Spolia architettonici dalla ‘Cava Antoniniana’. Indagini sulle spoliazioni delle Terme di Caracalla a partire da un fregio-architrave reimpiegato nell’area del Circo Massimo

Abstract

The following paper focuses on the discovery, in the area of the hemicycle of the Circus Maximus, of a frieze-architectural fragment
related to the Baths of Caracalla and reused in a medieval water channel in the Circus. The analysis of the fragment together with the
re-examination of a series of architectural spolia that can be attributed to the Severian baths, and reused in other contexts in Rome,
allows us to delineate an early – albeit limited and punctual – spoliation of the Baths of Caracalla already in the early Middle Ages,
before the XII century when a considerable amount of material was dismantled for reuse in the new Innocentian basilica of Santa Maria
in Trastevere.