View of the Arch of Constantine and the Colosseum
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Veduta dell’Arco di Costantino, e l’Anfiteatro Flavio detto il Colosseo
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2023-06-26T07:54:43-07:00
Title: Veduta dell’Arco di Costantino, e dell’Anfiteatro Flavio detto il Colosseo Key: 1. Meta sudante 2. Radice del Palatino 3. Vestigie delle Terme di Tito 4. Radice dell’Esquilino Signature: Piranesi del(ineavit). scolp(sit). Signature 2: Presso l’Autore a Strada Felice vicino alla Trinità de’Monti.
Title: View of the Arch of Constantine and the Flavian Amphitheatre, called the Colosseum Key: 1. Meta sudans [fountain] 2. Foot of the Palatine Hill 3. Ruins of the Baths of Titus 4. Foot of the Esquiline Hill Signature: Designed and engraved by Piranesi. Signature 2: Published by the Author in the Strada Felice near Trinità de Monti.
This view makes the Colosseum resemble a theatrical backdrop to the drama of eighteenth-century street life. Human life is bustling, with groups of tourists inspecting architectural fragments, women accompanied by young children, and an ornate carriage navigating irregular terrain. Tourists and Romans engaged in conversation and observation, including a group of antiquarians atop the fragments in the foreground, fill almost the same amount of visual space in this view as do its nominal subjects—the Arch of Constantine and the Colosseum. Whereas other views exaggerate the magnificence of ancient monuments by surrounding them with diminutive human figures, this view literally foregrounds people, as well as animals and plants.
Outside of the frame of the image, the key gives no detail on either subject named in the title but instead orients viewers cartographically, stressing the context of these monuments (Wilton-Ely 1978, 44; Graves 291). This context includes topographical features (with half of the annotations indicating the Palatine and Esquiline Hills) and natural elements (with trees and vegetation growing alongside and atop the architectural fragments in the foreground). Within a vividly defined exterior, the Colosseum’s interior walls and arched passages appear as faint suggestions that seem to fade into the cloudless sky, as opposed to the firm and heavy detail that is prominent in the foreground. While another view of the Colosseum insists on the parallels between architectural and social orders and another offers an impossible angle of vision on the amphitheater, this image contextualizes ancient monuments within natural, topographical, and human settings that compete for the beholder’s attention. (JB)
To see this image in the Vedute di Roma, volume 17 of Piranesi’s Opere, click here.
