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• 1 2021-03-30T11:16:10-07:00 Remains of the Temple of Concord 6 AVANZO DEL TEMPIO DELLA CONCORDIA plain 2024-11-08T11:22:46-08:00 AVANZO DEL TEMPIO DELLA CONCORDIA.; Piranesi Archit(etto) dis(egnò) inc(ise). REMAINS OF THE TEMPLE OF CONCORD; Drawn and engraved by the Architect Piranesi.

  This image playfully depicts an ancient structure whose mingling with present-day city life might make it hard to identify. Curves and swags pepper this view, corrupting the austerity and seriousness of the ancient remains. The textiles hung between columns and the brick arches above the cornice, combined with voluptuous, if wispy, clouds emphasize a smoothing softness of the image, while the overlapping and layering of buildings of different periods also contributes adds to the liveliness of the image. The side of the building is shown; the front, which we may prefer to see, is in shadow. We are being toyed with or presented with a different approach. It is worth noting that the so-called “altra veduta” or other view of this temple from the Vedute di Roma also presents the alternative side of the remains, a depiction that suggests one of vice and a darker vision of the ruins.  
  
  Building on this presentation, and recalling Piranesi’s capricci, or imaginative views, one might wonder if the wooden door in the foreground offers a passage to another world or a method to transcend time-bound parameters and witness successive structures in the history of this location. Contemporary masonry fills the ancient intercolumniation, apparently Roman brick voussoirs top the pediment, while recent, half-finished buildings append the rear and front of the surviving temple columns, and limb-like fragments litter the right-hand side. A sign to the fore almost teases the viewer or presents a challenge to the connoisseur: this is—as you must certainly know—a view of the temple of Concord. 
  
  And yet, it would appear it probably is not, since the Temple of Concord (or perhaps better, Temples of Concord, since three were (re)built successively on the same site in the Roman Forum) was most likely destroyed or fell into disrepair centuries before Piranesi’s day. Coins of the emperor Tiberius (below) show the original elevation of the third structure crowded with statues of deities and it must have had a busy, populated appearance, quite in contrast to the more subtly hidden figures seen here. 
  This hexastyle temple remaining in the Roman Forum is in fact that of Saturn, which could be intended here and misidentified, though that temple has unfluted column shafts. These questions or problems of identification are not a factor in Piranesi's depiction, though, which instead emphasizes the drama and playfulness of the physical remains. (PC)