Fasti
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Fasti

In ancient Rome, the fasti (Latin plural) were chronological or calendar-based lists, or other diachronic records or plans of official and religiously sanctioned events. After Rome's decline, the word fasti continued to be used for similar records in Christian Europe and later Western culture.

Public business, including the official business of the Roman state, had to be transacted on dies fasti, "allowed days". The fasti were the records of this business. In addition to the word's general sense, there were fasti that recorded specific kinds of events, such as the fasti triumphales, lists of triumphs celebrated by Roman generals. The divisions of time used in the fasti were based on the Roman calendar.

The yearly records of the fasti encouraged the writing of history in the form of chronological annales, "annals", which in turn influenced the development of Roman historiography.

Fasti is the plural of the Latin adjective fastus, most commonly used as a substantive. The word derives from fas, meaning "that which is permitted", that is, "that which is legitimate in the eyes of the gods." Fasti dies were the days on which business might be transacted without impiety, in contrast to dies nefasti, days on which assemblies and courts could not convene. The word fasti itself came to denote lists organized by time. The temporal structure distinguished fasti from regesta, which were simple lists of property, or assets, such as land or documents, or transactions transferring property.

Fasti Magistrales, Annales or Historici, were concerned with the several festivals, and everything relating to religious practice and the gods, and the magistrates; to the emperors, their birthdays, offices, days consecrated to them, with feasts and ceremonies established in their honor or for their prosperity. They came to be denominated magni, "great", by way of distinction from the bare calendar, or fasti diurni ("everyday records"). The word fasti thus came to be used in the general sense of annals or historical records.

Fasti consulares were official chronicles in which years were denoted by the respective consuls and other magistrates, often with the principal events that happened during their consulates, but sometimes not. An example is the fasti Capitolini, a modern name assigned because they were deposited in 1547 in the courtyard of the Palazzo dei Conservatori on the Capitoline Hill on order of Alessandro Farnese, who kept them temporarily in his villa after their excavation from the Roman forum in 1545 or 1546 (funded by Farnese). Michelangelo, who designed the complex of three palaces on the hill, also restored the tables of the fasti. The Palazzo today is one of the Capitoline Museums, which serve a double duty as museums and city government buildings. The fasti are located in the Sala della Lupa, the same room as the bronze wolf. More pieces discovered after the Renaissance were placed with it.

The fasti consulares were discovered as 30 marble fragments in the forum. With them were 26 fragments of Acta Triumpharum, since called the fasti triumphales. Both lists were restored as distinct records. The restoration was based nearly entirely on the observations of Onofrio Panvinio and Pirro Ligorio, who were standing at the top of the trench in which a portion of wall was showing, featuring inscriptional material between pilasters. They conferred with Michelangelo. Pope Paul III had authorized the mining of stone for St. Peter's in 1540 and Michelangelo was in fact protestingly working on its design also. The pope was following the widespread convention that prevailed in the Renaissance of ripping up the structures of the past to reuse in building structures they considered even more magnificent. The scholars were collaborating to save what they could.

A resident colony of quarrymen did not pause in the slightest but went on dismantling buildings. All trace of structures in that part of the forum vanished between August 15 and September 14, 1546. The stone was sold to cutters for reuse or to lime burners for the creation of cement. None of these proceedings were in any way archaeological. Cardinal Farnese assigned the scholars to watch the diggings. Collecting a team they moved swiftly to rescue what they could, sinking tunnels to the side to search for fragments. Subsequently, more fragments turned up embedded in buildings then in use, showing that the area had been less intensely mined previously, and casting doubt of the location of the original source of the fragments.

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