LANDSCAPE ALL ANTICA AND TOPOGRAPHICAL … · LANDSCAPE ALL ANTICA AND TOPOGRAPHICAL ANACHRONISM IN...

LANDSCAPE ALLrsquoANTICA AND TOPOGRAPHICAL

ANACHRONISM IN ROMAN FRESCO PAINTING

OF THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY

Denis Ribouillault

I

Apainting in the frieze of a room in the Palazzo dei Santissimi Apostoli in Romeshows the Piazza del Campidoglio the heart of republican and imperial

Rome (Fig 1) Painted in the mid-sixteenth century when the building was occu-pied by Marcantonio II Colonna and his wife Felice Orsini it depicts the squarewith the equestrian statue of Marcus Aurelius at the centre of the oval picked outin the pavement framed to the left by a portico and a ramp leading to the Fran-cis can convent of the Aracoeli1 Instead of the Palazzo Senatorio however theartist has painted a large pagan temple consisting of three monumental sanctuarieseach one housing an ancient Roman statue Although immediately recognisablethe view is clearly fictional The portico that appears in the view to the left wasnever built but did form part of the first project for the renovation of the squareone of the key projects of Paul III Farnesersquos pontificate (1534ndash49)2 The Popeintended to stress the continuity between imperial and Christian Rome at this siteas well as reinforce the idea that he was the Vicar of Christ on earth3 As it turnedout the arcades of the portico were replaced by a continuous wall with a singlecentral niche as can be seen in several drawings and engravings made of the squarein subsequent years before it was definitively transformed into the magnificentscen ography that we still admire today4

Although the renovation programme promoted by Paul III included a histori-cal notice to that effect James Ackerman who first published the fresco in his bookon the architecture of Michelangelo in 1961 failed to recognise that the temple was

This article derives from the first chapter of mydoctoral thesis lsquoPaysage et Pouvoir Les deacutecors topo-graphiques agrave Rome et dans le Latium au XVIegravemesiegraveclersquo Universiteacute Paris I Pantheacuteon-Sorbonne 2006 Iwould like to thank Nadja Aksamija Georgia ClarkePaul Crossley Philippe Morel Patrizia Piergiovanniand Joseph Spooner for their precious help and adviceduring the preparation of this article

1 On this palace also known as Palazzo del Vasoand the fresco cycle which still awaits full analysissee Il complesso dei SS Apostoli Intervento di restauroed C Arcieri Rome 1992 and F Nicolai lsquoThe artisticpatronage of Marcantonio II Colonnarsquo Studi Romani2007 forthcoming The fresco was first published byJ S Ackerman The Architecture of Michelangelo 2 volsLondon 1961 i fig 38b as being part of the decor-ation of the Palazzo Massimo alle Colonne Ackerman

specifies that he lsquoknows of this painting through Wolf-gang Lotz who supplied the photographrsquo obviouslywith the wrong location Ackermanrsquos chapter lsquoTheCapitoline Hillrsquo has been reprinted in J S AckermanDistance Points Essays in Theory and Renaissance Artand Architecture Cambridge and London 1991 pp385ndash416

2 On this original project see M Brancia di Apri -cena lsquoLa committenza edilizia di Paolo III Farnesesul campidogliorsquo Roumlmisches Jahrbuch der BibliothecaHertziana xxxii 1997ndash98 2002 pp 409ndash78 (443ndash48456) who mentions the fresco p 448 n 145

3 Ibid p 443 nn 127 1284 Ibid figs 62 63 See also L Vertova lsquoA Late

Renaissance View of Romersquo The Burlington Magazinecxxxvii 1108 1995 pp 445ndash51

211

JOURNAL OF THE WARBURG AND COURTAULD INSTITUTES LXXI 2008

meant to evoke the temple of Jupiter Capitolinus which had been located on thisvery site in ancient times5 It is known that a statue of the Roman god was to beplaced in the central niche of the double staircase designed by Michelangelo toaccess the Palazzo Senatorio exactly where the painter had situated the statue inhis fresco6 The position of the statue would have made clear the link between thepagan god and the Pope celebrated appropriately as a lsquonew Jupiterrsquo in contempor-ary epigrams7

The ancient topography of the hill was also a determining factor in theconstruction of the adjacent Torre Paolina under Paul III a new residence locatedimmediately next to the convent of Santa Maria in Aracoeli on the spot where the ancient temple of Jupiter Feretrius had once stood8 The symbolic continuity

5 Ackerman (as in n 1) p 4086 Ibid p 406 On the sculptural programme of

the Capitoline at the time of Paul III see T Budden-sieg lsquoZum Statuenprogramm im Kapitolsplan PaulsIIIrsquo Zeitschrift fuumlr Kunstgeschichte xxxii 1969 pp 177ndash228 (200)

7 Brancia di Apricena (as in n 2) p 454 Thepope was also identified on other occasions with JanusApollo Hercules Alexander the Great or HadrianSee L Canova lsquoLa celebrazione nelle arti del ponti-

ficato di Paolo III Farnese come nuova etagrave dellrsquoororsquoStoria dellrsquoarte xciiindashxciv 1998 pp 217ndash34 and JKliemann lsquoImperial Themes in Early Modern PapalIconographyrsquo in Basilike Eikon Renaissance Represen-tations of the Prince ed R Eriksen and M MalmangerRome 2001 pp 11ndash29 (14ndash15)

8 lsquohellip Arae coeli fratrum minorum beati Fran-cisci ecclesiam in feretrij Iovis templi fundamentisextructamrsquo Matteo Silvaggi De tribus peregrinis Venice1542 p 304 Brancia di Apricena (as in n 2) p 442

212 LANDSCAPE ALLrsquo ANTICA

1 The Capitoline Square with the Temple of Jupiter Capitolinus Rome Palazzo Colonna dei SS Apostoli c 1552ndash53 () fresco (Galleria Colonna)

DENIS RIBOUILLAULT 213

between the glories of ancient Rome and the new power of the Pope was thus madevisible and legible both within the fabric of the city and in its new monumentserected on the foundations of ancient Roman buildings The fresco in the Palazzodei Santissimi Apostoli is therefore a composite portrait of the square presentingnot an objective depiction of the sitersquos actual topography but rather a network ofsymbolic associations played out between the visible reality and known history ofthe place that would have resonated with a learned sixteenth-century Roman

The temple of Jupiter had indeed included three main shrines each of whichwas dedicated to one of the Capitoline triad of Jupiter Juno and Minerva9 In theimage however the three baldachins seem to house different Roman divinities Thecentral one in the shape of a herm is easily recognisable as Terminus the Romangod of boundaries one of the three deities formerly worshipped on the site Ancientwriters such as Dionysius of Halicarnassus and later St Augustine recall that thetemple was built over pre-existing altars and that three godsmdashTerminus Juventasand Mars mdashhad refused to be moved from their original location when the newtemple was built10 Juventas the daughter of Jupiter and goddess of youth is recog -nisable in the fresco by her raised arm holding a cup identifying her as the cup -bearer for the gods and goddesses of Mount Olympus whilst Mars on the rightunsheathes his sword The representation of these three deities within the frescois therefore another learned allusion to the history of the place and the complexaccount of the templersquos construction as narrated by ancient authors

Ackerman misinterpreted the image because he failed to put it in its propercontext identifying the fresco as part of the decoration of the Palazzo Massimo alleColonne Furthermore it is also unlikely that a representation of the CapitolineSquare in a palace belonging to an aristocratic family would have been meant asa celebration of a papal project with religious overtones as he suggested11 Its pres-ence and meaning in a palace belonging to the Colonna family could be explainedby the fact that the famous site was located a short distance away from the palaceitself it could also have alluded to the origins of the Colonna and the Orsini fami-lies both of which claimed descent from ancient Romans12

In fact the fresco was most likely painted to celebrate the wedding of Marc-antonio Colonna and Felice Orsini on 12 May 1552 Indeed the coats of arms ofthese two most ancient of Roman families are represented together in the fourcorners of the room Two other large scenes from the frieze both taken from OvidrsquosMetamorphoses refer directly to this union on the left side facing the window

9 See E Rodocanachi Le Capitole romain antiqueet moderne Paris 1905 p 7

10 The sanctuary of Juventas is only mentionedby Dionysius of Halicarnassus (Roman antiquities ii74(2ndash5)) and St Augustine is the only author mention -ing a sanctuary dedicated to Mars (City of God iv23)Rodocanachi (as in n 9) p 27 This shows that theRenaissance iconographer of the Palazzo dei Santis-simi Apostoli consulted several sources for his recon-struction See also S B Platner T Ashby A topogra-phical Dictionary of Ancient Rome London 1929 p 512

11 Ackerman (as in n 1) p 40812 On the origins of the Colonna family see M

Calvesi lsquoHypnerotomachia Poliphili Nuovi riscontri enuove evidenze documentarie per Francesco Colonnasignore di Prenestersquo Storia dellrsquoarte lx 1987 pp 85ndash136 (85ndash91 97ndash103) On the Orsini family see Fran-cesco Sansavino Lrsquohistoria di Casa Orsini Venice 1565and for a specific example G Clarke lsquoThe PalazzoOrsini in Nola A Renaissance Relationship withAntiquityrsquo Apollo cxxxxiv 413 1996 pp 44ndash50

Latona and the Lycian Farmers alludes to fertility and maternity while the Meta-morphosis of Alcyone on the other side symbolises marital fidelity13 Mars andJuventas represented in the view thus stood for the union between the martialcharacter of Marcantonio Colonna and the desired fertility of the young FeliceOrsini a presage of a well-ordered and prosperous household placed like the youngcity of Rome under the protection of the god Terminus14

There is another representation of the Capitoline Square in the Sala delleOche in the Palazzo dei Conservatori that shows the square laid out according tothis initial project (Fig 2) The Aracoeli church is visible as is the entrance to theFranciscan convent as it was before the construction of the new portico Again the view is populated by ancient Romans who are this time watching a race on themain piazza The painting dated 1543 and attributed to Luzio Luzi has been ident-ified by historians as a representation of a project of 1536ndash38 (or possibly the early1540s) and is part of a series of landscape views in the frieze of the Sala delle Ocheillustrating Roman games in fanciful or recognisable sites such as the CircusMaximus or the Markets of Trajan15

The representation of the sixteenth-century square in a cycle devoted toRoman history and ancient monuments is probably an allusion to the ancientgames formerly organised on the Capitoline Hill The most ancient and famous ofthese were the ludi Romani or ludi magni instituted according to Livy by Tarquinusin honour of Jupiter Optimus Maximus16 The organisation of the games was theresponsibility of the curule aediles magistrates also charged with the cura urbis (themaintenance of the streets of Rome water supply and public order) The referenceto these ancient practices in the Sala delle Oche and the use of anachronism (therepresentation of scenes from Roman history in a Renaissance setting) were a clearallusion to one of the main functions of the conservatori or officials of the com -mune during the Renaissance the organisation of popular games and carnivals17

The statutes of the commune of 1363 show that the conservatori considered them-selves to be the direct descendents of the ancient aediles who were responsible for


13 Ovid Metamorphosis xi410ndash748 vi313ndash81 Afresco opposite that of the Capitoline Square abovethe window may represent another part of the Capi-toline Hill the citadel known as the Arx with theAuguraculum and the temple of Jupiter Feretrius Onthe ceiling I have identified the following episodesfrom Ovidrsquos Metamorphosis four deeds of Herculesthe Fall of Icarus Apollo and Daphne the Triumph ofBacchus and the Hunt of the Calydonian Boar In theadjacent salone full portraits of Roman emperors alter-nate with other scenes from Ovid Lucretia Apolloand Daphne Narcissus and the Rape of Europa

14 Interpreting the refusal of Juventas andTerminus to be moved from the temple of JupiterDionysius of Halicarnassus writes lsquoFrom this circum-stance the augurs concluded that no occasion wouldever cause the removal of the boundaries of theRomansrsquo city or impair its vigour [hellip]rsquo Dionysius ofHalicarnassus Roman antiquities iii69 (3ndash6) [Loeb

classical library trans E Cary E Spelman 1939] OnMarcantonio Colonna see F Petrucci ad vocemDizionario biografico degli italiani Rome 1982 pp 371ndash83

15 For the dating of the view see Brancia di Apricena (as in n 2) p 448 and Ackerman (as in n1) p 414 On the Pauline rooms at the Palazzo deiCon servatori see D Murphy-Livingston lsquoThe frescodecoration of the Pauline rooms in the Palazzo deiConservatorirsquo PhD thesis Boston University 1993C Pietrangeli lsquoLa sala delle Ochersquo Capitolium xxxix1964 pp 620ndash25 idem lsquoLa Sala delle Aquilersquo Capi-tolium xxxxi 1966 pp 90ndash95

16 Titus Livius Ab Urbe Condita ii36 Dionysiusof Halicarnassus Roman antiquities vii71ndash73Murphy-Livingston (as in n 15) pp 101 ff SFacchini I luoghi dello Sport nella Roma antica emoderna Rome 1990 p 183

17 Murphy-Livingston (as in n 15) pp 109ndash18

the cura ludorum solemnium Furthermore the representation of games in the Saladelle Oche which present the conservatori as the prestigious heirs to the magistratesof the Roman Republic must be understood as a claim to this ancestral role at atime when papal power was considerably eroding the prerogatives of the communeseveral popes had understood the propagandistic power of popular festivals andintervened drastically in their organisation to the detriment of the commune18

Already under Paul IIrsquos reign (1464ndash71) the games that had been held at Testacciowere transferred to next to the popersquos residence the Palazzo Venezia SimilarlyPaul III had the carnival moved to St Peterrsquos square on several occasions duringhis pontificate (1534ndash49)19 In 1545 the carnival sponsored by the Farnese familywas even more overtly political with a procession celebrating the victories ofCharles V against the Turks in the manner of an ancient triumph20 Although animpresa of Paul III is present albeit discreetly in the frieze of the Sala delle Ochethe representation of Roman games in their palace allowed the conservatori toreassert their ancestral rights and their connections to republican rather than to

18 On the complicated relationship between thecommune and the popes regarding Roman festivalssee B Mitchell lsquoThe SPQR in Two Roman Festivalsof the Early and Mid-Cinquecentorsquo Sixteenth CenturyJournal ix 4 1978 pp 94ndash102

19 Ludus Carnelevarii Il carnevale a Roma dalSecolo XII al secolo XVI ed B Premoli Rome 1981 p

XI The best source is V Forcella Tornei e giostreIngressi trionfali e feste carnevalesche in Roma sotto PaoloIII 1534ndash1549 Rome 1885 p 24

20 See C Pericoli Ridolfini lsquoI giuochi di Testaccioin due dipinti del Museo di Romarsquo Bollettino dei Museicomunali di Roma xxiii 1977 pp 46ndash63 (56)


2 Luzio Luzi The Capitoline Square with a Roman Race Rome Palazzo dei Conservatori Sala delle Oche1543 fresco (Musei Capitolini)

imperial Rome On the ceiling the symbol of the commune of Rome lsquoSPQRrsquoestablished this lineage clearly On this occasion the insertion of the popersquos impresawithin the frieze may have constituted a way for him to be associated with theprestige of the Senatus Populusque Romanus rather than to indicate where the truepower in Rome lay21

In the frieze of the adjacent room the Sala delle Aquile allrsquoantica landscapeviews and medallions showing virtuous Roman women also had a special signifi-cance for the conservatori Attributed to the Flemish painter Michiel Gast and alsodated around 1543 the views all show ancient Roman monumentsmdashsuch as theColosseum the Forum and the Arch of Constantine (Fig 3)mdashwith the exceptionof one which shows the Capitoline Square as it must have looked in the late 1530s(Fig 4)22 The representation of virtuous women of republican Rome the Romeof virtus romana was yet another subtle way of celebrating republican values while


21 See A Morrogh lsquoThe palace of the Romanpeople Michelangelo at the Palazzo dei ConservatorirsquoRoumlmisches Jahrbuch der Bibliotheca Hertziana xxix1994 pp 129ndash86 (135) and R Ago lsquoHegemony overthe social scene and zealous popes (1676ndash1700)rsquo inCourt and politics in Papal Rome 1492ndash1700 Cambridge2002 pp 229ndash46 (231) The Farnese impresa in thefrieze represents three lilies toped by a rainbow withthe Greek inscription lsquoDIKES KRINONrsquo (lsquolily ofjusticersquo) standing for purity and divine justice See M

Pastoureau lsquoLrsquoembleacutematique Farnegravesersquo in Le PalaisFarnegravese 2 vols in 3 pts Rome 1981 i 2 pp 432ndash55(445ndash48)

22 N Dacos Roma quanta fuit ou lrsquoinvention dupaysage de ruines Paris 2004 p 94 On the theme ofvirtus romana see R Guerrini lsquoDal testo allrsquoimagineLa ldquopittura di storiardquo nel Rinascimentorsquo in Memoriadellrsquoantico nellrsquoarte italiana 3 vols Turin 1984ndash86 ii(1985) pp 45ndash93

3 Michiel Gast () The Arch of Constantine Rome Palazzo dei Conservatori Sala delle Aquile 1543 fresco(Musei Capitolini)

the Roman monuments brought to mind another crucial responsibility of the con -servatori the preservation of ancient monuments a role that was also increasinglyendangered by the ever-growing involvement of the pope in the affairs of the cityThis role had been assigned to the conservatori by the popes as early as the four-teenth century In 1363 the statutes of the Camera communale forbade anyone fromdestroying lsquoaliquod antiquum edificiumrsquo an order that was stressed again in 1462by Pius II and by Sixtus IV in 147623 As for Paul III soon after his election to thepontificate in 1534 he appointed Latino Giovenale Manetti conservator in 15361546 and 1549 as the commissario delle antichitagrave24

The conservatori considered Roman antiquities as the property and patrimonyof Roman citizens As Michele Franceschini has shown the protection of ancientmonuments against destruction and spoliation was ideologically motivated by theirconscious construction of romanitas In reality however and whatever the statutessaid popes and cardinals held power in this regard and had little concern forancient remains when they needed building materials for new churches and

23 M Franceschini lsquoLa magistratura capitolina e la tutela delle antichitagrave di Roma nel XVI secolorsquoArchivio della Societagrave Romana di Storia Patria cix1986 pp 141ndash50 and idem lsquoLe magistrature capito-line tra Quattrocento e Cinquecento il tema dellaromanitas nellrsquoideologia e nella committenza muni-cipalersquo Bollettino dei Musei Comunali di Roma iii1989 pp 65ndash73 For a more extensive account see P

Pecchiai Roma nel Cinquecento Bologna 1948 pp209ndash66

24 L von Pastor Storia dei Papi dalla fine del medioevo 17 vols Rome 1958ndash64 v pp 711ndash13 On Manettiand the protection of ancient monuments under PaulIII see R T Ridley lsquoTo Protect the Monuments the Papal Antiquarian (1534ndash1870)rsquo Xenia antiqua i1992 pp 117ndash54


4 Michiel Gast () The Capitoline Square Rome Palazzo dei Conservatori Sala delle Aquile 1543 fresco(Musei Capitolini)

palaces25This is true even for Pius II or Sixtus IV both known humanists RodolfoLanciani writes that lsquothe construction of the Loggia della Benedizione at St Peterunder the pontificate of Pius II caused more damage to the ancient monumentsof Rome than a barbarous invasionrsquo26 In a decree of 1471 Sixtus IV authorisedhis architects to excavate wherever they wanted to collect building materials for theVatican palace library27 Although more decrees were drawn up to punish thosewho plundered Roman antiquities under the pontificate of Paul III an edict of 22July 1540 allowed the deputies of the Fabbrica di San Pietro to lsquodig up or excavatersquofrom the Roman forum and the via Sacra any building material they needed28

The rights accorded by the pontiffs to the commune were therefore essentiallysymbolic In the same way in which they intervened in the organisation of gamesand festivals the popes had long ago seized the opportunity to exploit Romersquosancient past both practically and ideologically by appropriating crucial areas andmonuments in the city29 Paul IIIrsquos projects for the Campidoglio fitted in with thiskind of political strategy as Charles Stinger explains by transforming the Capito-line associated with the municipal liberties of Romersquos citizens into a scenographicexpression of the myth of the imperial renovatio the popes eroded its role as theactive centre of civic life and as the site of actual political power30 The fresco ofthe Campidoglio in the Sala delle Aquile was therefore intended to boost both theclaim of the conservatori to their somewhat fragile role as guardianrsquos of the cityrsquosancient monuments and their refusal to see them fall into the hands of lsquoforeignersand half-barbarians corrupting the ancient origin of Roman bloodrsquo a virulentattack on non-Roman popes and the Curia31

The views of the Capitoline in the Palazzo dei Conservatori could also havefunctioned as a reminder of the communersquos crucial role both financial and ideo-logical in the remodelling of the square in its early phase Charles Burroughsmaintains that the Capitoline remodelling lsquofollowed at least at first a programimbued with civic indeed broadly republican valuesrsquo32 It is likely that the viewsdocument this first project possibly drawn up as early as 1534 which included


25 R Lanciani The destruction of ancient RomeNew York 1901 pp 228ndash52

26 Ibid p 208 27 Ibid p 209 and R Lanciani Storia degli Scavi

di Roma 4 vols Rome 1902ndash12 i p 75 In 1515 LeoX ordered Raphael to do the same while paradoxi-cally urging him to draw a plan of the ancient city V Golzio Raffaello nei documenti Vatican 1936 pp 38ndash39 R Lanciani (as above) i p 166

28 Edict of 22 July 1540 see Lanciani (as in n 25)pp 191ndash92 The text in Lanciani (as in n 27 ii pp184ndash85) says lsquoanywhere that is public or ecclesiastical[land] within or outside the cityrsquo rather than specifyinglocations though Lanciani puts it under the headingof the Forum and Via Sacra See also G CantinoWataghin lsquoArcheologia e ldquoarcheologierdquo Il rapportocon lrsquoantico fra mito arte et ricercarsquo in Memoriadellrsquoantico nellrsquoarte italiana 3 vols Turin 1984ndash86 i pp171ndash217 (197)

29 On the question of the ideological use ofRoman antiquities and the legitimation of papalpower see M Miglio lsquoRoma dopo Avignone La rinascita politica dellrsquoAnticorsquo in Memoria dellrsquoanticonellrsquoarte italiana 3 vols Turin 1984ndash86 i pp 75ndash111

30 C L Stinger lsquoThe Campidoglio as the Locusof Renovatio Imperii in Renaissance Romersquo in Art andPolitics in Late Medieval and Early Renaissance Italy1250ndash1500 ed C M Rosenberg London 1990 pp135ndash56 (139ndash40)

31 lsquohuomini forastieri et mezzo barbari diradi-cando lrsquoantica stirpe del sangue romanorsquo (PompeoColonna) see P Giovio lsquoLa vita del Cardinal Colon -narsquo in Vite di Leone X et drsquoAdriano Sesto Sommi Ponte-fici et di Cardinal Pompeo Colonna Vinegia 1557 p147 Franceschini (as in n 23) p 72

32 C Burroughs lsquoMichelangelo at the Campido -glio Artistic Identity Patronage and ManufacturersquoArtibus et Historiae xiv 28 1993 pp 85ndash111 (90ndash91)

only the Palazzo dei Conservatori the statue in the centre of the square and thesupporting wall beneath the church of Santa Maria in Aracoeli (Figs 2 4)33 Theviews show that the lsquoMonte di terra che era nella piazza del Campidogliorsquo a moundof earth in the middle of the square had been flattened and the piazza levelled bythe conservatori34 A document of 1537 also states that one third of the revenuesaccrued from the Capitoline courts will be spent on the embellishment of the piazzaand the Palazzo dei Conservatori35 Moreover on 22 March 1539 the city councildecided that another 320 scudi would be spent on the setting of the equestrianstatue according to the design of Michelangelo and on the construction of a sup -porting wall on the piazza36 This not only fits with the content of the paintingseach showing one side of the piazza and therefore strictly complementing eachother but also with the dating of the views to around 1536ndash3937

In support of this hypothesis it should also be noted that the view in the Saladelle Aquile was subtly manipulated to allow the viewer to see the equestrian bronzestatue the main door of the Palazzo dei Conservatori framed by the monumentalstatues of the river gods and the inside of the courtyard where the first collectionof ancient statuary was being assembled by the conservatori a view that is impos-sible in reality (Fig 4)38 the same manipulation occurred in Francisco drsquoOllandarsquosview of the statue of Marcus Aurelius with Michelangelorsquos projected base39 Thefresco in the Sala delle Aquile therefore documented less Paul IIIrsquos project ofimperial renovatio than the function of the square as a site of civic glory and thepalace as a museum of ancient sculpture under the rightful supervision of theconservatori the real heirs and guardians of Romersquos ancient past40

II

The views of the Piazza del Campidoglio at the Palazzo dei Santissimi Apostoliand the Palazzo dei Conservatori are telling examples of how the history of placeswas visualised in the mid-sixteenth century The imagesrsquo status was a complex one

33 Brancia di Apricena (as in n 2 p 456) thinksthat this project may be dated as early as 1534 imme-diately after Paul IIIrsquos accession to the throne of StPeter

34 Brancia di Apricena (as in note 2) p 444(ASC Cred VI t 61 c 26r) Appendice doc I

35 P Pecchiai Il Campidoglio nel CinquecentoRome 1950 p 36 Burroughs (as in n 32) p 89 n 28

36 lsquo sancitum fuit quod supradicta pecuniarumsumma erogetur partim circa reformationem statueMarciantonij in platea Capitolij existentis secundumjudicium domini Michelangelij sculptoris et partimcirca muros fiendos in dicta platea Capitolijrsquo ArchivioStorico Capitolino Cred I t XVII c 58v Decree ofthe 20 March 1539 See Brancia di Apricena (as in n2) p 445

37 The absence of the equestrian statue in theview of the Sala delle Oche does not mean that it hadnot been installed already at the time the view was

made It is likely that it has not been represented forpictorial reasons as it would have obstructed the foreground where the race takes place see Ackerman(as in n 1) p 414

38 See A Mura Sommella lsquoIl monumento diMarco Aurelio in Campidoglio e la trasformazione delPalazzo Senatorio alla metagrave del Cinquecentorsquo inMarco Aurelio Storia di un monumento e del suo restauroMilan 1989 pp 177ndash94 (182)

39 Ackerman (as in n 1) fig 1310 pp 396ndash97413ndash14

40 The theme of antique statuary is also developedin the frieze of the adjacent Sala del Trono see CPietrangeli lsquoLa sala del Tronorsquo Capitolium xxxvii1962 pp 868ndash76 On the Palazzo dei Conservatori asa museum see M E Tittoni lsquoLa formazione dellecollezione capitoline di antichitagrave fra cultura e politicarsquoin Il Campidoglio allrsquoepoca di Raffaello Milan 1984 pp23ndash36


The figures within these paintings were clearly subordinated to the place and notthe other way around as one would generally expect during the Renaissance Herethe place is the main subject of the image The locus in a strict understanding ofAlbertian principles is the historia41

This specific type of topographical image which appeared in the decorationof Italian villas and palaces from the end of the fifteenth century has never beenthe object of a proper study Scholars have generally used such images as docu-mentsmdashwhen they offer some topographical informationmdashor attempted to deter-mine their authorship without necessarily exploring their more subtle meanings42

One author characteristically contended that such frescoes lsquoserved almost ex-clusively a decorative purpose [hellip] as if they were part ornament and part wall-paperrsquo43

Although this reductive statement may indeed hold true for some landscapefrescoes of sixteenth-century Rome elaborate images such as the ones seen at thePalazzo dei Santissimi Apostoli and the Palazzo dei Conservatori were not uncom -mon at the time44 They are fundamentally different from other better-knowntopographical images such as Marten van Heemskerckrsquos drawings or EtienneDupeacuteracrsquos engravings of contemporary Roman sites which provide accurate topo-graphical and spatial information on specific sites or projected designs Insteadmany topographical landscapes allrsquoantica in fresco paintings relied on anachronismas their main principle juxtaposing in a single imagemdashor series of imagesmdashelements belonging to different periods therefore making the representation ofspace an image of time45 Rather than aspiring to the status of ontological repre-sentationmdashan objective lsquotruthrsquo associated with topographical depiction in thesixteenth centurymdashthese images display lsquorealityrsquo as conditioned by its human pointof view that is activated by the properties of a layered memory46This way paint -ing becomes a form of knowledge an interpretation of reality based on rhetoricaland propagandistic necessity47 Thanks to the lsquorhetoricalrsquo scheme of figurative


41 Leon Battista Alberti De pictura i19 ii33ii40 See also A Grafton lsquoHistoria and IstoriaAlbertirsquos Terminology in Contextrsquo I Tatti Studies viii1999 pp 37ndash68

42 See L H Monssen lsquoAn enigma Matteo daSiena Painter and Cosmographer Some consider-ations on his artistic identity and his fresco ldquoallrsquoanticardquoin Romersquo Acta ad archaeologiam et artium historiampertinentia vii 1989 pp 209ndash313 Dacos (as in n 22)and idem lsquoEntre les ruines et les vedute Les paysagesde Lambert van Noort et de Cornelis Lootsrsquo inArchivi dello sguardo Origini e momento della pittura dipaesaggio in Italia ed F Cappelletti Florence 2006pp 41ndash73

43 Monssen (as in n 42) pp 209ndash1044 Many villas in the Roman Campagna have

similar frescoes allrsquoantica dedicated to the history ofthe place such as the Villa drsquoEste at Tivoli the Palazzodel Drago at Bolsena or the Palazzo Colonna-Barberini at Palestrina On these and other fresco

cycles see my doctoral thesis lsquoPaysage et Pouvoir Lesdeacutecors topographiques agrave Rome et dans le Latium auXVIegraveme siegraveclersquo Universiteacute Paris I Pantheacuteon-Sorbonne2006 and Monssen (as in n 42)

45 R Arnheim lsquoSpace as an image of timersquo in Tothe Rescue of Art Berkeley Los Angeles and Oxford1992 pp 35ndash44 (pp 37ndash39)

46 On the question of lsquotruthfulnessrsquo in topogra-phical representation during the Renaissance see LNuti lsquoThe perspective plan in the Sixteenth centuryThe invention of a representational languagersquo The ArtBulletin lxxvi 1994 pp 105ndash128 (107ndash09) C SwanlsquoAd vivum naer het leven from the life defining a modeof representationrsquo Word amp Image xi 4 1995 pp 353ndash72

47 G Danbolt lsquoVisual Images of Papal PowerThe Legitimation of Papal Power in the Thirteenthand Fifteenth Centuriesrsquo in Iconography Propagandaand Legitimation ed A Ellenius Oxford 1998 pp147ndash71

anachronism the paintings reveal the historical meaning of the monument and sitethey depict48 This process of lsquotrans-figurationrsquo of architecture and landscape inpainting is similar to that we can observe for the genre of historical or mythologicalportraiture when a living person is represented as a god or historical hero PeterBurke explained that this connection was much more than a metaphor

The connection or lsquocorrespondencersquo was stronger than that as it was the case of the corre -spondence between a king and a father or the state and the human body or the microcosmand the macrocosm They were seen as parts of the same organism [In this portrait of a kingas Hercules the] ruler was in some important sense of the term lsquoidentifiedrsquo with Herculesas if the aura of the demigod rubbed off on him This is not a very precise language but thenit is impossible to be precise about a process of this kind which works at an unconsciousrather than at a conscious level49

This lsquoorganic analogyrsquo is exactly what was activated within the landscape allrsquoanticagenre50The non-linear conception of time that analogical thinking implies and theimportance of the ideological project behind the use of anachronism in Renaissanceart thus forces us to question the very use of the term lsquoanachronismrsquomdashitself ananachronistic concept derived from a post-modern perspectivemdashand speak insteadof a lsquosynchronismrsquo between ancient and Renaissance cultures because it was notjust the memory of the past but also its operative actuality that were effectively re-activated within the present of the re-presentation51

However Renaissance art theorists such as Ludovico Dolce or GiovanniAndrea Gilio strongly discouraged artists from the use of anachronisms in theirpaintings and warned them against the most common mistakes They sought toimplement the rule of decorum guaranteeing among other things not only theappropriateness but also the historicity of the landscape or architectural settings52

In practice the fact remains that topographical anachronisms were widely applied

48 Ingrid Rowland The Culture of the High Renais-sance Cambridge 1998 p 44 See her discussion ofthe Roman Academy as lsquoa society for creative anach -ronismrsquo pp 7ndash41

49 P Burke lsquoThe Demise of Royal Mythologiesrsquoin Iconography Propaganda and Legitimation ed AEllenius Oxford 1998 pp 245ndash54 (247ndash48)

50 On the principle of lsquoorganic analogyrsquo see MFoucault Les mots et les choses Paris 1966 pp 32ndash40

51 lsquoThe term anachronism began to come intouse in Latin Italian French and English only in the17th century [hellip] It was related to ldquosynchronismrdquo theattempt to translate from one chronological system toanother To speak of the sense of anachronism of VallaMantegna or Erasmus is therefore literally speakinganachronisticrsquo P Burke lsquoThe Renaissance sense ofanachronismrsquo in Die Renaissance als erste Aufklaumlrunged E Rudolph Tuumlbingen 1998 pp 17ndash35 (32)

52 lsquoSe vuol fare un paese vi potra fingere monticolli valli fiumi cittagrave Averta pero a non ci far cose sconvenevoli al luogo come se dipingessi la

Moscovia et altri paesi settentrionali fredissimifarli pieni di aranci di cederi []rsquo (lsquoIf you wish topaint a landscape you can create for it mountainsvalleys rivers cities But avoid including in itthings that are inappropriate for the location forexample if you were painting Moscow or other verycold northern landscapes (avoid) filling them withorange trees or cedarsrsquo) Giovanni Andrea Gilio lsquoDia -logo nel quale si ragiona degli errori e degli abusi dersquopittori circo lrsquoistoriarsquo (Camerino 1564) in Trattati drsquoartedel Cinquecento ed P Barocchi 3 vols Bari 1960ndash62ii (1961) p 19 In 1557 Ludovico Dolce wrote lsquodeveimaginarsi il pittore i siti e gli edifici simili alla qualitagravedegrave paesi in guisa che non attribuisca ad uno quelloche egrave proprio dellrsquoaltrorsquo (lsquothe painter must imagine forhimself places and buildings similar in type to those of the (relevant) localities in such a way that he doesnot attribute to one what is appropriate to anotherrsquo)Ludovico Dolce lsquoDialogo della Pittura intitolatolrsquoAretinorsquo (Venice 1557) ibid i p 167


in painting during the sixteenth century especially in the decoration of monumentsthat had been or claimed to have been built on ancient sites and whose architec-ture was inspired by classical antiquity As such they were not thought of as merelsquomistakesrsquo but functioned as in the Palazzo dei Santissimi Apostoli and the Palazzodei Conservatori as rhetorical signs or lsquosymptomsrsquo of a complex system of histori-cal analogies

Modern monuments built on top of old ones proliferated in Renaissance RomeThe re-use of ancient ruins for new buildings often had both a practical and ideo-logical purpose as foundations were laid for new buildings the historical prestigeof the ancient site was transferred to the new owners eager to stress the antiquityof their lineage to boost their aristocratic pedigrees Already during the MiddleAges the oldest baronial families of Rome such as the Orsini or the Colonna hadtransformed ancient ruins into fortified castles and through such military occu-pation of ancient topography claimed power over the city53 The same principlealthough now essentially symbolic applied in the sixteenth century when the firstvillas allrsquoantica were built54

The first well-known examples of topographical anachronism in fresco paintingderive from this growing interest in the ancient history of places and were createdby artists in Raphaelrsquos circle in the 1520s In the Villa Lante on the Janiculum Hilla fresco painted by Polidoro da Caravaggio around 1524ndash25 shows the villa stillunder construction in the background of the scene of The Discovery of the tomb of Numa Pompilius which referenced the ancient history of the site (Fig 5) Thepainting and the rest of the cycle with the story of Clelia and The Meeting of Janusand Saturn on the Janiculum thus exposed the historical importance of the locus55

Furthermore an inscription in the loggia made an explicit reference to the ancientvilla of Julius Martialis which according to antiquarian scholars once stood on thisspot overlooking the city56 Both villas the modern and the ancient appear onPirro Ligoriorsquos map of Rome of 155257


53 See E Rodocanachi Les monuments de Romeapregraves la chute de lrsquoEmpire Rome 1914 p 28 Lanciani(as in n 25) pp 198ndash201 J J Gloton lsquoTransformationet reacuteemploi des monuments du passeacute dans la Romedu 16egraveme siegravecle Les monuments antiquesrsquo Meacutelangesdrsquoarcheacuteologie et drsquohistoire lxxiv 1962 pp 705ndash58 PFancelli lsquoDemolizioni e ldquorestaurirdquo di antichitagrave nelCinquecento romanorsquo in Roma e lrsquoantico nellrsquoarte enella cultura del Cinquecento ed M Fagiolo Rome1985 pp 357ndash403

54 See F E Keller lsquoRicostruire lrsquoantico Ville ri-nascimentali su ville antichersquo in Ianiculum-GianicoloStoria topografia monumenti leggende dallrsquoantichitagrave alRinascimento ed E M Steinby Acta Instituti RomaniFinlandiae xvi Rome 1996 pp 111ndash18 and idemlsquoUne villa de la Renaissance sur le site drsquoune villaantiquersquo in La Villa Meacutedicis ed A Chastel and PMorel 3 vols Rome 1989ndash91 ii (1991) pp 64ndash77

55 H Lilius Villa Lante al Gianicolo Lrsquoarchitetturae la decorazione pittorica Rome 1981 pp 135ndash62 251ndash

63 D R Coffin The Villa in the Life of RenaissanceRome Princeton 1979 pp 257ndash65 Beside its flatteringcharacter for the patron Baldassare Turini a datario ofPope Leo X the programme of the room held a deeperpolitical meaning aimed at celebrating the Mediceanpope The Janiculum where Numa Pom pilius thefirst Pontifex Maximus was buried was presented asthe centre of ancient Etruria an allusion to the newalliance between Rome and Florence and the newGolden Age of Rome brought about by the Medici

56 lsquohinc totam licet aestimare romamrsquo MartialEpigrammata iv64 See J F OrsquoGorman lsquoThe VillaLante in Rome Some Drawings and Some Obser-vationsrsquo Burlington Magazine cxiii 1971 pp 133ndash38

57 Pirro Ligorio names it lsquovilla b de pesciersquofrom the owner Baldassare Turrini da Pescia andlocates the villa close to Martialrsquos gardens lsquohortmartalamicusrsquo on the map see E Mandowsky CMitchell Pirro Ligoriorsquos Roman antiquities London1963 pl 73


It is likely that the idea for a lsquoportraitrsquo of the villa came from the architect ofthe villa himself Giulio Romano since two other such details were inserted indecorative schemes executed in the same period for which he was mainly respon-sible In the large and topographically exact landscape of the Battle of Constantineat the Milvian Bridge in the Sala di Costantino in the Vatican Palace (1519ndash20) aview of the Villa Madama built by Raphael for Pope Leo Xrsquos nephew CardinalGiulio dersquo Medici is represented under construction (Fig 6) Here again theanachronism was meant to reveal the programme of the villa conceived as an

6 Giulio Romano and workshop Villa Madama Under Construction detail of the Battle of Constantine VaticanPalace Sala di Costantino 1519ndash21 fresco (Musei Vaticani)

5 Polidoro da Caravaggio The Discovery of Numa Pompiliusrsquos Sarcophagus on the Janiculum Rome Villa Lantenow in Palazzo Zuccari Biblioteca Hertziana 1524ndash25 detached fresco (Bibliotheca Hertziana)

antique villa suburbana It also served to stress the historical importance of the siteit occupied in sight of Rome and the Milvian Bridge where Constantine the firstChristian emperor guided by the miraculous cross triumphed over his paganenemies58 A few years later in the autumn of 1527 amidst a frieze of landscapesallrsquoantica and scenes taken from Ovid in the Camera di Ovidio at the Palazzo delTe in Mantua a view of Giuliorsquos building again shown under construction wasincluded59

Despite their striking similarities in terms of function and significance GiulioRomanorsquos villa lsquoportraitrsquo in the Villa Lante is different from the works in the Palazzodei Conservatori and Palazzo dei Santissimi Apostoli previously discussed Just asin the Sala di Costantino the monument is clearly subordinated to the main narra-tive and the human figures whose poses are inspired by classical statues and thereliefs of Trajanrsquos Column60 Yet the landscape now played a crucial role withinthe fresco at the Villa Lante in terms of its emotional impact This can be explainedby the importance of the locus itself within the narrative the historical and mytho-logical genius loci of the Janiculum61 In the three other frescoes of the Villa Lantecycle the evocation of other Roman monuments the River Tiber and the snowytop of Mount Soratte betrays a desire for geographical accuracy that was rare at this time It thus seems that the increasing importance of antiquarian studiesincluding Raphaelrsquos pioneering work on the remains of ancient Rome and theirideological use by architects painters and patrons is a crucial factor in explainingthe formal development of landscape painting in Rome during the sixteenthcentury

III

It is also likely that the importance of the locus within the narrative observed in the examples examined so far derived from a stricter adherence to Vitru-viusrsquos advice on wall decoration in De architectura a point made clear by ErnstGombrich62 The juxtaposition of pure landscape views with scenes from Ovidobserved both in the Sala di Ovidio at the Palazzo del Te and at the Palazzo dei


58 See R Quednau Die Sala di Costantino im Vatikanischen Palast Zur Dekoration der beiden Medici-Paumlpste Leo X und Clemens VII Hildesheim and NewYork 1979 pp 351ndash52 On Villa Madama and theancient history of the site see now Yvonne Elet lsquoThedecorations of Villa Madama in Rome and the re-discovery of stucco decoration after the antique inRenaissance Italyrsquo PhD thesis Institute of Fine ArtsNew York 2007

59 On the Sala di Ovidio see E Verheyen lsquoCor -reggiorsquos Amori di Gioversquo this Journal xxix 1966 pp 160ndash92 (176 n 84) idem lsquoDie Sala di Ovidio imPalazzo del Te Bemerkungen zu unbekannten Land-schaftsbildern Giulio Romanosrsquo Roumlmisches Jahrbuchfuumlr Kunstgeschichte xii 1969 pp 161ndash70

60 Lilius (as in n 55) pp 158ndash60 Quednau (as in n 58) pp 352ndash56 On the allrsquoantica style of

Giulio Romanorsquos Battle of Constantine see also E HGombrich lsquoThe style allrsquoantica Imitation and Assimi-lationrsquo in Norm and Form Studies in the Art of theRenaissance London 1966 pp 122ndash28 (124ndash28)

61 A Marabottini Polidoro da Caravaggio Rome1969 pp 69ndash75

62 E H Gombrich lsquoThe Renaissance Theory ofArt and the Rise of Landscapersquo in Norm and Form(as in n 60) pp 107ndash21 Later studies have confirmedGombrichrsquos hypothesis that the development of land-scape painting during the Renaissance was largely dueto the influence of ancient writers Pliny the Elder whomentions the landscape specialist Studius or Ludius(Historia Naturalis xxxv116ndash17) and Vitruvius SeeHerveacute Brunon lsquoLrsquoessor artistique et la fabrique cultu-relle du paysage agrave la Renaissancersquo Studiolo iv 2006pp 261ndash90 (274)

Santissimi Apostoli was common in the Renaissance and directly recalled Vitru-viusrsquos famous passage

[The ancients then proceeded in such a way] hellip that they decorated walkways on accountof their lengthy spaces with a variety of topia [lsquovarietatibus topiorumrsquo] producing pictures[derived] from certain features of places [lsquoa certis locorum proprietatibusrsquo] In such paint -ings there will be pictured harbours promontories seashores rivers fountains straitsshrines groves mountains flocks shepherds In some there may also be represented ingrisaille certain likenesses of the gods or mythological episodes hellip63

Here it must be stressed that Vitruviusrsquos passage refers explicitly to landscapeas the representation of lsquoplacersquo Although the words in Latin most closely relatedto Vitruviusrsquos topia are concerned with gardening (eg Plinyrsquos opus topiarium)64

the concept of topia as lsquolandscape(s)rsquo in this important passage can usefully beexamined more closely The passage lsquoa certis locorum proprietatibusrsquo is extremelyimportant in this context since topia are thereby defined as images of landscapeconsisting of certain features (certae proprietates ) of places (loci for which the Greekis topoi ) Although Vitruviusrsquos features appear concrete on one levelmdashexamplesgiven include rivers mountains sheep and shepherds mdash the Vitruvian definitiontranslates an ancient Stoic formula as Pierre Grimal has explained For the Stoicsand for theorists of Roman painting the art of landscape was less a representationof particular objects than of what made them particular thus landscape paintersgardeners or stage designers producing topia images of landscapes were encour-aged to aim not at representing specific places but rather at the elements andfeatures typical of places John Moffit has also suggested that Vitruviusrsquos topialsquorepresent a variation on topos topoi perhaps joined to operarum and probably asalso related to topica as in the mnemonic topoi of ldquoplacesrdquo (cf Aristotle Topica163b 24ndash30 as amplified by Cicero De oratore Quintilian De Instituto oratoriaetc)rsquo65 Historians of Roman painting have recently identified Vitruviusrsquos topia withpanoramic views linked to a Hellenistic cartographic tradition in which territorialpainted maps mdash or according to the Ptolemaic definition chorographia mdash are ofcentral importance Such an example of panoramic view the mosaic of the Nileat Palestrina will be discussed below (Fig 10)66

63 Vitruvius De architectura vii5 2 lsquoautem locisuti exhedris propter amplitudines parietum scae-narum frontes tragico more aut comico seu satyricodesignarent ambulationibus vero propter spatiallongitudinis varietatibus topiorum ornarent a certislocorum propietatibus imagines exprimentes pin -guntur enim portus promunturia litora fluminafonte euripi fana luci montes pecora pastoresNonnulli locis item signorum melographiam habentesdeorum simulacra seu fabularum dispositas ex-plications non minus troianas pugnas seu Ulixis errationes per topia ceteraque quae sunt eorum similibus rationibus ad rerum natura procreatersquo I amindebted to Joseph Spooner for the translation of thispassage into English

64 Pliny Historia Naturalis xvi14065 P Grimal Les jardins romains edn Paris 1984

pp 88ndash98 (92 n 3) J F Moffit lsquoThe Palestrina mosaicwith a ldquoNile scenerdquo Philostratus and Ek phrasisPtolemy and chorographiarsquo Zeitschrift fuumlr Kunst-geschichte lx 1997 pp 227ndash47 (239ndash40 n 25) Seemore recently P Cottini lsquoLe origini Rilettura dellefonti e ipotesi interpretativersquo in Topiaria Architetture esculture vegetali nel giardino occidentale dallrsquoantichitagrave aoggi ed M Azzi Visentini Treviso 2004 pp 1ndash15

66 For the importance of the Ptolemaic notion ofchorography (the description of regions chōrai ) andtopography (description of places topoi ) for the devel-opment of ancient landscape art known as topia ortopiara opera see the recent proposals of A Rouveret


I would thus argue that lsquotopo-graphicalrsquo landscape art (or chorographia as itwas still known in the Renaissance) should be understood as the representationof topoi an art that applied to gardens painted landscapes and theatre sets Manygardens of the Italian Renaissance such as the gardens of the Villa drsquoEste at Tivoli(with its geographical symbolism) or the grotticina of Boboli in Florence (probablyinspired by the famous Amaltheion invoked by Cicero) were conceived aroundthis ancient notion as representations of either real (topographia chorographia) orimaginary (topothesia) places67

That this conception was clearly understood during the Renaissance is madequite clear in theoretical writings In his Considerazioni sulla Pittura (1620) GiulioMancini writes on landscape painting

One needs to consider the setting ie the place where the action and story took place suchas for example the fall of Simon Magus which happened near the theatre of Marcellus[hellip] He should represent this setting in painting in such a way that it can be recognizedimmediately via some distinctive characteristics and if there is no such characteristic it ispermitted to expand the setting or modify the period For example to fully describe the fallof Simon Magus which happened in the place mentioned outside the theatre if there is noother specific feature it will be allowed in order to recognize Rome to expand the settingand place Trajanrsquos Column in it although it cannot be seen from there in reality Addition -ally a modification of the period [is allowed in this case] because this column was erectedmore than a hundred years after the event took place Many talented men have taken suchlicence to make their settings recognisable68


lsquoPictos ediscere mundos Perception et imaginaire dupaysage dans la peinture helleacutenistique et romainersquoKtema Civilisations de lrsquoOrient de la Gregravece et de Romeantiques xxix 2004 pp 325ndash44 and E La Rocca lsquoLo spazio negato Il paesaggio nella cultura artisticagreca e romanarsquo in La pittura di paesaggio in Italia IlSeicento ed L Trezzani Milan 2004 pp 19ndash73 (27ndash29) According to Ptolemy (Geography iA1 (1ndash5))whose definition was then adopted by Renaissancetopographers chorography is concerned with the rep -resentation of a region and its elements and requiresthe skills of the painter whilst geography is concernedwith the representation of the world and necessitatesthe knowledge of mathematics see F LestringantlsquoChorographie et paysage agrave la Renaissancersquo in Lepaysage agrave la Renaissance ed Y Giraud Fribourg 1988pp 9ndash26 and J Schulz lsquoJacopo dersquo Barbarirsquos view of Venice Map making city views and moralizedcartography before the year 1500rsquo The Art Bulletin lx1978 pp 425ndash74 (442)

67 The idea of an influence of the ancient ars topiaria on Renaissance landscape painting had alreadybeen formulated by P Francastel La Figure et le LieuLrsquoordre visuel du Quattrocento Paris 1967 pp 299ndash305(302ndash03) The distinction between topographia choro-graphia and topothesia can be found in Serviusrsquoscommentary on Virgilrsquos Aeneid where the descriptionof real places (lsquorei verae descriptiorsquo) is contrasted withthat of imaginary places (lsquoid est fictus secundum

poeticam licentiam locusrsquo) Servius Ad Aeneidemi159 The same distinction is made in LactantiusPlacidus Statius Thebaid ii32 On these conceptsand a commentary on the above mentioned texts seeLa Rocca (as in n 66) pp 30ndash34 Grimal (as in n 65)pp 304ndash05 and H Lavagne Operosa Antra Recherchessur la grotte agrave Rome de Sylla agrave Hadrien Rome 1988 p5 On the relationship between landscape painting andgarden and geographical symbolism at the Villa drsquoEsteat Tivoli see my article lsquoLe Salone de la Villa drsquoEste agraveTivoli un theacuteacirctre des jardins et du territoirersquo Studioloiii 2005 pp 65ndash94 On the grotticina of Boboli seeH Brunon lsquoUt poesis hortus lrsquoimaginaire litteacuterairedans les jardins italiens du XVIe siegraveclersquo in Poeacutetique dela maison La Chambre romanesque le Festin theacuteacirctral leJardin litteacuteraire ed H Levillain Paris 2005 pp 155ndash75 (160ndash62)

68 lsquoSi deve considerare il sito scenico cioegrave il luogodove fu quella tal attione et historia come per esempiola caduta di Simon Mago che fu appresso il teatro diMarcello [] Questo sito deve in pittura talmenterappresentare che subito sia riconosciuto per qualcheparticularitagrave contrasegnata e se non vi fosse egrave lecitodrsquoampliar il sito et ancor mutar il tempo come peresempio per descrivere bene la caduta di Simon Magoche fu nel luogo detto dove fuor del teatro non vi egravecosa piugrave particolare saragrave lecito per far conoscereRoma drsquoampliar questo sito e porvi la colonnaTraiana ancorchegrave non sia potuta esser vista anzi

In this passage Mancini literally translates Vitruviusrsquos Stoic concept of landscapeas a juxtaposition of topoi his expression lsquoqualche particularitagraversquo (lsquosome distinctivecharacteristicsrsquo) echoes the lsquoab certis locorum proprietat[es]rsquo (lsquocertain featuresof placesrsquo) of Vitruvius For Mancini the use of topographical anachronism ispermitted not only can the setting be modified (lsquoampliar il sitorsquo) but the periodtoomdashMancini uses the phrases lsquomutar il temporsquo and lsquoposporre il temporsquomdashsince itenables the viewer to lsquorecognisersquo (riconoscere) the site better69

A particularly good example of this paradigm can be found at the Villa Giuliain Rome In the Sala dei Sette Colli the frieze is composed of eight large land-scapes seven representing the seven hills of ancient Rome and the eighth depicting

posporre il tempo poiche questa colonna fu erettadopo questrsquoattione piugrave di cento anni Questa tal licenzaper far riconoscer i lor siti lrsquohan presa molti valentrsquohuominirsquo Giulio Mancini Considerazioni sulla pittura(1620) Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei Fonti e docu-menti inediti per la storia dellrsquoarte i ed L SalernoRome 1956ndash57 pp 118ndash19 For a discussion on anach -ronism in painting in 17th-century art theory see E

Heacutenin Ut Pictura Theatrum Theacuteacirctre et peinture de laRenaissance italienne au classicisme franccedilais Geneva2003 pp 364ndash68

69 It should be noted that this lsquopleasure of recog-nitionrsquo essential to aesthetic pleasure according toAristotle was already determining in the appreciationof the ancient topia Aristotle Poetics 1448b10 Rhetoric i1371b4 Rouveret (as in n 66) p 340


7 Michiel Gast () The Capitoline Hill Rome Villa Giulia Sala dei Sette Colli 1553 fresco (Alinari)

the Villa Giulia and the new fountain of the Acqua Vergine that Pope Julius IIIhad built around 1553 (Figs 7ndash8)70The ideological significance of the Villa Giuliacycle is essentially based on the last part of the Popersquos name Monte meaning hillor mountain in Italian The prologue to a comedy composed for his coronation inFebruary 1550 explains that the seven hills of Rome were transformed into sevenmonti and that Giulio del Monte became their brother and Lord71 In the Sala deiColli the eighth hill is associated with Monte Parioli next to which the new VillaGiulia was constructed The Villa Giulia was thus presented as the Capitoline wasfor Paul III as the locus of a renovatio imperii having equalled and surpassed themarvels of ancient Rome

The Villa Giulia landscapes did not constitute realistic archaeological re-constructions of the seven ancient hills but rather juxtaposed the topographicallinguistic and historical topoi associated with each place within a single image withlittle consideration for anachronisms or spatial incoherence For example themonumental bust visible in the view of the Capitoline Hill (Fig 7) is an allusion to


70 On this cycle see A Campitelli lsquoFregio raffigu-rante vedute di Roma Sala dei Sette Collirsquo in OltreRaffaello Aspetti della cultura figurativa del Cinquecentoromano Rome 1984 pp 200ndash05 Nicole Dacos attrib-utes the landscapes to Michiel Gast Dacos (as in n22) pp 94ndash96

71 See Francesco Cancellieri Storia dersquo SolenniPossessi dersquo Sommi pontefici dopo la loro coronazione dallabasilica vaticana alla lateranense Rome 1802 pp 502ndash04

8 Michiel Gast () The Fountain of Julius III on the via Flaminia with the Villa Giulia Rome Villa Giulia Saladei Sette Colli 1553 fresco (Alinari)

the bust of Constantine II transported to the Campidoglio during the pontificateof Innocent VIII at the end of the Quattrocento Two edifices behind it evoke theTemple of Jupiter Capitolinus and the Tarpeian Rock The goats (capre in Italian)are an allusion to both the name of Pope Julius III del Monte and to the medievalname given to the hill Monte Caprino72 In the foreground the representation ofthe myth of Tarpeia (the daughter of Spurius Tarpeius commander of the fortresswho had let the Sabine soldiers enter the protected grounds) is yet another refer-ence to both the ancient history of the place and its name Monte Tarpeio73

This compositional technique is essentially cartographicmdashthe use of the termlsquochrono-topicalrsquo preferred by critics of Renaissance literature is perhaps bettersuited74 mdashalthough the different topoi such as monuments or historical scenes arerepresented in perspective and not as abstract signs Historiated medieval mappae-mundi as well as late medieval and early modern maps of Rome such as the Anti-quae urbis Romae simulachrum of Fabio Calvo (1527) were drawn according to thisprinciple and were without doubt inspired by Vitruviusrsquos and Ptolemyrsquos mode ofnarrative topographical representation75 A very similar disposition had indeed been

72 Campitelli (as in n 70) p 20373 Titus Livius Ab urbe condita i11 (5ndash7)74 On the concept of lsquochronotopersquo see M M

Bakhtin The Dialogic Imagination Four Essays ed M

Holquist trans C Emerson and M Holquist Austin1981

75 On the influence of the ancient mode of narra-tive topographical representation on medieval mappae-


9 Onofrio Panvinio Anteiquae Urbis Imago 1565 detail of the ancient Campo Marzio Villa Giulia is visible inthe lower right corner between two hills (private collection photograph by the author)

adopted in some ancient landscape representations such as the famous mosaic ofthe Nile at Palestrina mentioned above (late second century bc) which as ClaudiaLa Malfa has shown was already known during the Renaissance through a manu-script dated to 1477ndash1507 and could have influenced the production of landscapepainting in Rome earlier than has been previously thought (Fig 10)76

As in the landscapes of Villa Giulia or pre-scientific maps the space in thePalestrina mosaic is constructed from an arbitrary distribution of loci or topoi asso-ciated with a place an idea or a specific event very much like the relation betweenloci and imagines in the ars memoriae These are represented in different perspec-tives and cannot be perceived as a unified whole but only sequentially a schemadirectly inspired by geographic and cartographic conventions of the time77 Thesurvival of this ancient mode of chorographic representation in late antique andmedieval art may also be considered as having affected Renaissance artists andmap-makers78This type of spatial construction can be observed in famous medi -eval examples of topographical representation such as the view of Rome in therepresentation of Ytalia by Cimabue at Assisi (1288ndash90) or the landscapes in GoodGovernment and Bad Government in Sienarsquos Palazzo Pubblico by Ambrogio Loren-zetti (1338ndash40) both functioning as a kind of social economic and political inven-tory of the town and its territory79 In all these examples the composition of themaps or paintings despite their apparent naturalism corresponds to an ency-clopaedic and mnemonic visual system of knowledge that cannot be separatedfrom the production of an ideological discourse and whose roots can be traced tothe ancient lsquoart of memoryrsquo80

The parallels between cartographic and artistic discourse are also evident inthe context discussed if we consider two maps of ancient Rome published someyears later in which the Villa Giulia is represented among the monuments ofancient Rome the map of Roma antica by Bernardo Gamucci published in Venicein 1565 and Onofrio Panviniorsquos Anteiquae Urbis Imago published in Rome in the


mundi see especially Moffit (as in n 65) pp 236ndash40On the antiquae Urbis Romae of Fabio Calvo and thereconstruction of ancient topography from ancientsources during the Renaissance see P J Jacks lsquoTheSimulacrum of Fabio Calvo A view of Roman Archi-tecture allrsquoantica in 1527rsquo The Art Bulletin lxxii 1990pp 453ndash81 (459ndash80)

76 C La Malfa lsquoReassessing the Renaissance ofthe Palestrina Nile Mosaicrsquo this Journal lxvi 2003pp 267ndash71 Maurizio Calvesi supposed that the knowl-edge of the mosaic influenced Pinturicchiorsquos land-scape decoration of the Villa Belvedere at the Vaticanfor Pope Innocent VIII dated 1487ndash89 M Calvesi lsquoIl mito dellrsquoEgitto nel Rinascimentorsquo Art e Dossierxxiv May 1988 p 31 (cited in Brunon (as in n 62)p 269

77 On the links between the Nile mosaic at Palest-rina and ancient geographical knowledge see Moffit(as in n 65) La Rocca (as in n 66) pp 24ndash25 andRouveret (as in n 66) pp 333ndash37

78 See for example the influence of late antiquemanuscripts on Fabio Calvorsquos simulachrum P NPagliara lsquoLa Roma antica di Fabio Calvo note sullacultura antiquaria e architettonicarsquo Psicon viiindashix 31976 pp 65ndash87

79 On Cimabuersquos Ytalia at Assisi see M Anda-loro lsquoAncora una volta sullrsquoYtalia di Cimabuersquo ArteMedievale ii 1985 pp 84ndash177 On Ambrogio Loren-zettirsquos frescoes see for example R Starn L PartridgeArts of power Three halls of state in Italy 1300ndash1600Berkeley Oxford 1992 pp 56ndash57

80 On the encyclopaedic concept of landscape seeW Cahn lsquoMedieval Landscape and the Encyclo paedicTraditionrsquo Yale French Studies lxxx 1991 pp 11ndash24On the relation between topographical images and theancient art of memory see G Mangani lsquoDa icone aemblemi Cartografia morale delle cittagrave (secoli XIVndashXVI)rsquo in Tra oriente e occidente Cittagrave e iconografia dalXV al XIX secolo ed C de Seta Naples 2004 pp 10ndash21

same year (Fig 9)81 Like the Villa Lante in Pirro Ligoriorsquos map of Rome the VillaGiuliamdashentirely conceived as a classical villamdashwas worthy of being compared withthe monuments of ancient Rome in the same way that Giulio Romanorsquos concettiwere accurately defined by Pietro Aretino as lsquoanticamente moderni e moderna-mente antichirsquo or that Bramantersquos monuments had been inserted some yearsearlier into Sebastiano Serliorsquos treatise on lsquoancient buildingsrsquo82

IV

Although the literature on topographical anachronism is still relatively thin despitesome recent and stimulating debate on that topic one work of art embodying allof the characteristics described above has been the subject of a particularly famousstudy83 In 1951 James Ackerman published a fragment of a fresco representing the

81 See P A Frutaz Le piante di Roma 3 volsRome 1962 i p 64 with ii pl XVIII no 33 and ipp 65ndash66 with ii pl XX no 35

82 P Aretino Lettere ed P Procaccioli 2 volsMilan 1990 i p 489 Sebastiano Serlio mentionedBramantersquos buildings in his treatises on orders (1537)

and on ancient architecture (1540) including theCortile del Belvedere and the Tempietto in Book iiiof his treatise on ancient Rome S Serlio Tutte lrsquooperedrsquoarchitettura Venice 1619 pp 64v 11v 118r and 139r

83 On Renaissance anachronism see A Nagel C S Wood lsquoToward a new model of Renaissance


10 Mosaic of the Nile Palestrina Palazzo Barberini-Colonna 2nd century bc (Scala)

Cortile del Belvedere which detached from its original context seemed to him anunicum in the history of Renaissance art (Fig 11)84The fragment has recently beenreattributed to Cornelisz Loots and thanks to new archival findings proven to be part of the lost decoration of Paul IIIrsquos Torre Paolina on the Capitoline Hill85

The view shows the large complex as a ruin with overgrown vegetation A com-parison with a known drawing of the Cortile by Giovanni Antonio Dosio atteststo the topographical precision of the view whose main subject is clearly the locusand the architecture The figures visible on the right and the immediate foregroundare minuscule compared to the grandiose scale of Bramantersquos building

However the scene taking place in the foreground a sort of nautical joust ona lake and the assembly to the right overlooking the scene from an elevated posi-tion reveal the real significance of the painting The explanation lies in one of thefirst archaeological guides to Rome the Roma instaurata of Biondo Flavio (c 1446ndash48) It was known that an artificial lake for the staging of mock naval battles knownin ancient Rome as naumachiae had been built in the Vatican valley a short distancefrom the foot of Mons Aureus (Montorio) and the Porta Perusa86 In short thepainter represented the ancient Vatican lake on the spot where it had supposedlyexisted (now at the bottom of Bramantersquos Cortile) revealing the history of theplace by merging within the same image its past and its present

The anachronism conceived as a rhetorical scheme unites in a sort of meta-physical vision of history the antiqui and the moderni Contrary to what Ackermanthought the group of figures observing the naumachia from their elevated platform


anachronismrsquo (and responses by C Dempsey MCole and C Farago) The Art Bulletin lxxxvii 20053 pp 403ndash32 Burke (as in n 51) Heacutenin (as in n 68)pp 364ndash68 and R Bentmann M Muumlller The Villa asHegemonic Architecture trans T Spence and D CravenNew Jersey and London 1990 pp 37ndash49 85ndash89

84 J S Ackerman lsquoThe Belvedere as a classicalvillarsquo this Journal xiv 1951 pp 70ndash91 (78) See also

F Testa lsquout ad veterum illa admiranda aedificia accederevideatur Il Cortile del Belvedere e la retorica politicadel potere pontificio sotto Giulio IIrsquo in Donato Bra -mante Ricerche proposte riletture ed Francesco Paolodi Teodoro Urbino 2001 pp 229ndash66

85 For the attribution see Dacos (as in n 42) pp 55ndash56 for the documents see V Cafagrave lsquoIl Cortiledel Belvedere con naumachiarsquo in Andrea Palladio e la

11 Cornelisz Loots () The Cortile del Belvedere with an ancient lsquoNaumachiarsquo originally in Rome Torre Paolina(destroyed) now in Castel SantrsquoAngelo Sala dei Festoni c 1537ndash47 detached fresco with tempera (Scala)

to the right is not an imperial audience but rather a papal one cardinals in theirred robes and among them maybe the pope himself are clearly visible87What thefresco is thus visualising is the layered lsquomemoryrsquo of the vision of the place as it was conceived understood and promoted by the papal audience and by contem-poraries88 In close agreement with the recent proposals of Alexander Nagel andChristopher Wood on the concept of Renaissance anachronism I would evenventure to propose that the Cortile was considered an ancient building not just amodern building built according to ancient forms and principles89 the fact thatit had been represented as a ruin shows the extent to which it was assimilated withancient Roman ruins Claudia Lazzaro noted for example that lsquothe BelvedereCourt was meant to be a re-creation of an ancient Roman villa and embodied thatidea so strongly that even the converse was truemdashfor its contemporaries the Romanvilla was assumed to look like the Belvedere Courtrsquo90

A confirmation of this analogical conception of historical artefactsmdashso puzzlingfor the modern viewermdashis offered in an intriguing fresco cycle at the Rocca Abba -ziale at Subiaco painted around 1556ndash57 for the abbot Francesco Colonna Heretwo landscapes in the lunettes of the main salone show a reconstruction of theancient site of Subiaco with three artificial lakes that Emperor Nero had builtand where he also had a magnificent villa91 A third fresco (Fig 12) was obviously

villa Veneta da Petrarca a Carlo Scarpa ed G Beltra-mini and H Burns Venice 2005 pp 236ndash38 (cat no32)

86 Biondo Flavio De Roma Instaurata Venice1510 sectsect 63ndash64 Ackerman (as in n 84) p 82 n 1

87 C L Frommel lsquoGiulio II Bramante e il Cortiledel Belvederersquo in LrsquoEuropa e lrsquoarte italiana ed MSeidel Venice 2000 pp 211ndash19 (215)

88 On the perception of Bramantersquos Cortile as anancient monument see C L Frommel lsquoI tre progettibramanteschi per il cortile del Belvedere in Il Cortiledelle Statue Der Statuenhof des Belvedere im Vatikan ed

M Winner B Andreae and C Pietrangeli Mainz amRhein 1998 pp 17ndash65

89 lsquoOne might know that [artefacts] were fabri-cated in the present or in the recent past but at thesame time value them and use them as if they werevery old things This was not a matter of self-delusionor indolence but a function of an entire way of think -ing about the historicity of artifacts repeatedly mis-understood by the modern discipline of art historyrsquoNagel Wood (as in n 83) p 405

90 C Lazzaro-Bruno lsquoThe Villa Lante a Bagnaiarsquo2 vols PhD thesis Princeton University 1974 i p 85


12 The Cortile del Belvedere as Nerorsquos villa at Subiaco Subiaco Rocca Colonna Sala dei Banchetti c 1558ndash59fresco (Sara Segatori)

based on the view from the Torre Paolina representing the Cortile del BelvedereHowever slight modifications indicate that the view had a different meaning fromthe original analysed by Ackerman Instead of the naumachia in the foregrounddoes and stags are seen grazing at the bottom of the vast court The assembly gath-ered on a platform above them is now accompanied by a group of archers postedbetween the columns who are about to kill the peaceful animals In this instancethe monument does not represent the Cortile del Belvedere any morendashalthoughit still does paradoxicallymdashbut rather Nerorsquos villa at Subiaco situated in a regionthen famous for the abundance of game and where great hunting parties andbanquets were organised for the pleasure of the emperor92

V

The desire for a complete imitatio - aemulatio of ancient Roman culture motivatedas we have seen mainly by ideological reasons also included an lsquoassimilationrsquo of thestyle of ancient Roman painters In other words in all the examples mentioned sofar the vocabulary used to reveal the historical significance of the scenes was itselfhistorical93 The expression lsquoanticamente moderni e modernamente antichirsquo usedby Aretino to describe Giulio Romanorsquos painting and architecture allrsquoantica couldapply very well to the variety of styles observed in these examples often profoundlyreminiscent of the impressionistic maniera compendiaria that contemporaries couldobserve in the fragments of Nerorsquos Domus Aurea94 Rather than looking for precisemodels though what is interesting is to note that ancient art was not merely imi -tated lsquoon the surfacersquo but that its governing principles and laws carefully observedand lsquoassimilatedrsquo by Renaissance artists and architects were put into practice TheRenaissance artist thus favoured inventio allrsquoantica rather than mere imitatio95 Wehave seen for instance that in some examples mostly concerned with topographicaldepiction the Renaissance conception of landscape was intrinsically close to thatof ancient Roman landscape known as ars topiaria an art of representing the char-acteristics of specific places


91 Tacitus Annales xiv22 Pliny Historia Natu-ralis iii309 See M Minasi I Colonna nella rocca diSubiaco La decorazione cinquecentesca Rome 1996 pp176ndash79 Like the Simulachrum of Fabio Calvo thereconstruction of the ancient topography of the sitewas essentially based on the use of ancient coins seeRibouillault (as in n 44) pp 199ndash206

92 The practice of killing animals trapped in anenclosed space is well documented during the Renais-sance see Chasses princiegraveres dans lrsquoEurope de la Renais-sance ed C drsquoAnthenaise and M Chatenet Paris2007 pp 82ndash85 The fresco also alludes to the ancientpractice of hunting as a form of entertainment inRoman amphitheatres called venatio which often tookplace in the Circus Maximus Such a hunt is repre-sented in the frieze of the Sala delle Ocche at thePalazzo dei Conservatori

93 See especially Ackerman (as in n 84) pp 78ndash79 On the stylistic influence of ancient Romanfrescoes on Renaissance painting see I BergstroumlmRevival of Antique Illusionistic Wall-Painting in Renais-sance Art Acta Universitatis Gothoburgensis Goumlte-borg 1957 p 27 Richard Turner lsquoTwo Landscapes inRenaissance Romersquo The Art Bulletin xxxxiii 1961 pp275ndash87 (283) J Schulz lsquoPinturicchio and the Revivalof Antiquityrsquo this Journal xxv 1962 pp 35ndash55 NDacos La deacutecouverte de la Domus Aurea et la formationdes grotesques agrave la Renaissance London 1969 pp 53ndash54 100ndash13 B Davidson lsquoThe Landscapes of theVatican Logge from the Reign of Pope Julius IIIrsquo TheArt Bulletin lxiv 1983 pp 587ndash602 (598) Monssen(as in n 42) Dacos (as in n 22) pp 36 193ndash94

94 Dacos (as in n 22) p 3695 Gombrich (as in n 60)

Thus the inherent contradictions observed in Renaissance landscape paintingbetween the visually realistic and conceptual qualities may well be explained withinthis proposed framework Commenting on the realistic quality of some Northernlandscape paintings Ernst Gombrich concluded that lsquoif these examples show any -thing they show how long and how arduous is the way between perception andrepresentation Sixteenth-century landscapes after all are not ldquoviewsrdquo but largelyaccumulations of individual features they are conceptual rather than visualrsquo96

Nevertheless the principles of illusionistic painting and the mastery of the art ofperspective make this fundamental remark difficult to grasp in most Renaissancepaintings Plinyrsquos and Vitruviusrsquos encyclopaedic and chorographic notion of land-scape as a juxtaposition of topoi is only rarely perceptible under the veil of natural-istic imitation of the world systematically associated with the Renaissance In otherwords the obsessive consideration of the invention of perspective has preventedmost modern critics of Renaissance art from seeing that the non-linear represen-tation of time also implicated a discontinuity in the representation of space Withthe efforts of Renaissance landscape painters to unify the diversity of elements(Vitruviusrsquos a certis locorum proprietat[es]) in their paintings within a conceivableand realistic space we have lost the sense of the artificiality and conceptual natureof their inventions falling into the trap of the myth of pure mimesis As Nagel andWood write following Georges Didi-Hubermanrsquos recent discussion on anachro-nism

hellip in imposing a mimetic function on the image the Renaissance introduced a lsquotyranny ofthe visiblersquo suppressing an indexical conception of the image that prevailed in the MiddleAges In contrast to the Renaissance rhetoric of mastery adequation and intelligibility themedieval image [hellip] presents an opacity a disruption of the coded operations of the sign adisjunctive openness by which the image is opened to a dizzying series of figurative associ -ations well beyond the logic of lsquosimple reasonrsquo It is an understanding of the image betterserved by the Freudian concepts of the symptom and dreamwork than by the proceduresof iconology developed by the Kantian inheritors of Renaissance humanism in particularPanofsky97

That this conception of the image is essentially true for the landscape paintingsallrsquoantica that we have examined can be made even more explicit if we compareSigmund Freudrsquos description of contemporary Rome with our sixteenth-centuryanachronistic landscapes In discussing the problem of conservation or retention ofpsychic impressions in his Civilisation and Its Discontents Sigmund Freud describeda mnemonic vision of the Roman cityscape For him lsquoin mental life nothing thathas once taken shape can be lost [hellip] everything is somehow preserved and canbe retrieved under the right circumstancesrsquo Rome is a living illustration of thisconcept

96 Gombrich (as in n 62) p 11697 Nagel Wood (as in n 83) p 411 See G Didi-

Hubermann Devant le temps Histoire de lrsquoart et

anachronisme des images Paris 2000 and Lrsquoimage survi-vante Histoire de lrsquoart et temps des fantocircmes selon AbyWarburg Paris 2002


Now let us make the fantastic assumption that Rome is not a place where people live but apsychical entity with a similarly long rich past in which nothing that ever took shape haspassed away and in which all previous phases of development exist beside the most recentFor Rome this would mean that on the Palatine hill the imperial palaces and the Septi -zonium of Septimius Severus still rose to their original height that the castle of San Angelostill bore on its battlements the fine statues that adorned it until the Gothic siege More -over the temple of Jupiter Capitolinus would once more stand on the site of the PalazzoCaffarelli without there being any need to dismantle the latter structure and indeed thetemple would be seen not only in its later form which it assumed during the imperial agebut also in its earliest when it still had Etruscan elements and was decorated with terracottaantefixes [hellip] And the observer would perhaps need only to shift his gaze or his position inorder to see the one or the other98

The kind of vision that Freud describes here had been translated in painting longbefore in the landscapes allrsquoantica discussed in this paper Freud of courseignored this when he concluded that

It is clearly pointless to spin out this fantasy any further the result would be unimaginableindeed absurd If we wish to represent a historical sequence in spatial terms we can do soonly by juxtaposition in space for the same space cannot accommodate two different thingsOur attempt to do otherwise seems like an idle game its sole justification is to show howfar we are from being able to illustrate the peculiarities of mental life by visual means99

Anachronistic topographical landscapes of the sixteenth century can thus be under-stood as lsquosymptomsrsquo of a lsquoway of seeingrsquo affected by the human psyche and bymemory a memory powerfully oriented towards a specific perceptionconstructionof the past necessary to legitimate political and ideological claims in the presentThis was passed to the Renaissance mainly through ancient literature and especiallyVirgilrsquos Aeneid and through the myth of the foundation of Rome The history ofRome and Virgilrsquos Aeneid is unsurprisingly the theme of many fresco cycles in thesixteenth century and in the seventeenth century the main theme of ClaudeLorrainrsquos late landscapes100 As recent research has shown the latter were mostlycommissioned by powerful aristocratic families eager to legitimate their recentlyacquired position and the ancestry of their roots within the ancient Roman terri-tory whose interests in archaeology and ancient wall painting are now well docu-mented101


98 Sigmund Freud Civilization and Its Discontentstrans D McLintock London 2002 (1st edn 1930) p 7

99 Ibid pp 8ndash9100 On 16th-century fresco cycles based on Virgilrsquos

Aeneid see Jan de Jong lsquo ldquoPer seguir virtute e cono -scenzardquo de omzwervingen van Aeneas in de italiaansewandschilderkunstrsquo Incontri iii 1988 pp 123ndash36 andVirgilio nellrsquoarte e nella cultura europea (exhibition cata-logue Rome Biblioteca nazionale centrale 1981) edM Fagiolo Rome 1981 pp 120ndash75

101 See H Langdon lsquoClaude Apollo and theMusesrsquo L Beaven lsquoCardinal Camillo Massimo andClaude Lorrain landscape and the construction ofidentity in Seicento Romarsquo M Beneš lsquoClaude Lor -rainrsquos pendant landscapes of 1646ndash50 for CamilloPamphilj nephew of Pope Innocent X classicismarchitecture and garden as context for the artistrsquosRoman patronagersquo Storia dellrsquoarte cxii 2005 pp 7ndash22 23ndash36 37ndash90 respectively

Although the use of topographical anachronism continued to prevail in theseventeenth century a new awareness of the definition of space and time seemsto have appeared during the Counter-Reformation Painters and topographerswere asked by art theorists such as Giovanni Andrea Gilio or Cardinal GabrielePaleotti to create images that were as truthful and historically correct as possibleand to separate reality from invention102 However in fresco decoration with astrong ideological agenda the use of topographical anachronism continued toprevail In the early 1580s the conflation of the Rome of Pope Gregory XIII andthe paleochristian Rome in Matthijs Brilrsquos landscapes in the Tower of the Windsat the Vatican is a perfect example In this instance early Christian landscapereplaced the landscape of ancient Rome as a historical model for contemporarysociety but the structure of syncretism remained wholly effective as a means ofplaying with the boundaries of time and space103

102 Gabriele Paleotti lsquoDiscorso intorno alle Imma-gine Sacre e Profanersquo (1582) Trattati drsquoarte del Cinque-cento 2 vols ed P Barocchi Bari 1960ndash62 ii pp117ndash509 (367ndash68) lsquoDelle pitture non verosimilirsquo GRicci lsquoVerare la cittagrave (La cittagrave e il suo doppio)rsquo inLrsquoimmagine delle cittagrave italiane dal XV al XIX secolo edC De Seta Rome 1998 pp 67ndash71

103 N Courtright lsquoThe transformation of AncientLandscape through the Ideology of Christian Reformin Gregory XIIIrsquos Tower of the Windsrsquo Zeitschrift fuumlrKunstgeschichte lviii 1995 pp 526ndash41


Courtauld Institute of Art

meant to evoke the temple of Jupiter Capitolinus which had been located on thisvery site in ancient times5 It is known that a statue of the Roman god was to beplaced in the central niche of the double staircase designed by Michelangelo toaccess the Palazzo Senatorio exactly where the painter had situated the statue inhis fresco6 The position of the statue would have made clear the link between thepagan god and the Pope celebrated appropriately as a lsquonew Jupiterrsquo in contempor-ary epigrams7

The ancient topography of the hill was also a determining factor in theconstruction of the adjacent Torre Paolina under Paul III a new residence locatedimmediately next to the convent of Santa Maria in Aracoeli on the spot where the ancient temple of Jupiter Feretrius had once stood8 The symbolic continuity

5 Ackerman (as in n 1) p 4086 Ibid p 406 On the sculptural programme of

the Capitoline at the time of Paul III see T Budden-sieg lsquoZum Statuenprogramm im Kapitolsplan PaulsIIIrsquo Zeitschrift fuumlr Kunstgeschichte xxxii 1969 pp 177ndash228 (200)

7 Brancia di Apricena (as in n 2) p 454 Thepope was also identified on other occasions with JanusApollo Hercules Alexander the Great or HadrianSee L Canova lsquoLa celebrazione nelle arti del ponti-

ficato di Paolo III Farnese come nuova etagrave dellrsquoororsquoStoria dellrsquoarte xciiindashxciv 1998 pp 217ndash34 and JKliemann lsquoImperial Themes in Early Modern PapalIconographyrsquo in Basilike Eikon Renaissance Represen-tations of the Prince ed R Eriksen and M MalmangerRome 2001 pp 11ndash29 (14ndash15)

8 lsquohellip Arae coeli fratrum minorum beati Fran-cisci ecclesiam in feretrij Iovis templi fundamentisextructamrsquo Matteo Silvaggi De tribus peregrinis Venice1542 p 304 Brancia di Apricena (as in n 2) p 442


1 The Capitoline Square with the Temple of Jupiter Capitolinus Rome Palazzo Colonna dei SS Apostoli c 1552ndash53 () fresco (Galleria Colonna)

























































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LANDSCAPE ALL ANTICA AND TOPOGRAPHICAL … · LANDSCAPE ALL ANTICA AND TOPOGRAPHICAL ANACHRONISM IN...

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