Cattle in the Forum

After the fall of the Western Empire, the Forum slowly emptied. Churches were built inside some of its temples and halls, and the last monument raised there, the Column of Phocas, was dedicated in 608 to a Byzantine emperor. In the Middle Ages, marble was stripped for building or burned for lime, floods and debris buried the old pavements, and noble families built towers among the ruins.

By the sixteenth century the valley between the Capitoline and the Palatine had become a pasture and cattle market, the Campo Vaccino. Painters and travelers came to draw it, and grazing cattle under ancient columns became a favorite image of Grand Tour art. Systematic excavation began only around 1800 and continued through the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, until the ancient ground was laid bare again.

The landmarks in the painting are familiar. The three columns recall those of the Temple of Castor and Pollux, the lone column beyond recalls the Column of Phocas, and the half-buried arch recalls the Arch of Septimius Severus.