Rome (IT), Factory of the Lazio Milk Producers' Consortium [extant] - 1937
The inscription (1937) is still visible inside the apsidal niche over the entrance of the former factory of the Lazio Milk Producers Consortium (Consorzio Laziale dei Produttori di Latte, after 1953 named Centrale del Latte di Roma). This building (Via Giovanni Giolitti 275) had been made available to the Consortium by the Governatorato. Its author is Raffaello Santarelli.
The inscription is carved in Roman square
capitals; its grooves were once filled with bronze, now they are only painted
red. The inscription functioned as a kind of caption: originally, a copy of the
Capitoline Wolf, nursing Romulus and Remus (no longer extant), stood in the niche below the inscription. The text
has the rhythm
(not the quantities) of a dactylic hexameter.
The inscription can be understood only when taking
into account the building’s original destination and the original statue of the
she-wolf that accompanied it. Alluding to the building’s original function, the
text underlines the importance of milk in Rome’s origin myth. The phrasing of
the inscription echoes elegiac poets such as Ovid (Fast. 3.53: Lacte
quis infantes nescit crevisse ferino) and Propertius (2.6.20: Nutritus
duro, Romule, lacte lupae).
The building was designed by Innocenzo Costantini (1881–1962) and its architecture recalls the
shape of the nearby ancient aqueduct (Anio Vetus). After the Centrale
del Latte di Roma left the building in 1980, it was partially demolished and
thoroughly restructured in order to host the power station “Esquilino” of Acea
SpA (since 2001).
Bibliography
Capalbi, Monica. 2004. ‘Centrale del Latte (1923), oggi Centrale ACEA (2001)’. In Esquilino e Castro Pretorio. Patrimonio storico-artistico e architettonico del Comune di Roma, edited by Nicoletta Cardano, 115–17. Rome: Artemide.
Ferraironi, Francesco. 1937. Iscrizioni ornamentali su edifici
e monumenti di Roma con appendice sulle iscrizioni scomparse. Rome:
Industria Tipografica Romana, no. 596.
Nastasi, Antonino. 2019. Le iscrizioni in latino di Roma
Capitale (1870-2018). Rome: Edizioni Quasar, 258–59.
Antonino Nastasi