The Forum Seen from the Farnese Gardens

In 1826 most Romans did not call this place the Forum. It was the Campo Vaccino, the cow field, where cattle brought in for the city's markets had been kept for centuries, and the ancient square lay under several metres of earth with only its tallest ruins showing. Corot looked down on it in March 1826 from the Farnese Gardens on the Palatine hill, painting in oil on a sheet of paper. Near the middle of the view a lone column stands in front of the Arch of Septimius Severus. The tower rising on the left belongs to the Senators' Palace on the Capitoline hill, today Rome's city hall. In the same month, from the same garden, Corot also painted the Colosseum, and both studies are now in the Louvre.