~ 
200 Report of the Labours of 
also of a large space exposed to the sun, which he calls So- 
larium. 
According to Suetonius, the Forum occupied the space con- 
tained between the public road and the foot of the temple: it 
had two ground plans, the one inferior and the other superior, 
and its porticos were adorned with statues. There were also 
to be scen there, according to Varro, two Basilica, one called 
Emilia, the other Fulvia, and a Gnomon, 
Livy speaks of a statue of Jupiter Imperator, who was held 
in great veneration, and who doubtless had a temple in the 
Forum. Authors also mention temples of Juno, Mars, the god- 
dess Opis, and particularly the famous temple of Fortune, which 
situated at the top of the city commanded it, and filled it al- 
most entirely with its appendages which extended to the Forum. 
After having had kings and various kinds of governments, 
Preneste subjugated by the Romans under the conduct of Cin- 
cinnatus, destroyed then restored by Sylla, who sent a colony 
there, flourished during the emperors, and preserved its splendour 
to the fall of the empire. 
From this peried Preneste declined, and in the various devas 
tations which it suffered its monuments were destroyed; on the 
ruins of which the modern Palestrina has gradually been raised. 
The latter increasing from time to time now presents the 
singular spectacle of houses, churches, and high palaces, sus-~ 
pended as it were on the vast terraces which supported the an- 
cient edifices. 
It has been through those modern buildings that M. Huyot 
has set about seeking out and measuring the remains of the monu- 
ments which formed the splendour of the ancient Praneste. 
The enterprise was the more difficult, as he embarked upon 
it almost without guides: those only whom he could consult 
were Pietro Ligorio, among whose manuscript drawings a ge- 
neral plan and perspective view of this temple with its atrium 
and appendages were found; Pietro da Cortona, from whose 
drawings a plan and general elevation were engraved on a large 
scale ; and Suares, who in his Preneste Antiqua, and Volpi in 
the Vetus Latium, have inserted perspective views. 
Inexact and incomplete as these works are, and the fruits of the 
imagination rather than of the observations of their authors, 
they could offer but very feeble assistance. 
Piranesi, that indefatigable investigator of ancient monuments, 
has published nothing on the latter: there was therefore a new 
mine to explore, and M. Huyot acquitted himself with the 
greatest success. i 
He has given six drawings of the results of his extensive in- 
quiries. 
