Aosta · Italy
Forum Cryptoporticus
Go down a few steps and the temperature changes. This is a cryptoporticus: a double underground gallery that ran beneath the forum, along three sides of the sacred square. It was neither a cellar nor a secret passage: it retained the ground and created a perfectly level platform for the temples above. The natural slope fell away to the south, and rather than adapt to it the Romans manufactured the ground they intended to stand on. In solving that problem of engineering they produced this: low vaults, a rhythm of piers, light entering through narrow slits and failing a few metres in, motionless air. It is the best-preserved Roman space in the city, and the reason is simple: it is underground. What disappears is not dismantled for its stone, does not take the rain, and obstructs nobody building above it. At the surface, almost nothing of the forum remains. Down here it is all still standing.
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What was it really for?
Chiefly to support. The ground was not level, and the cryptoporticus acted as foundation and retaining wall for the forum terrace. The spaces inside could then serve as storage or shelter.
What stood above?
The sacred area of the forum, with twin temples side by side and the colonnaded square. On the surface almost nothing is left: the medieval and modern city built over it.
Why is it so well preserved?
Because it is underground. What lies below ground level is not dismantled for its stone, does not take the rain and obstructs nobody. Disappearing is the best way to survive.
Where it is
More stories in Aosta
- Adret and envers
- When the railway arrived
- Arch of Augustus
- Regional Archaeological Museum
- The villages the city swallowed
- The Battle of the Queens
- Aosta Cathedral
- Church of Santo Stefano