Lupercale o ninfeo? L’edificio circolare alle pendici meridionali del Palatino e il suo contesto

In 1526, a circular room with a domed roof and rich decorations was discovered on the southern slope of the Palatine. Since then, and especially after its rediscovery during a geognostic coring campaign carried out between 2004 and 2007, it has been variously interpreted: Lupercal, nymphaeum connected to the sanctuary of the Lupercal, nymphaeum of an otherwise unknown house. The analysis of the decorative apparatuses, documented and visible only through a probe, has allowed scholars to place the room typologically among the nymphaeums of the late Republican age. The debate regarding the interpretation, or rather the identification, of the rotunda has so far centered on the reading of literary sources and topographical reconstructions based on the surviving architecture in the neighbouring area between the south-western corner of the hill and the Augustus House complex. However, the heavy silting that characterized this side of the Palatine in the post-antique period has so far made it impossible to understand both the original shape of the southern slope and the morphology of the architecture that preceded the Augustan complex. The new excavations carried out in this area by Sapienza University of Rome in concession and in collaboration with the Colosseum Archaeological Park are bringing to light a complex stratification of structures leaning against the mount that may help to better understand those already known and that must now enter into the debate on the interpretation and reconstruction of the buildings on this side of the mount.