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Modern Description: Nymphaeum on the Esquiline, between the via Labicana and the Aurelian wall, just inside the line of the Anio vetus. There is no mention of this structure in ancient literature or inscriptions, but it is without doubt a monumental nymphaeum. The existing ruins consist of a decagonal hall of opus latericium, which was covered with a domed roof until part of it fell in 1828, surrounded on three sides with other chambers added at a later date. In the interior of the hall are nine niches, besides the entrance; and above these are ten corresponding round-arched windows. The diameter of the hall is about 24 metres, and the height was 33. It is very important from the structural point of view, and especially for the meridian ribs in the dome. The outside walls were covered with marble and the interior richly decorated in a similar manner. In the fifteenth century Flavius Blondus (Roma Instaurata) called these ruins Le Galluzze, a name of uncertain meaning that had been applied earlier to some ruins near S. Croce in Gerusalemme. Since the seventeenth century the nymphaeum has frequently been called Templum Minervae Medicae (q.v.), on account of the erroneous impression that the Giustiniani Athene had been found in its ruins. (Platner/Ashby in LacusCurtius)

Info: McCredie, Fortified Military Camps

James R. McCredie, Fortified Military Camps in Attica, Hesperia Supplement 11, 1966,

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