Short URL for this page:
tinyurl.com/MatiggeSDonatoRoman
mail: Bill Thayer |
Help |
Up |
Home |
The four large blocks of squared travertine are clearly Roman.
|
Reuse of Roman stone in the fabric of churches is common thruout Umbria, and elsewhere. These particular stones probably relate to the Via Flaminia somehow, but here the uncertainties begin.
Maps I have seen show the Flaminia N of Trevi — the eastern branch of the consular road — as a fan-shaped group of somewhat winding dotted lines petering out into nothingness over the flanks of these hills before reaching Foligno. This is not convincing. Granted that one should think of the large consular roads as systems rather than single roads, there was still a main trunk, it made it to Fulginiae and Forum Flaminii, and the odds are it was straight and in the plain: "odds", because we don't absolutely know the entire course of the Flaminia, and because the evidence shows that at some point in late Antiquity, the road was moved up the side of the hill a bit because of flooding in the plain — but surely not this far. Our church, at 343 m altitude, is 125 m above local water levels and about a kilometer away from the likely location of the earlier road.
S. Donato is a few hundred meters S of the village of Matigge. I'm very much tempted — any neophytes out there in cyberspace should view this phrase as meaning that there is not a shred of evidence for my idea, or at least none I know of — to see the name Matigge as deriving from *Matidia(e) and thus possibly from a shrine to Hadrian's mother-in‑law, who died and was deified in 119 A.D. Just 25 km from here, in the main gate of Massa Martana, I've seen an inscription dated only 4 years later, recording the restoration of the Flaminia by Hadrian in that area; mind you that's on the western branch, and I have no explanation for why Matidia should have been commemorated in this out‑of-the‑way spot rather than some other, but it's possible: maybe her family had a villa here, or maybe this was the stretch of the Flaminia that was being restored on the day she died.
Images with borders lead to more information.
|
||||||
UP TO: |
S. Donato |
Matigge |
Trevi |
Umbria |
Gazetteer |
Home |
Via Flaminia |
Next stop on the Flaminia:
towards Rome towards Ariminum |
SEE
ALSO: |
Roman Umbria |
Roman Gazetteer |
LacusCurtius |
|
A page or image on this site is in the public domain ONLY if its URL has a total of one *asterisk. If the URL has two **asterisks, the item is copyright someone else, and used by permission or fair use. If the URL has none the item is © Bill Thayer. See my copyright page for details and contact information. |
Page updated: 7 Dec 17