Piranesi, Juvarra, and the Triumphal Bridge tradition

(67.) For Cartaro, see Frutaz, vol. 2, pianta XXIII. For an example of the Meta Romuli with a broad base and an additional stage, cf. Francesco Nodot's map, in Frutaz, vol. 2, pianta XXXII.

(68.) Charles Dempsey, "Nicholas Poussin and the Natural Order," Ph.D. diss., Princeton University, 1963, 185.

(69.) Andrea Palladio, I quallro libti dell'architettura (Venice: Domenico de'Franceschi, 1570), bk. 3, chap. 11, 69.

(70.) Similarly, the background of The Massacre of the Innocents by Poussin's follower Charles Le Brun (Dulwich College Art Gallery), in spite of the suggestive combination of bridge with a structure at one end, mausoleum, and pyramid, does not sustain a reading as an allusion to the Pons Triumphalis and associated buildings. The pyramid is based on the Pyramid of Calus Cestius, not the Meta Romuli; the mausoleum is an original interpretation of the idea of a Roman mausoleum that strips it of those features that would identify it as the original form of the Castel Sant'Angelo; and the structure on the bridge, based on the temple of Clitumnus at Trevi, makes little functional sense. See Courage and Cruelty: Le Brun's "Horatius Cocles" and "The Massacre of the Innocents," exh. cat., Dulwich College Art Gallery, London, 1990, cat, no. 11 jean Lemaite, another 17th-century painter close to Poussin, in creating an image of a monumental bridge that anticipates Piranesi's Ponte magnifico in grandeur, avoids triumpha l bridge imagery and bases his design on the Pons Aelius and Mausoleum of Hadrian (Architectural Caprieccio with the Story of the Infancy of Bacchus, National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin, inv. no. 800); see Maurizio Fagiolo dell'Arco, Jean Lemaire: Pittore "antiquario" (Rome: Ugo Bozzi, 1996), 180-81, cat, no. 24.

(71.) A. Donati, "De Porta Triumphali," in Rome Vetus or Recens utriusque aedificiis ad eruditam cognitionem expositis (Rome, 1725), bk. 1, chap. 22, 79ff.

(72.) F. Nardini, Roma Antica (Rome, 1704), 559-83.

(73.) Donati's Roma Vetus ac Recens was first published in 1638; a new printing appeared in 1639, with a second edition in 1648, reprinted in 1662, 1725, and 1738. See G. Formichetti, Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani (Rome: Enciclopedia Italiana, 1992), vol. 41, s.v. "Donati, Alessandro."

(74.) Donato, 1639 (as in n. 73), bk. 1, 84: "Hine autem manifesta corum deceptio apparet, qui ports Triumphalem in ulteriore ripa Tiberis ad S. Spiritem in Saxia locaverunt. Cum enim porticus, ubi erant Imperatores esset ad Circum Flaminium, quomodo inde ad Circum Neronis, Camposque Vaticano retrocessere, uno circiter mill ario distantes? Peractoque itinere vanerunt ad portam Urbis, qui ante, tanto intervallo propinquiores, nihilominus erant extra Urbem? Non ergo fictitiam ad illam portam retro vecti, sed ad aliam vere Triumphalem provecti sunt Caesares. Quod evincit non hic solum Vespasiani Triumphis, sed multo efficacius veterum Triumphi Consulum, ac Praetorum. Nam porta Triumphalis fuit in Urbe ante Ciceronem; cum, ut demonstravi, Romana moenia a rupe Capitolina per Forum nunc Montanarium recta tendebant ad Tiberim. Erat prope Circus Flaminius, in quo multi antequam triumphantes inirent Vrbem, leguntur fuisse, qui ergo in tam propinquo erant extra Vrbem, quomodo plusquam mille passus retro cedebant, ut ad eius portam venirent? Facies ipsa, situsque locorum per sese loc demonstrat; & fictam hanc fabulosamque in Vaticano Triumphorum portam obruet aliquando. Quam locorum descriptionem supra Cap. 11 lineavimus."