The Digital PiranesiMain MenuAboutThe Digital Piranesi is a developing digital humanities project that aims to provide an enhanced digital edition of the works of Italian illustrator Giovanni Battista Piranesi (1720-1778).Works and VolumesGenres, Subjects, and ThemesBibliographyGlossary
Wall along the Tiber that secures the outlet of the Cloaca Maxima
12020-04-10T20:59:51-07:00Avery Freemanb9edcb567e2471c9ec37caa50383522b90999cba228491from Volume 01 of Giovanni Battista Piranesi's Opereplain2020-04-10T20:59:51-07:00Internet Archivepiranesi-ia-vol1-036.jpgimageAvery Freemanb9edcb567e2471c9ec37caa50383522b90999cba
12021-03-30T11:16:11-07:00Wall Along the Tiber that Secures the Outlet of the Cloaca Maxima9Muro lungo la riva del Tevere per assicurazione dell'orificio della Cloaca massimaplain2024-11-04T08:04:30-08:00A. Muro lungo la riva del Tevere per assicurazione dell’orificio della Cloaca massima. B. Sbocco della Cloaca. C. Pelo dell’acqua del Tevere ne’ tempi estivi.; Piranesi Archit(etto) dis(egnò) et scul(pì).A. Wall along the bank of the Tiber that secures the outlet of the Cloaca Maxima. B. Outlet of the sewer. C. The water level of the Tiber in the summertime.; Drawn and engraved by the Architect Piranesi.
This flat and technical image depicts the Cloaca Maxima, or “great drain,” the outlet of Rome’s ancient sewers. This image’s lack of artistry strongly suggests it is the product of his workshop (Istituto Centrale per la Grafica), and its simplicity gives no hint of the interest that this structure and its network of underground channels held for Piranesi. His textual supplements to this image articulate the argument for Roman magnificence that other images make visually. In the Index to the Map of Rome at the beginning of the volume, he supplies evidence for his claims about the drain’s magnificence. He describes some of his first-hand exploration of a channel that supplied Rome with water before the construction of the aqueducts that led from distant sources, noting that an apprentice from a paper mill near the Church of San Giorgio in Velabro showed him a section of the sewer, which led to a large passage of subterranean chambers. He then supplements these direct observations with a reference to the sixth book of Ovid’s Fasti that describes the flooding and draining of the forum. From this evidence, he challenges the claim of the “modern writers” he often disparages that the Spring of Juturna and the Lacus Curtius provided this water. (Index to Map of Rome, no. 168). He also argues, citing Livy, that this structure nearly equals those of a later period in “magnificenze” (magnificence). The modern writers who would disagree, he says, have “defraudata ai Romani di’ primi tempi la gloria nella maestà delle opere.” In contrast to the simplicity of this image, the second and third plates of Piranesi’s Della Magnificenza ed architettura dei Romani (below) depict the same modest arch with layered scrolls, gesturing staffage figures, and vivid shading. What Piranesi argues in the dispersed text of Le Antichità Romane’s first volume he presents visually in the layered images of this later work, restoring “glory” and “majesty” to the earliest Romans. (JB)
