DE TEMPIO SATURNI HODIE, ECC S.ANDRANI (Temple of Saturn, now St. Adrian on the Capitoline Hill)

As published in a later edition of Antiquae Urbis Splendor (orig. 1612-1628). Pl. 39. Engraving. Image: 7 X 9 ¼. Margins: 9 ¼ x 13 ½. Includes the legend below. In fine condition. Giacomo Lauro was a printmaker active in the map and view industry of mid-sixteenth to mid-seventeenth century Rome. The Temple was built in 500BC on the site of an even older shrine dedicated to Saturn. It was reconstructed in 42BC by Lucius Munatius Plancus, a Roman Consul who was an officer in Julius Caesar’s army during the conquest of Gaul. He installed the Treasury of the Roman Republic here, where it remained until 28BC. It was destroyed by fire in 283AD, but later rebuilt. All that remains today are eight columns and a part of the pediment, which bears a Latin inscription. In English it reads: The Senate and the people of Rome restored what fire consumed. Saturn, who was the Roman equivalent of the Greek god Kronos, was the god of agriculture and the harvest (or of life and death). Like Kronos, he was represented as a hooded figure bearing a scythe. Because he was afraid of being overthrown, he ate his all his children apart from Jupiter, Neptune and Pluto, whom for some reason he could not swallow. In time his fears became reality; he was overthrown by Jupiter, who became the king of the Roman gods.