HOW AUTHENTIC ARE THE TEMPLES IN THE LARGO DI TORRE ARGENTINA?

HOW AUTHENTIC ARE THE TEMPLES IN THE LARGO DI TORRE ARGENTINA? I am fairly confident that the cats will survive any political attacks, but Massimo Gatto’s article was troubling for me for a different reason. Since I came across the four temples in the Largo di Torre Argentina on my first trip to Rome while I was wandering without using a guidebook, I have cherished the thought that these remains had survived some 2000 years. Gatto’s article says that in fact they are reconstructions from Mussolini’s time. After an archaeological dig which involved destroying some palazzi and a 17th century church, Gatto says that: “the ruins [that were found]were so ruinous (having been incorporated into later, living buildings) that Mussolini’s archaeologists had to import columns from Ostia Antica to ‘reconstruct’ them.” Gatto calls the goes on to say that much of the Roman Forum that we see is “a twentieth-century reconstruction of ancient Rome rather than genuine antiquity.” I am disappointed to think the Forum as well as the Largo di Torre Argentina is not completely authentic, but I take comfort in the fact that I am very happy with reconstructions, having spent a lot of time at Colonial
Williamsburg. The reconstructions help me imagine the past. The outstanding fact for me is that there were once four temples side by side in the Largo di Torre Argentina.