome the public. The lighting enhancement of the Schola was sponsored by iGuzzini, which took care of both the lighting apparatus of the hall and the architectural lighting of the context.

For more information, visit the official website of the Colosseum Archaeological Park.

Photo Simona Murrone, Parco archeologico del Colosseo