In Search of Fortune - A daytrip to Palestrina

by Elisabeth Abbot (columnist) | Thursday, October 1st, 2009

Centuries before the birth of Christ, pilgrims traveled from the farthest corners of the Roman empire to the ancient city of Praeneste, or Palestrina as it is now called. They came to pay homage to Fortuna Primigenia, the goddess of Fortune, and ask advice of her oracle.

On a cold February morning, I traveled an hour from Rome as an unwilling pilgrim – a “volleyball mom” – to accompany my son to a full day of regional practice. As we arrived at the sports complex just below the town, foxes howled from the surrounding woods and on cue Palestrina emerged from the mist – a terraced masterpiece climbing the side of mount Ginestro. Fortuna was calling and I had time to kill in sacrifice. The road into town veers off to the right and winds its way up the hillside, but I parked below and took one of the many pedestrian paths and horse-friendly stairs that zigzag curtly through archways and by medieval buildings.
The reward at the top is the 80 BC sanctuary to the goddess Fortuna Primigenia. While catching my breath, I stepped forward to a spectacular view over the Sacco valley – bordered by the Lepini hills to the south, the Tiber River to the north and the Tyrrhenian Sea to the West. The Romans knew how to promote devotion to a goddess: location, location, and location.

The Nile, or ‘Nilotic’, Mosaic
From where I had started below, the sanctuary terraces cascade down the hill like layers of a wedding cake, later to inspire the Victor Emmanuel II monument in Rome – affectionately known to modern day Romans as ‘the wedding cake’ (or unaffectionately as ‘the typewriter’). The cherry on top is the archaeological museum and its treasure, the Nile Mosaic. Originally on the floor of an apse in the town forum below the sanctuary, this mosaic from around 80 BC is now mounted on its side against white walls – a six by four and a half meter mosaic of Egypt divided by the Nile – one of the largest and most important examples of Hellenistic period mosaics in existence.
The Nile starts at the bottom where it borders the Mediterranean and works its way up the wall to the Egyptian border with Ethiopia. Along the way, wild animals and domestic life line its flooded shores. On a practical level, it is a map of ancient Egypt and a table of its natural history, yet it is also a piece of landscape art. The Romans imagined Egypt as an exotic, fairytale world, one that stimulated their often unrecognized romantic side. This mosaic does not depict a traditional Egypt, but rather a romanticized Hellenistic vision that includes such pieces as Greek style temples. Before leaving, cast your eye to the bottom left-hand corner and the famous banquet scene.

Fortuna and Egypt
As with everything in Palestrina, the goddess Fortuna plays a role. The mosaic’s subject alludes to a close relationship between Iside (the Egyptian goddess of fertility and motherhood) and Fortuna Primigenia, whose areas of expertise were attributed to both fertility and fortune or prophesy. The mosaic itself was once the floor of a place of worship to Isis – a testimony to the connection between Egypt and Praeneste.

The Colonna palace and pre-Roman citadel
The rest of the museum – fully restored and reopened in 1998 – offers a carefully selected assortment of funerary items and Hellenistic period statues from the town and its surroundings. The palazzo, built by Francesco Colonna in 1493, incorporates pieces of the upper colonnade of the original sanctuary into its structure.
Once outside, the choice is up or down, or straight ahead. Head uphill by following the arrows that indicate “Itinerary to the monuments” for a stroll along a wall of recently restored massive Cyclopean masonry limestone blocks that were once part of the southern wall of a seventh century BC citadel on the hill’s summit. On a clear day you can see the seaside town of Anzio, the coastline and as even as far as the Monte Circeo.

The Temple of Fortuna
The hungry and tired can instead head directly downhill along any one of the paths that cut through the town in search of a plate of homemade fettuccine or ‘pasta e fagioli’. But before going in either direction, step forward to the edge of the sanctuary balcony to visit Fortuna’s temple. The sanctuary had been buried beneath the medieval town until the spring of 1944 when extensive bombing by allied forces – aimed at neutralizing the German troops that occupied this strategic spur of the Apennine hills – not only caused many victims among the townspeople, but also the destruction of its historic center. As the dust settled, the magnificent and unique structure of the sanctuary to Fortuna came forth from under the rubble. Still today we only see a small part of what was one of the largest and most impressive sanctuaries of the Roman era. A good idea of size and articulation is afforded by a model on display on the top floor of the archaeological museum. The statue that once stood in the sanctuary temple depicted Fortuna as being two figures, one whose body is covered in cloth and with a crown on her head and the other with naked breasts and a helmet. The first represents her role as a goddess of fertility and the second as protectress of man during all the phases of his life. In both roles she held oracular powers. The animistic beliefs of the pre-Christian Roman Empire included this dualism. Her principal attributes were fecundity, birth and healing of all parts of the body, in particular reproduction organs, but she also had powers over agriculture and activities connected to the sea.

The sanctuary in its heyday
Judging by the size and grandeur of her sanctuary, the oracle connected to the Temple of Fortuna Pimigenia had a large following. In 82 BC the ancient city was moved to lower ground to make room for the expanding temple, which came to include a series of terraces, exedras and porticos on four levels down the hillside, linked by the monumental stairs and ramps that we still see today. Roman landscape architects drew inspiration from this monument for their garden designs as did their Renaissance counterparts. Spurning the Republican style of Rome, Praeneste looked to the Hellenistic monarchies of the eastern Mediterranean for inspiration; another sign of the link between the Egyptian goddess Iside and our Fortuna Primigenia. Praeneste was ahead of its time, experimenting in what would become the Imperial style of the following generation.
Fortuna knew how to cast her spell. The emperor Trajan worshiped Fortuna with great devotion and dedicated a large temple to her in Rome while Praeneste became a satellite summer resort for wealthy Romans whose villas began to scatter the area, although this may have been more a consequence of the summer breezes than a sign of true devotion. Roman writers Horace, Pliny the Younger and Symmachus built villas and the Emperors Augustus and Tiberius each stayed in Praeneste to recover from illness. Marcus Aurelius visited regularly and the ruins of a villa built by Emperor Hadrian can be seen today about three-quarters of a mile outside the town.

Local rivalries then and now
From its earliest origins Praeneste struggled against the power and prestige of Rome. Modern residents of Palestrina still claim not only earlier origins than those of Rome but also intrinsically superior ones. One myth establishes the founder of the city as Telegonus, the son of Ulysses and the sorceress Circe. Another tradition attributes the founding of the city to Caeculus son of Vulcan, who organized a group of locals to fight against the Trojan hero Aeneas. These and other myths all date the origins of Praeneste to the ‘heroic age’ dominated by Ulysses, Aeneas and their direct descendants.
The Roman writers Livy and Plautus frequently noted the arrogance and excessive pride of the Praenesteans. They could afford to be arrogant due to the strategic position held by Praeneste, overlooking the passage that led from Tivoli to the port of Anzio and the roads from Rome to Campania. As the power of Rome expanded, Praeneste rebelled but without actually allying itself with the Latin league. When the league was defeated (around 494 BC) Praeneste joined a defense alliance with other Latin cities that led to sporadic war between Rome and Praeneste. Finally in 339 BC, Rome recognized Praeneste as a satellite and afforded it limited autonomy until the civil war of 90 BC and the rule of Sulla.

The end of paganism
With the advent of Christianity and the decline of Rome, the prestige of the goddess Fortuna slowly diminished and her worship was finally abandoned with the edicts of Theodosius between 380–390 AD that forbid the worship of pagan gods. The pagan senator, Symmachus, courageously staged a last public homage to Fortuna in 391 – perhaps also worried about the effect her demise would have on his property’s value. After this date, much of the grand sanctuary became material for construction or was incorporated into later buildings and buried under successive layers of civilization. Praeneste lost its traditional role and became a fortified town based on an agricultural economy exposed to successive raids by Barbarians and Saracens. During the medieval period Praeneste took on the name of Palestrina.

The Colonna stronghold
The history of Palestrina continued along a pendulum of Rome versus Lazio, with one defeating the other only to be defeated in return – like today’s soccer derbies. Upon the Empire’s fall the popes lay their hands on Praeneste and John XIII gave the area to the Tuscolo family and their political entourage in 970 to be eventually inherited by the Colonna family in 1043. This caused tensions between Pietro Colonna and Pope Gregory VII, which exploded into open war with his successor who, as a counter offensive, even attempted to invalidate the election of Boniface VIII in 1297. Crusades against Palestrina soon followed which destroyed the city, only to be rebuilt and destroyed once again as Palestrina, under the Colonna family, defied papal temporal power. This power struggle continued until the mid-fifteenth century with the armies of various members of the Colonna family descending on Rome only to meet papal armies in return. Finally reduced in power and prestige, Palestrina became an agricultural outland, so remote that in 1606 Caravaggio chose to hide here from the execution of a death sentence following an unfortunate duel. In 1630 Francesco Colonna fell on bad times and sold his land and property to Carlo Barberini, who restored the palazzo that now carries his name and houses the archaeological museum.

Palestrina the backwater
In 1525, just as Palestrina’s fate was taking a turn for the worse, a genius was born to put the city back on the map – Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina, generally considered the greatest composer of choral music.
Palestrina then slipped into oblivion, overlooked even by nineteenth century Grand Tour visitors, although several important European writers and artists passed through unnoticed, notably Thomas and Heinrich Mann who lived in Palestrina from 1895-97.
The afternoon sun is waning. It is time to pick up my son. I have asked the oracle if we won’t encounter too much traffic during our trip back to the center of Rome – I hope her fortune will follow us.

Note: Article first published in March 2008