It is in the
Ionic order and is by the ancient Forum Boarium by the
Tiber. During
Antiquity the site overlooked the Tiberine port at a sharp bend in the river; from here, Portunus watched over cattle barges as they entered the city from
Ostia. The temple was originally built in the 3rd or 4th century BC and was rebuilt between 120 and 80 BC. The rectangular building consists of a
tetrastyle portico and
cella, raised on a high
podium reached by a flight of steps, which it retains. Like the
Maison Carrée in
Nîmes, it has a
pronaos portico of four
Ionic columns across and two columns deep. The columns of the portico are free-standing, while the remaining five columns on the long sides and the four columns at the rear are half-columns
engaged along the walls of the cella. This form is sometimes called
pseudoperipteral, as distinct from a true
peripteral temple like the
Parthenon entirely surrounded by free-standing columns. The Ionic capitals are of the original form, different in the frontal and side views, except in the volutes at the corners, which project at 45°, a common Roman detail. It is built of
tuff and
travertine with a
stucco surface. If still in use by the 4th-century, the temple would have been closed during the
persecution of pagans in the late Roman Empire. The temple owes its state of preservation to its being converted for use as a church in 872 and rededicated to
Santa Maria Egiziaca (Saint
Mary of Egypt). Its
Ionic order has been much admired, drawn and engraved and copied since the 16th century. The original coating of
stucco over its tufa and travertine construction has been lost. The circular
Temple of Hercules Victor is south-east of the temple in the Forum Boarium; it was also turned into a church, as
Santa Maria del Sole, for many centuries. The 18th century
Temple of Harmony in Somerset, England is a
folly based on the Temple of Portunus. File:Piranesi-16062.jpg|
Veduta del Tempio della Fortuna virile, etching by
Giovanni Battista Piranesi, c. 1770; the
Temple of Hercules Victor to the right File:Carl Wuttke - Römische Vedute mit der Piazza della Bocca della Verità.jpg|Late 19th-century painting by
Carl Wuttke File:Roma - Piazza Bocca della verità.JPG|
Piazza Bocca della verità, in 2005 Image:PalladioWare1738FortunaVirilis.jpg|"The Temple of Fortuna Virilis" in
Isaac Ware, ''The Four Books of Andrea Palladio's Architecture'', London, 1738] ==See also==