Piranesi, Juvarra, and the Triumphal Bridge tradition

The Pons Aelius, however, interested Juvarra less than the combination of mausoleum (Mausoleum of Hadrian) and pyramid (Meta Romuli). An example can be seen in one of his stage designs for Giunic Bruto. (115) These designs were prepared byjuvarra, and probably colored by someone else, for a handwritten musical codex commissioned by Emperor Joseph I of Austria, with Cardinal Alessandro Albani playing an intermediary role. The emperor, however, died in 1711 before he could receive it, and it was delivered to his successor, Charles VI. Scene 12 represents Livia's garden on the banks of the Tiber. The garden occupies the foreground, with the Mausoleum of Hadrian-Pons Aelius unit on the other side of the river. Beyond it, and only slightly less important, is a tall pyramid on a base, similar to Cartaro's or Duperac's Meta Romuli, in front of a cypress-clad Vatican Hill. (The mausoleum and pyramid are loosely connected by a series of arches, which may have been suggested by the passageway between St. Peter's and th e Castel Sant'Angelo, but may possibly imply Juvarra's awareness of the Pons Triumphalis, if we invoke our knowledge of the actual topography to suppose that the river passes behind the mausoleum and reaches almost to the pyramid before turning back again to the left.) Another set design that emphasizes the mausoleum-pyramid unit, but seen from the other side (or in reverse), is a set for Titus and Berenice for the Teatro Capranica, Rome, in 1714. (116) In an architectural fantasy in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, set free from the necessity for topographical allusion, Juvarra developed this unit into one in which pyramids flank the mausoleum to create a monumental, symmetrical structure (Fig. 23) This invention would not be lost on Piranesi, as will be discussed below.

Filippo Juvarra: "Triumphal" Bridge into "Magnificent" Bridge Juvarra produced at least one other design for a bridge that was both magnificent and triumphal (Fig. 24). This comes from a sketchbook, now in the Dresden Kupferstichkabinett, containing forty-one drawings he executed in pen and wash dedicated to Augustus the Strong of Saxony in 1732, although according to Albert Erich Brinckmann at least some of these drawings were executed earlier. (118)

A strong presumption of topographical reference can be posited for this bridge, given that a capriccio in the same set is based on the Tiber Island (Fig. 25). (119) That the Tiber Island is the source is made clear by an earlier drawing by Juvarra in an album in the Tournon collection, Turin, where the topographical elements are more explicitly indicated. (120) In the mid- to late first century B.C.E. part of the island on the downstream side facing the Campo Marzio was modeled in travertine and tufa as the prow of a trireme. The Tournon album drawing shows a view of the island in antiquity from upstream on the Trastevere side, with versions of the Pons Cestius on the right and the Pons Fabricius on the left, the stern of the ship correctly facing upstream. (121) In the background, in the correct topographical relationship, is the Theater of Marcellus. An obelisk forms the mast, as was common in views of the Tiber Island in antiquity. The nearer building, on the upstream side, consists of a squarish structure with a pitched roof ending in a three-quarter rotunda with a dome and bold volutes making the transition from the dome of the cella to the entablature of the colonnade (or pilastrade), which may be based on the temple of 'Jupiter Licaonis" in related engravings of the Tiber Island by Etienne Duperac and Giacomo Lauro. On the downstream side in Juvarra's drawing, corresponding to Duperac's and Lauro's temple of Aesculapius and the modern Ospedale di S. Bartolomeo, is a stepped structure with, apparently, four symmetrical porticoes.