Name: Katerina Gottardo

Biography

I had my bachelor and MA degree in Archaeology at the University of Padova, where I also attended my first year of Scuola di Specializzazione in Archaeology. During my university path I took part at various excavations, mainly in Aquileia (UD, Italy) where I worked for many years, but also in Siena (SI, Italy) and Cuma (NA, Italy). I also worked in commercial archaeology for an Italian company. I’ve also worked in Rome for two seasons of the project “Rome Transformed” with the Universiy of Newcastle, where I practised structural analysis. I’m specialised in Roman Archaeology, focusing in particular on architecture. Departing from this interest, my first thesis examined the materials and construction techniques used in the province of Venezia (in Northern Italy) during Roman time. This research was part of a bigger project (Archeoed) whose aim is to create a catalogue of all the building techniques used in Roman time.  After my participation to the excavation that aimed to discover the location of the theatre in Aquileia, I wrote a thesis titled “Substructures of Roman theatres in northern and central Italy” in 2017-2018. By this last dissertation I developed an interest on the theatre buildings and on their related structures, as still lots of work need to be done. My doctoral research, for which I have been awarded AHRC funding via Northernbridge, is titled “Theatre on water: aquatic performances in theatres of the Roman Empire, the archaeological evidence and cultural contexts”. This research will be conducted under the supervision of Prof. Edmund Thomas, Prof. Ian Haynes (Newcastle), Dr. Davide Motta (Northumbria) and Dr. Erika Bexeley.

Research project:

“Theatre on water: aquatic performances in theatres of the Roman Empire, the archaeological evidence and cultural contexts”

It is well-known that Roman amphitheatres could be used for water displays, the arena filled with water to mimic sea-battles or other performances (Coleman 1993). Less considered, however, is the use of theatre buildings for water spectacles. Gustavo Traversari (1960) was the first to consider this theme closely, hypothesizing a type of performance called the ‘tetimimo’; and, more recently, Anne Berlan-Bajard (2006) has extended his work, establishing that such water displays took place well before late antiquity. Nonetheless, they remain disputed in nature, lacking proper definition, and, above all, close relation to the archaeological evidence. Recent monographs on theatres (Rossetto and Pisani Sartorio 1994, Sear 2006) lack full consideration of such details, and modern architectural handbooks (Gros 1996) underplay the role of water in Roman performances. Evidence for the supply of water to theatres remains altogether neglected.

The present research will consider aquatic installations in Roman theatres more closely, following up-to-date architectural methodologies (Taylor 2003, Giuliani 2006), developed in my own MA studies on the architecture of theatres, and building on recent work on regional theatres (Tosi 2003, Bressan 2009, di Napoli 2013), to focus on the architectural aspects of these installations and on their cultural traditions and influences and expound what kind of water shows were performed in theatres. The project will consider those installations related to specific aquatic uses and their gradual integration into Roman theatre design from the early empire up to late antiquity. It aims to offer a fuller understanding of the following research questions:

1. How far did the addition of such structures change the formal design of the orchestra, cavea and scene building (frons pulpiti, pulpitum, parascaenium)?
2. How do theatre aquatic structures differ from amphitheatre facilities, and what do such differences suggest about the nature and use of such installations?
3. How did aqueducts serve theatres, and how far does their topographical termination offer evidence that the aquatic show was one of the theatre’s primary functions. Why did architects choose one method rather than another to bring water into the theatre?
4. How far do differences between East and West of the empire suggest either intrusions of Roman features in the East or of eastern features in western cities? Cultural and diachronic change both within sites and across the empire is a principal object of the research.

The purpose is to create an architectural model of the water path inside of the roman theatre, whose function was to bring the element for the aquatic performances.

The study will consider the structures’ topographical contexts and the date of their construction, in order to establish a timeline for their chronological diffusion and ‘evolution’. Closer attention will be paid to the earliest such installations in Campania identified by Berlan-Bajard, and to the reasons for the performance of aquatic shows in the A.D 1^st century., as well as to their diffusion.

Recent presentation/papers given:

• CIfA 2021 annual conference – Early Career Researches (April 2021, online), where I presented my PhD project;
• 18^th Annual Postgraduate Forum Interdisciplinary Conference, titled “Adaptation”, Newcastle University, School of History, Classics and Archaeology (May 2021, online), with the paper “Adaptation to the environmental context: the substructures of caveae in Roma theatres in the northern-central Italy”;
• “Terra, legno e materiali deperibili nell’architettura antica”, Convegno internazionale di studi, Padova (June 2021), with the researched titled “I terrapieni nei sistemi sostruttivi dell’architettura teatrale”;
• CIfa Innovation festival 2021 (October 2021) where I presented my MA thesis.