L’iscrizione ritrovata : nuovi dati sulla cosiddetta schola Xanthi del Foro Romano

This paper presents the rediscovery of an epigraphic document, which was believed to be lost since the 16th century. The research begins with the analysis of a fragmentary inscribed epistyle, kept in storage within the archaeological area of the Scipio’s tomb, and it will be demonstrated that this inscription originally belonged to the epistyle of the so-called Schola Xanthi, discovered in 1539 in the Roman Forum. This building was immediately destroyed and the inscription, recovered from the warehouse on the Appian Way, remains the only epigraphic and archaeological evidence for this schola, devoted to the scribes and heralds of the curule aediles. The paper intends to examine the sources left by the antiquarians, in order to speculate on the circumstances that favoured the preservation of this inscription over the centuries. Secondly, the rediscovered fragmentary inscription will be used to suggest the reconstruction of the entire epistyle and to develop further consideration about the architecture, the chronology and the location of this Roman place of imperial administration.