Plate 67. The Forum of Nerva at Rome

This Forum of Nerva consisted of a great columned court with a Temple of Minerva on the interior and a Janus arch of four gates, and for this reason was also called Forum Palladium. The columns extended along the court wall and carried an entablature with an attic above. Only two of these columns remain, buried half in the ground. The order has, with the exception of the rich decoration, a similarity to the Pantheon, though the egg and dart moulding over the dentils is unusually large, and the corona is too weak as compared with the cyma thereover. In the front of the projecting entablatures the centers of the modillions are to be spaced in accordance with the dotted lines A. A. A.

The soffit is found on Plate 87. The reliefs in the frieze represent Minerva as the founder and teacher of feminine arts, but are so very much damaged that their original meaning can only be presumed.