The numerous sacella of ancient Rome included both shrines maintained on private properties by families, and public shrines. A sacellum might be square or round. Varro and Verrius Flaccus describe sacella in ways that at first seem contradictory, the former defining a sacellum in its entirety as equivalent to a cella,Varro, Res Divinae frg. 62 in the edition of Cardauns.
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A sacrarium was a place where sacred objects (sacra) were stored or deposited for safekeeping.Ulpian, Digest I.8.9.2: sacrarium est locus in quo sacra reponuntur. The word can overlap in meaning with sacellum, a small enclosed shrine; the sacella of the Argei are also called sacraria.
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2: sacrarium est locus in quo sacra reponuntur. The sacella of the Argei, for instance, are also called sacraria.Ittai Gradel, Emperor Worship and Roman Religion (Oxford University Press, 2002), p. 10. In private houses, the sacrarium was the part of the house where the images of the Penates were kept; the lararium was a form of sacrarium for the Lares.
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De Lingua Latina VI 24; Festus sv Septimontium p. 348, 340, 341L; Plut. Quest. Rom. 69 to the pagi and curiae, and to the sacella, "shrines".Festus sv Publica sacra; Dionys. Hal. II 21, 23; Appian. Hist. Rom. VIII 138; de Bello Civ. II 106; Plut. Quaest. Rom. 89; Christopher John Smith, The Roman Clan: The gens from Ancient Ideology to Modern Anthropology (Cambridge University Press, 2006), p. 44.
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The order of the first floor columns is Doric (hence the name of the fountain), that of the second Ionic. At the centre in front of the entrance is an arch leading into a natural cave, probably an ancient spring. Many scholars believe that it could be the “sacella” (sacrarium) described by Cicero and built by Clodius on the ruins of the ancient Alba Longa. The Nymphaeum is faced with opus reticulatum.
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Each curia had its own sacellum overseen by the celeres, originally the bodyguard of the king, who preserved a religious function in later times.Dionysius Halicarnassus II 64, 3. These were related to the ritual of the Argei, but probably there were other rites connected with these sacella. A case tried in September 50 BC indicates that a public sacellum might be encompassed by a private property, with the expectation that it remain open to the public.
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On the Ides of May, the procession of the Argei went from the temple of Fors Fortuna, built by Servius Tullius, to the pons Sublicius. (There is no reference for this version of events; this ritual is somewhat unclear and may be the same as the Roman Liberalia.) Alternately, Samuel Ball Platner explains that the ritual involved priests travelling to all (27 or 30) of the shrines (sacella) called Argei in the original 4 regions of Rome before arriving at the Pons Sublicius. The pontiffs and the magistrates were carrying straw effigies of bound men, also called Argei, which the Vestals threw into the Tiber. The Flaminica Dialis was dressed in mourning.
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The rituals of the Argei were archaic religious observances in ancient Rome that took place on March 16 and March 17, and again on May 14 or May 15. By the time of Augustus, the meaning of these rituals had become obscure even to those who practiced them. For the May rites, a procession of pontiffs, Vestals, and praetors made its way around a circuit of 27 stations (sacella or sacraria), where at each they retrieved a figure fashioned into human form from rush, reed, and straw, resembling men tied hand and foot. After all the stations were visited, the procession, accompanied by the Flaminica Dialis in mourning guise, moved to the Pons Sublicius, the oldest known bridge in Rome, where the gathered figures were tossed into the Tiber River.
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The cover describes both works: "Sanctissimae Virgini Missa senis vocibus ad ecclesiarum choros, ac Vespere pluribus decantandae cum nonnullis sacris concentibus ad Sacella sive Principum Cubicula accommodata" (Mass for the Most Holy Virgin for six voices for church choirs, and vespers for several voices with some sacred songs, suitable for chapels and ducal chambers). From the Magnificat, a page from the alto partbook (short score), the voice part left and continuo part right One of the partbooks contains the basso continuo and provides a kind of short score for the more complicated movements: it gives the title of the Vespers as: "Vespro della Beata Vergine da concerto composta sopra canti firmi" (Vesper for the Blessed Virgin for concertos, composed on cantus firmi). Monteverdi's notation is still in the style of Renaissance music, for example regarding the duration of notes and the absence of bar lines. There is no score, but a partbook for each voice and instrument.
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