BASILICA IUNII BASSI
consul ordinarius in 331 A.D. (not
317, cf. Gotting.
Nachr. 1904, 345), situated on the Esquiline east of S.
Maria Maggiore.
The inscription, in mosaic, was copied in the sixteenth
century (
Iunius
Bassus, v.c. consul ordinarius propria impensa a solo fecit
et dedicavit
feliciter,
CIL vi. 1737) in the apse of a richly decorated
hall belonging
to it. He died in 359 (ib. 32004).
In the time of Pope Simplicius (468-483) the hall was
dedicated by
the munificence of the Goth Valila (or Flavius
Theodobius) as the
church of S. Andrea cata Barbara Patricia (
LP xlviii. 1).
Drawings of the fine decorations in marble and mosaic
were made
by Giuliano da Sangallo (Barb. 31' and text, p. 47) and at
the end of
the sixteenth century (see Hulsen in Festschrift fur Julius
Schlosser
(Vienna, 1926), 53-67, at the end of which a list of the
drawings is given;
add Windsor, Portfolio 5, No. 60 (Inv. 12121), for which
see
PBS vi. 186,
n. 2; and Holkham, ii. 8, 9, 11; Baddeley xciv., for which
see
PBS
viii. 40, 49; Caylus 30, which represents the mosaic of
the triumphator);
and two of the mosaics are still in the Palazzo Massimi
(MD 4114, 4115)
and two more in the Palazzo dei Conservatori (Cons. 260,
264, q.v. for
full bibliography).
See
BCr 1871, 5-29, 41-64;
1899, 171-179;
BC 1893, 89-104;
PBS
vi. 186-188;
viii. 49; Arm. 815; HJ 337 ; HCh 179-181,
585.
