L’Olivo Santa Barbara is a blog about cultural similarities and differences between Italy and the United States, with some emphasis on Santa Barbara, California. The blog addresses history, travel, film, music, art, food, and people and animals. Following an introduction in English, you can choose to read each post in Italian or English. Comments are welcome, as are ideas for future posts.
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Many international publications have reported on the September 2026 opening in Rome of the new Museum of the Baths of Trajan. Built on the Oppian Hill overlooking the Colosseum, the underground museum displays what are believed to be the largest ancient wall mosaic and the largest wall fresco ever discovered from the Roman era. These are truly amazing archaeological discoveries. But first, let’s look at the back story.
During the 1990s, archaeologists began exploring beneath the Baths of Trajan in Rome for two primary reasons: to search for the remains of Emperor Nero’s legendary Domus Aurea (Golden House) and to understand the complex engineering behind the Trajan Baths’ architecture. They did indeed uncover structural infrastructure, including massive lead pipes believed to deliver water to the baths from aqueducts and stamped with Emperor Trajan’s name.
They also uncovered parts of the Domus Aurea, which was a vast complex that included Nero’s ultra-luxurious palace that he created after the Great Fire of 64 CE. He had seized huge portions of the burned city—including massive areas of public land—to build a private pleasure palace for himself. Gold everywhere: The interior and exterior walls were heavily gilded, rooms were encrusted in precious stones, and the entryway featured a 120-foot-tall bronze statue of Nero himself as the sun god, Sol. Sound familiar?
Then (and now), the public was outraged at the self-indulgent, megalomaniac tyrant. Decades after Nero, Emperor Trajan built in 109 CE a massive public bath complex over the Domus Aurea, covering about 15 acres (80,000 square meters), which included bathing and athletic facilities and libraries; it was the first Roman bath to create an outdoor park for people to use. The Domus Aurea complex was filled in with dirt and served as the foundation of the Trajan Baths. The Romans wanted to erase all traces of the hated emperor and give the land back to the people.
Ironically, by burying the Domus Aurea complex and sealing it in darkness, Trajan’s engineers preserved Nero’s rooms and art, allowing modern-day archaeologists to begin to uncover the past. The Muse and the Philosopher, the wall mosaic in the museum, measures 33’ tall and 52.5’ wide (10 meters by 16 meters) and depicts a theatrical background with columns, walls with inlaid marble, figures and statues of muses, centaurs, a poet and a bearded philosopher. Some tesserae—the cubes of stone, ceramic, and glass used to construct the mosaic—are missing; they may have been used or repurposed in the construction of the baths.
More recent excavations reveal a new section: a view of maritime villas on a Roman port. It is not yet known whether it represents an actual port or an imaginary one.
The Painted City is a wall fresco in the same structure. It shows a view of a city encircled by walls and towers. The town is complete with a theatre and a temple topped by a statue of Apollo. Included is a residential neighborhood of “insulae,” which are ancient Roman blocks of flats. The buildings are painted in perspective.
It is not known yet whether the mosaic and the fresco came from Nero’s Domus Aurea or a luxury residence in the complex. Digging continues.
Molte pubblicazioni internazionali hanno riferito dell’apertura a Roma del nuovo Museo delle Terme di Traiano. Costruito sul Colle Oppio con vista del Colosseo, il museo sotterraneo espone quello che si ritiene sia il più grande mosaico parietale antico e il più grande affresco parietale di epoca romana mai scoperti. Si tratta di scoperte archeologiche davvero straordinarie. Ma prima, vediamo il retroscena.
Nel corso degli anni Novanta, gli archeologi iniziarono a esplorare il sottosuolo delle Terme di Traiano a Roma per due ragioni principali: cercare i resti della leggendaria Domus Aurea dell’imperatore Nerone e comprendere la complessa ingegneria alla base dell’architettura delle terme stesse. Vennero effettivamente portate alla luce infrastrutture strutturali, tra cui imponenti condutture in piombo – recanti il nome dell’imperatore Traiano – che si ritiene convogliassero l’acqua dagli acquedotti all’impianto termale.
Portarono alla luce anche parti della Domus Aurea, un vasto complesso che comprendeva la sfarzosissima residenza fatta costruire da Nerone dopo il Grande Incendio del 64 d.C. L’imperatore aveva requisito vaste porzioni della città devastata dalle fiamme — incluse ampie aree di suolo pubblico — per edificare una residenza privata destinata al proprio svago. Oro ovunque: le pareti interne ed esterne erano riccamente dorate, le stanze tempestate di pietre preziose e l’ingresso era dominato da una statua in bronzo alta circa 36 metri che raffigurava Nerone stesso nelle vesti del dio del sole, Sol. Vi ricorda qualcosa?
Allora (come oggi), l’opinione pubblica era indignata per la figura di quel tiranno megalomane e dedito agli eccessi. Decenni dopo Nerone, nel 109 d.C., l’imperatore Traiano fece costruire un imponente complesso termale pubblico sopra la Domus Aurea; esteso su una superficie di circa 80.000 metri quadrati, esso comprendeva strutture per la balneazione e l’attività fisica, oltre a biblioteche, e fu il primo impianto termale romano a includere un parco all’aperto a disposizione della cittadinanza. Il complesso della Domus Aurea venne interrato e trasformato nella base su cui poggiavano le Terme di Traiano: i Romani volevano cancellare ogni traccia dell’odiato imperatore e restituire l’area al popolo.
Ironicamente, seppellendo il complesso della Domus Aurea e sigillandolo nell’oscurità, gli ingegneri di Traiano preservarono le sale e le opere d’arte di Nerone, consentendo agli archeologi moderni di iniziare a riportare alla luce il passato. Il mosaico parietale conservato nel museo, raffigurante “La Musa e il Filosofo”, misura 10 metri di altezza per 16 di larghezza e ritrae una scenografia teatrale con colonne, pareti rivestite di marmi intarsiati, figure e statue di muse, centauri, un poeta e un filosofo barbuto. Alcune tessere — i piccoli elementi cubici in pietra, ceramica e vetro che compongono il mosaico — risultano mancanti; è possibile che siano state utilizzate o reimpiegate durante la costruzione delle terme.
Scavi più recenti hanno portato alla luce una nuova sezione: una veduta di ville marittime affacciate su un porto romano. Non è ancora chiaro se si tratti di un porto reale o immaginario.
La “Città Dipinta” è un affresco murale situato nella stessa struttura; raffigura una città cinta da mura e torri, completa di teatro e di un tempio sormontato da una statua di Apollo. È presente anche un quartiere residenziale composto da insulae, ovvero gli antichi condomini romani. Gli edifici sono dipinti in prospettiva.
Non è ancora noto se il mosaico e l’affresco provengano dalla Domus Aurea di Nerone o da una residenza di lusso all’interno del complesso. Gli scavi sono tuttora in corso.
Our film group met recently, as usual, by Zoom. We marveled how Zoom could connect 5 people who were, at the time, in 4 different times zones: Katia in Italy, Gina in Massachusetts, Susie in New Mexico, and Giovanna and I in California. And we mused over the Italian term for time zone, fuso orario. Orario, which refers to time, was fine, but fuso, as in formaggio fuso, melted cheese?
So began the research. A time zone is defined as an area that observes a standard time for legal, commercial, and social purposes. In the past, there were hundreds, if not thousands, of local solar times. To minimize the chaos, North American railroads designated in 1883 four standard time zones across the United States and Canada. A few years earlier, in 1879, Canadian engineer Sandford Fleming—who is often credited as the inventor of time zones–had proposed a global 24-zone system.
But it was an Italian mathematician and politician, Giuseppe Barilli (1812-1894) who first developed the modern, global system of time. In 1858, more than 20 years before Fleming, he published a book titled Miranda! under the pen name Quirico (from Latin meaning Roman citizen) Filopanti (from Greek meaning “one who loves everyone”), which he coined out of his admiration for ancient Rome. He proposed dividing the earth into 24 “longitudinal days.” Each would span 15 degrees of longitude from its east and west neighbor, and each zone would differ from its neighbor by one hour. He chose Rome as the prime meridian. Filopanti also proposed a single Universal Time to be used worldwide for astronomy and telegraphy.
Miranda! was an eccentric work, a mixture of science, political ideology, and mysticism; it was largely ignored at the time. In the 1830s and 1840s, Barilli was a graduate of and professor at the University of Bologna. A political figure in Italian unification, he also participated during the 1849 establishment of the Roman Republic. After the end of the republic, he sought shelter in the United States and London, where he wrote Miranda! When he eventually returned to Italy, his appointment at the University of Bologna ended, because he repeatedly refused to take an oath of allegiance to the monarchy. In 1876 he was elected to Parliament in unified Italy. He died poor in Bologna in 1894.
Filopanti’s legacy is undeniable: he supplied the conceptual map of 24 zones, one-hour steps, and a universal reference; he also understood the communications significance long before synchronized timetables and transcontinental telegraphy. The modern system that we use today differs from Filopanti’s in 3 ways: The prime meridian was changed from Rome, Italy, to Greenwich, England. Both the 1883 Rome Conference and the 1884 Washington, D.C, Meridian Conference formally endorsed Greenwich to unify global time. After all, 72% of the world’s shipping and commerce already used Greenwich-based sea charts, making it the most practical choice for international navigation and science.
The other two are more subtle adaptations: The meridians initially followed exact lines of longitude; today, for practical reasons, the borders today curve to accommodate national, state, and economic boundaries. Finally, the terminology changed from “longitudinal days” to “time zones.”
Fuso orario? The Italian word “fuso” in this context, comes from the Latin fusus, which means spindle—the wooden tool used in spinning wool or flax. When cartographers first divided the globe into 24 equal segments, the resulting map strips were wide at the equator and tapered to a point at the North and South Poles. This wedge shape resembled a textile spindle, inspiring the metaphorical name.
