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• 1 2018-12-05T16:04:04-08:00 Interior view of the Atrium of the Portico of Octavia 19 Veduta interna dell’Atrio del Portico di Ottavia plain 2022-07-15T07:41:15-07:00 Title: Veduta interna dell’Atrio del Portico di Ottavia. Key: 1. Due Frontespizj interiori del detto Portico. 2. Arco, che sostiene il Frontespizio fatto per ristauro da Settimio Severo dopo l’incendio in luogo delle due Colonne, che lo reggevano. 3. Colonne inferiori all’Atrio mezzo coperte nel muro con altri avanzi nelle cantine, le quali sostenevano i lati del Portico: oggi Pescaria. Signature: Piranesi Architetto fec(it). Signature 2: Presso l’Autore a Strada Felice vicino alla Trinità de’ monti Title: Interior View of the Atrium of the Portico of Octavia Key: 1. Two Pediments inside said Portico. 2. Arch, which sustained the Pediment built to restore it by Septimius Severus after the fire, in the place of the two Columns that held it up. 3. Columns of the lower floor of the Atrium, half covered by the wall with other ruins of the cellars, which held up the side walls of the Portico, now a Fish Market. Signature: Made by the Architect Piranesi. Signature 2: Published the Author on the Strada Felice near Trinita dei Monti.

  As the last view in this volume of the Didot edition of the Vedute di Roma, this image depicts a boundary of the ancient city and also marks the boundary of the book. Continuing with the same subject as the previous view, this print takes viewers inside the atrium of the Portico of Octavia. Arthur Hind singles out this image as “one of the most dignified” of the series, noting in particular that its subject nearly fills the foreground (16). In this and the previous view, Piranesi indeed fills the plate with this structure, casts its crumbling texture in bold chiaroscuro, and conveys its cramped position in modern Rome and, specifically, the Jewish Ghetto. Here, sunlight throws the protruding details of the façade into sharp relief and illuminates the two arches that loom over the busy street in the center of the image. While the previous image is somewhat flat and restricted in movement, this view of the atrium invites glances in many directions.
  
  In keeping with the assumptions of the veduta genre, Piranesi dutifully depicts the contemporary state of this ancient structure. He also includes its appearance on one of the extant fragments of the Severan Marble plan in both the “Pianta di Roma” from his Antichità Romane and a study in his volume on the Campus Martius. In both cases, he supplies annotations that detail its past: the first column constructed of marble in Rome, the restorations after a fire, and statues discovered among fragments that were later installed in the Campidoglio Palace. In the close-ups below, the remaining text that reads “CUSOCTAVIAEE” (the initial “PORTI” is lost) indicates its position. In this image, Piranesi’s annotations invite us into the past in a similar if condensed way before jolting us into the present.With the first annotations (“1” is repeated), readers are—as viewers—urged to look up, at the two most visible annotations in the image and the sculptural detail of the portico. The second and third annotations, though, are barely visible against the varied textures behind them. With his first and repeated annotation, Piranesi seems to invite us to look away from the street life and fish market in the deeply shaded foreground to the dramatically shaded details of the top of the portico. In doing so, he also urges us to look away from contemporary reality—the traditional content of the veduta genre—and to envision the structure’s history of damage and restoration. His second annotation describes the portico’s restoration under Septimius Severus after it was damaged by a fire. When the final annotation does nod to the structure’s present conditions, the syntax suggests defeated resignation when he concludes by describing the “… lati del Portico: oggi Pescaria.” It is worth noting that selling fish was one of the few occupations open to Roman Jews and that the Jewish Ghetto was the site of overcrowding, poverty, frequent flooding, and, in the previous century, an epidemic. Once a site of magnificence: today, Piranesi pivots, a lowly fishmarket. At the end of this volume of the Vedute di Roma, this image of a gateway suggests the constant oscillation in Piranesi’s vedute between the past and the present, with his own interpretation of the genre’s customary visual detail and verbal information often serving as a gateway between the two. (JB)
  
  To see this image in the Vedute di Roma, volume 16 of Piranesi’s Opere, click here.