Giacomo Boni
Giacomo Boni (
25 April 1859 -
10 July 1925) was an
Italian archaeologist specializing in
Roman architecture.
|
Giacomo Boni with an Iron Age burial during excavation of the Forum Necropolis. |
Born in
Venice Boni studied
architecture at the
Academy of Fine Arts in his native city and later dedicated himself to extensive and important excavations in the
Forum Romanum in
Rome. His early work as an architect in Venice involved him in the restoration of the
Doge's Palace there. During this time he demonstrated his technical skill. He later studied architecture in the
Accademia di Belle Arti.
In
1888 he went to Rome; there in
1898 Ministro della Pubblica Istruzione G. Baccelli named him director of excavations in the Forum Romanum. Boni directed the excavations in the Forum from 1898 until his death in
1925. He was interested in the
stratigraphy of the Forum, an important advance in the science of Roman
archaeology.
His excavations led to many important discoveries, including the
Iron Age necropolis near the
Temple of Antoninus and Faustina, the
Lapis Niger, the
Regia,
Galleria Cesaree,
Horrea Agrippiana and other monuments. In
1907 Boni also worked on the slope of the
Palatine Hill where he discovered the
Mundus (tholos-cistern), a complex of tunnels leading to the
Casa dei Grifi, the so-called
Aula Isiaca, the so-called
Baths of Tiberius and the base of a hut under the peristilio of the
Domus Flavia.
The excavations were interrupted by the outbreak of
World War I, in which he participated as a soldier. He resumed his archaeological work in
1916. He was subsequently elected senator in
1923, at which time he embraced
fascism.
Boni died in Rome: he is buried in the
Orti Farnesiani on the Palatine Hill.
*Whitehouse, David. "Boni, Giacomo",
Encyclopedia of the History of Classical Archaeology. Nancy Thomson de Grummond, ed. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1996, vol. 1, pp. 171-72.
* P. Romanelli, s.v. "Boni Giacomo", in
Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani (Istituto dell'Enciclopedia Italiana fondata da Giovanni Treccani), Roma 1970, pp. 75-77
* A. Capodiferro, P. Fortini (a cura di),
Gli scavi di Giacomo Boni al foro Romano,
Documenti dall'Archivio Disegni della Soprintendenza Archeologica di Roma I.1 (Planimetrie del Foro Romano, Gallerie Cesaree, Comizio, Niger Lapis, Pozzi repubblicani e medievali), Roma 2003.
* "Trajan's column."
Proceedings of the British Academy, London (1912). vol. 3 p. 93-98.
*
Santa Maria dei Miracoli in Venezia. Venice: Stabilimento tipografico dei fratelli Vicentini, 1887.
*
La torre de S. Marco: communicazione. s.l. : s.n., 1903.
*
The Roman marmorarii. Rome: s.n., 1893.
* "Il duomo di Parenzo ed i suoi mosaici."
Archivio storico dell'Arte 7 (1894) [unnumbered, 28 pp.]
