View of the so-called Temple of the Tosse near Tivoli
1 2019-11-11T16:57:48-08:00 Avery Freeman b9edcb567e2471c9ec37caa50383522b90999cba 22849 1 from Volume 17 of Giovanni Battista Piranesi's Opere plain 2019-11-11T16:57:48-08:00 Internet Archive data piranesiRescan_vol17_0301.jpg Avery Freeman b9edcb567e2471c9ec37caa50383522b90999cbaThis page is referenced by:
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View of the so-called Temple of the Tosse near Tivoli
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Veduta del Tempio, detto della Tosse su la Via Tiburtina, un miglio vicino a Tivoli
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Title: Veduta del Tempio, detto della Tosse su la Via Tiburtina, un miglio vicino a Tivoli. Signature: Presso l’Autore Signature 2: Piranesi F(ecit).
Title: View of the Temple, called the Tempio della Tosse on the Via Tiburtina, one mile from Tivoli. Signature: Published by the author. Signature 2: Made by Piranesi.
As indicated in the image caption, the so-called Temple of the Coughs is situated along the ancient Via Tiburtina about a mile from Tivoli. Situated, within the Vedute di Roma, between views of other monuments outside of Rome and the views of Tivoli that follow, this and the following view are part of an itinerary that leads eastward beyond the city to its environs. This structure’s odd name derives from a medieval hypothesis that the ancient temple was dedicated to a personification of the cough so as to prevent the spread of disease from the Tiburtine population, but its original function remains unknown.
Surrounding this overgrown and, as the following image tells us, modified building are some of the most expressive, and most sinister, of Piranesi’s human figures: the seated figure to the left of the caption has blackened gouges for worried eyes and a gaping mouth (detail 1), leaning against the thatched wall to the right, a broad-shouldered man stoops as if inspecting something hidden in his hands (detail 2), and a woman with a staff and a darkened brow seems to scold a younger man above the caption (detail 3).
Over time, Piranesi’s human figures increasingly resemble “tubercular wrecks” with “an air of hectic destitution” (Mayor 16). Even so, the expressive faces of these agonized or angry figures are uncommon in his cast of downtrodden characters, and for them to appear together with a mysterious structure hints, perhaps, at a frustration with the superstitious origins of its name and the persistent uncertainty about its function. The so-called “Temple of the Coughs” retains a name based on legend rather than evidence, resisting the classification efforts of Enlightenment-era archaeology. (JB)
To see this image in the Vedute di Roma, volume 17 of Piranesi’s Opere, click here.
