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The Digital Piranesi

Monument of the Antonine Aqueduct [Aqueduct of Caracalla]

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Monument of the Fountainhead of the Antonine Aqueduct

In its arrangement within the volume, visual details, and textual supplements, this image corrals numerous types of evidence to present an argument about the attribution of an ancient structure. In this landscape of the Antonine aqueduct, Piranesi depicts four arches, the one closest to the viewer being the largest and the only one still in existence today. This image from Le Antichità Romane appears above the “Cross Section of the Aqueduct of Caracalla”on the same page, in an arrangement that indicates the direction in which the water from the aqueduct flowed, since it carried the water from the Antonine Fountain which was then added to the Aqueduct of the Acqua Marcia by Caracalla. The direction of the waterflow is also indicated in the “Topographical Map of the Roman Aqueducts.”

Of the four arches portrayed in the image, the arch closest to the viewer is given the most attention and sits directly in the center of the frame. In this image, Piranesi adopts his “dual role as antiquary and designer” (Pinto 2012, 142) once again, as the central arch appears to be none other than the misappropriated “Arch of Drusus” and the artist has provided an imagined restoration of the ruins of the progression of arches that will help disprove such a hypothesis. Indeed, the index entry that accompanies the image asserts that “I moderni scrittori lo suppongono per l’Arco di Druso, ma non lo avrebbono supposto tale, qualora avessero osservato nommeno lo speco del Condotto che tuttavia si vede sullo stesso Monumento, quanto l’andamento del Condotto medesimo nel residuo che rimane sull’angolo esterno delle mura urbane” (Index to the Map of Rome, no. 142). The true Arch of Drusus is known to have been constructed over two centuries prior to the current Arch of Drusus, also along Via Appia, likely soon after his death in 9 BCE. It is recorded as a marble structure decorated with trophies, and its location is believed to have been close to the junction between Via Appia and Via Latina (Richardson 25).

Piranesi appears to be employing this image—both with the emphasis on the direction of the waterflow of the “speco” as well as pointing to the progression of arches—in order to discredit those mistaken “moderni scrittori” who continue to believe this to be the Arch of Drusus. He presents a conjectural recreation of the progression of arches attached to the one remaining ruin to help his viewers visualize his argument. Staffage figures serve to indicate scale but also, especially those in the bottom left, also draw the viewers’ attention to the conjectural recreation in the image. Indeed, Piranesi is strategic in the position and stance of his figures since their arrangement and poses correspond perfectly to the two pieces of evidence that he presents in his index entry (Index to the Map of Rome, no. 142). The two figures on the boat under the first arch of the progression of three arches draw the viewer’s attention to the channel of the aqueduct since they are seated in a boat on the water under the arch. The second pair of figures are standing with their backs toward the viewer evidently observing and considering the progression of arches of the Aqueduct.

If Piranesi’s beholders still remain convinced that this is, indeed, the Arch of Drusus, he offers first-hand testimony: “Ed in fatti Niccolò Baglioni Vignajuolo della Casa Casali, nello scasso della vigna ha fatti vedere e tolti via i pilastri degli archi della detta prosecuzione, de’ quali dice rimanere tuttavia gran parte da rimuovere” (Index to the Map of Rome, no. 142). This evidence imbues his image and its argument with the immediacy of a local laborer’s knowledge of this ancient structure.

In this image and its related text, Piranesi attempts to “spiegare con disegni le proprie idee” [explain his own ideas with drawings] (“Lettera Dedicatoria a Nicola Giobbe,” cited in Piranesi 1972, 115, 117) showing, as Sabrina Ferri has suggested, that the intentions of his artistry were not merely “archaeological, but rather constructive and experimental” (Ferri 100). This image hovers somewhere between the past and present circumstances of the site and, like many of his images, “brings the past back to life by reinventing it and infusing it with new purpose and meaning” (Ferri 101). (AD)