Page 9 - monument

IL TEMPIO DI ERCOLE
The Temple of Hercules, in its history, was the precursor in everything.
In fact it was the first temple in Rome built in marble and it was also the first to resume the status of a temple (at an archaeological level) after its de- stination as a Catholic church!
Wrongly called the Temple of Vesta due to its similarity to the temple of the vestals of the Roman forum, it was made of Greek marble by Greek artists in 120 BC.
It was commissioned by a wealthy merchant and it was dedicated to Hercules (pro- tector of olive trees, traders and breeders) in the place that, at the time, was the heart of the commercial area of ancient Rome.
It became a church in the Middle Ages. Initially it was dedicated to Santo Stefano delle Carrozze then, in the 17th century due to the discovery of an image of the Ma- donna in the Tiber from which a ray of the sun started, in Santa Maria del Sole.
In the early 1800s, it was desecrated and restored to its original state by Valadier.