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The Digital Piranesi

Ruins of the first castellum of the Acqua Giulia

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Remains of the First Castellum of the Acqua Giulia

In the same years in which Piranesi was working at Le Antichità Romane, he depicted the site in a view recently included in the Vedute di Roma. There, a different point of view creates a stunning effect of controsole, or counter-sun, which makes sunlight illuminate the ruins of the ancient monument and its modern, unpleasant addition, and he depicts women drying their laundry in a genre scene. Here, in the view from Le Antichità Romane, contemporary Rome is instead ignored to emphasize the remains of the ancient building. The archaeological attention devoted to the ancient structure allows Piranesi to discuss its technical function as castello dell’acqua, not only by indicating conduits and spechi, or channels, in the key but also by superimposing a plan in the upper left corner which better explains the view.

The castello, to which the pipes flowed and from which they branched, contained decanting chambers and a terminal basin, which was decorated as a nymphaeum clad in marble with large niches hosting sculptures and decorations. The original aspect must have been magnificent, a kind of forerunner of the great fountains of the Baroque era. The site was named for the first time as Trofei di Mario in the Mirabilia Urbis Romae (1140-1143), a kind of pilgrims' guidebook, and is still known by this name; it derives from the two marble sculptures originally set in the niches, which were understood to commemorate Marius’ victories over Cimbri and Teutoni. They had been removed and relocated on the balustrade of the Campidoglio in 1590 by pope Sixtus V (and are visible in Piranesi’s “Side View of the Capitoline Hill”) and were the subject of another Piranesi’s work of the same period, a series of ten prints, from which the view in the Vedute di Roma was taken, entitled Trophies of Octavius Augustus (1753).

The subject of this image appears in Piranesi’s Topographical Map of the Roman Aqueducts (no. 20) and the Map of Rome (no. 230). Comparing Frontinus’ descriptions in De aquis urbis Romae with his first-hand observations, Piranesi proved, as demonstrated in the Index to the Map of Rome, that the elevation of the canals did not belong to the Acqua Marcia, but to the Acqua Giulia, as it is the third in height, after the Claudia and the Anione Nuovo. Only recent altimetric studies have definitively established that water was running from the Acquedotto Claudio or the Anione Nuovo (Pisani Sartorio 62). This is a very remarkable case of archaeological identification which shows Piranesi’s method: he not only analysed the monument in its structure, elevation and pipelines’ course, but focused also on the route of the entire aqueduct, linking it with other nearby remaining structures (no. 228 and 122 in the Index to the Map of Rome). This fascinating site continued to attract Piranesi’s attention, as he later dedicated an entire publication to it, Le Rovine del Castello dell'Acqva Givlia (1761), whose nineteen tavole are accompanied by a thorough explanatory text dealing with the aqueduct’s functioning and structures.

The present etching shows Piranesi’s ability in rendering different materials thanks to various graphic features: architecture and vegetation, sky and clouds, light and shadows have different textures and pictorial effects. The impressive ruins are differently depicted both in what remains of the smoother masonry and in the rougher or collapsed parts. On the upper part, even the holes for the marble cladding brackets are reproduced. The staffage figures emphasize the important elements of the composition. One figure points, in the left corner, to the nearby Arco di Gallieno, creating a visual reference to the following plate (View of the Arch of Gallienus) in which, in a mirror image, the Castello dell’Acqua Giulia is depicted in the left corner. Another small figure emerges from one speco and points, together with another nearby, to the isolated remnant (B) of the alimentation pipeline. The most striking human figure, however, emerges from the right edge of the frame and, spreading his arms wide, reacts, as Piranesi himself seems to, across his many depictions of this structure, to the wonder of the magnificent ancient building. (CS)