In this image, the viewer is brought into the street as if passing by this temple to Hadrian, completed by Antoninus Pius (AD 86–161) in the mid second century. At or just above ground level, we are positioned together with the human figures who participate in the scene but pay little attention to the ancient remains. We might be about to frequent the market stall casually set up between two of the ancient columns. Set in the heart of Rome, this view looks towards the west and the Pantheon. The area is spacious but dominated by the imposing columns, emphasized by shading and vanishing into the more tightly packed streets. The light originating from the right or behind the viewer, from the east, suggests this is a morning scene. A view by Guiseppe Vasi (1710–1782) of around 1750 shows the same road, but from the opposite end, with the temple on the right. In that image, the perspective is slightly higher and gives a greater sense of space but is much more severe and restrained. In the image from the Vedute di Roma, Piranesi opts for this alternative view too, looking east. Here, Piranesi instead brings the palimpsest of Rome to life, and the light and clouds evoke the atmosphere of a real day. 

Within this emphatically contemporary scene, though, ancient Rome’s remnants are thoroughly embedded. Eleven columns of the side colonnade of the structure blend into the urban fabric as if they were pilasters, identifiable by their gentle degradation within the contemporary, eighteenth-century Dogana di Terra (Customs Office). In fact, the cella wall behind the columns still survives to the present day. The modern upper level of the building follows the rhythm of the columns, with eleven bases in the attic story matching the columns below.  

Piranesi’s annotations highlight this juxtaposition of ancient and modern, indicating that only the columns survive from antiquity and emphasizing that the cornice is modern. Painted capriccios of the 1730s by Paolo Panini (1691–1765) complete the temple with a fanciful antique cornice above the Corinthian order. In the larger image from his Vedute di Roma, Piranesi himself draws the distinction between the “ristorato” (restored) columns and the “rifatto” (remade) cornice. In a similar way, the juxtaposition is also drawn here, though the columns are shown particularly decayed. In addition, since the ancient is entirely contained within the image, but the modern building is cut off, the tension of dominance is resolved in favor of the restoration of the ancient remains, despite the scene and atmosphere feeling entirely contemporary. (PC)