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View of the Ponte Salario
12020-02-20T06:55:41-08:00Avery Freemanb9edcb567e2471c9ec37caa50383522b90999cba228491from Volume 16 of Giovanni Battista Piranesi's Opereplain2020-02-20T06:55:41-08:00Internet Archivepiranesi-ia-vol16-056.jpgimageAvery Freemanb9edcb567e2471c9ec37caa50383522b90999cba
12019-02-15T16:39:40-08:00View of the Ponte Salario16Veduta del Ponte Salario. Esso fu fabbricato da Narsete sull’Anione due miglia lontan da Roma, ed è fra i ponti antichi l’unico rimaso intero à nostri tempi.plain2022-07-14T14:03:51-07:00Title: Veduta del Ponte Salario Esso fu fabbricato da Narsete sull’Anione due miglia lontan da Roma, ed è fra i ponti antichi l’unico rimaso intero à nostri tempi. Key: 1. Lapide di marmo nel poggio del ponte colla memoria di Narsete scolpita dalla parte interna. 2. 3. Torricella ed altri muri fabbricati posteriormente. 4. Modelli usati nella costruzione dell’arco, e lasciativi per comodo ne’ di lui fortuiti risarcimenti. 5. Cavo in cui era uno de’ detti modelli caduto. 6. Archi fatti in difesa del Ponte dall’impeto delle acque nelle escresenze del Fiume. 7. Fiume Anione, overo Teverone. 8. Via Salaria. 9. Avanzo di antico Sepolcro investito da fabbriche moderne. Signature: Gio(vanni). Batt(ist)a Piranesi F(ecit). Signature 2: Presso l’Autore a Strada Felice nel Palazzo Tomati vicino alla Trinità de’montiTitle: View of the Ponte Salario. This bridge was built by Narses on the Aniene river two miles outside of Rome, and is, among the ancient bridges, the only one to have remained intact until our times. Key: 1. Marble plaque on the arch of the bridge in memory of Narses carved from the internal part of the bridge. 2. 3. Small tower and other walls built afterward. 4. Corbels used in the construction of the arch, and left there for the use of its restoration. 5. Cavity of the arch from which one of the aforementioned corbels fell. 6. Arches built in defense of the Bridge from the force of the water from the rising tides of the River. 7. Aniene River, or Teverone 8. Via Salaria. 9. Ruin of an ancient Sepulcher incorporated into modern buildings.This ancient structure no longer exists; today’s Ponte Salario is a modern construction. As such, Piranesi’s etching enacts the kind of preservation he hoped his works would be when, in the dedication to his Antichità Romane, he remarked of ancient ruins that he wanted to “conservarli col mezzo delle stampe.” This image captures variations in man-made and natural textures, between the stone of the bridge and the Aniene river (a tributary of the Tiber) and the sloping ground. Mingling with fragmented column shafts, men drag fishing nets from the river. His composition offers an imposing view under the bridge as well as a glimpse, on the right, of the contemporary traffic along the Via Salaria, as identified by one of this image’s copious annotations. These annotations also point specifically to evidence of restoration (1, 2, 3), details of construction (4, 5, 6), and locational information (7, 8, 9).
John Wilton-Ely observed that this image seems, at first glance, to resemble but in fact diverges significantly from a view by Vasi. In his Delle magnificenze di Roma antica e moderna, Vasi provides a dutiful, accurate image (below). In Piranesi’s view, the heavily-shaded rubble that crowds the bridge’s entrance and descends towards the river blurs the distinction between architecture and nature that is strictly maintained in Vasi’s bright and expansive view. Piranesi’s view also differs in the visual and verbal presentation of detail—surface textures are distinguished and identified in his second and third annotations. “Where Vasi’s building is a picturesque encounter of little consequence,” according to Wilton-Ely, “Piranesi’s has become an eloquent symbol of Roman engineering genius” (1988, 36). As in Piranesi’s other views of bridges, his preferences for sunken viewpoints, imposing architectural spaces, and sharp diagonals are here on striking display. In this volume, the previous etching is also taken from a low vantage point that affords a view up into the arches of the Milvian Bridge and casts its length in sharp recession. In the fourth volume of the Antichità Romane, views of the Ponte Sant’Angelo, the Ponte Fabrizio, and the Ponte Ferrato share these visual features.
This view in particular, especially as compared to Vasi’s, indicates Piranesi’s creative approach to both the genres of the landscape view and the architectural study and the aesthetic categories of the picturesque and the sublime. The view of a landscape from an elevated position is often associated with social or political power. While Vasi’s view does convey the softness and delicacy of the picturesque, its vantage point also evokes this kind of power for both artist and viewer. Piranesi, though, blurs the boundaries between both nature and art on one hand and, on the other, the distinctions between the landscape view and the architectural study. He takes the low vantage point and sense of confinement associated with the picturesque in a new direction, harnessing its perspective in order to impose on his viewers the sublimity of Roman architecture, in all its magnificence and detail. (JB)
To see this image in the Vedute di Roma, volume 16 of Piranesi’s Opere, click here.
