THE WATERS OF ROME, Occasional Papers no. 3, JULY 2005

Aquae Urbis Romae: the Waters of the City of Rome

® David Karmon

dkarmon@yahoo.com

FOOTNOTES

This article is based upon a chapter in my dissertation, “The Protection of Ancient Monuments in Renaissance Rome” (Harvard, 2003), and will be published in revised form in a book on the origins of architectural conservation in Rome. I am grateful to James Ackerman, Christy Anderson, Paolo Fancelli, Pier Nicola Pagliara, Katherine Rinne, Ingrid Rowland, John Shearman, and Rabun Taylor for assistance and advice, as well as for the comments of the anonymous readers.

1. “Pars montana deserta est; plana tamen et quae est ad flumen proxima colitur, ubi collapsis veteribus aedificiis novae nunc ac fragiles casae grandibus insident fundamentis.” Leonardo Smith, ed., Epistolario di Pier Paolo Vergerio, vol. 74, Fonti per la storia d'Italia (Rome: 1934), 217. The text is also available in Pier Paolo Vergerio, “Epistola (LXXXVI),” in Codice topografico della città di Roma, ed. Roberto Valentini and Giuseppe Zucchetti (Rome: 1953), 4.98. For Vergerio’s interests, see Roberto Weiss, The Renaissance Discovery of Classical Antiquity (Oxford: 1969), 56-57.

2. Emma Marconcini, “La magistratura delle acque e sua evoluzione dal XIV secolo al 1860,” Il trionfo dell'acqua: acque e acquedotti a Roma, IV sec. a.c.-XX sec. (Rome: 1986): 258.

3. As attested by thirteenth-century property sales registered near the Trevi fountain; see Robert Brentano, Rome before Avignon (Berkeley: 1990), 29.

4. Frontinus, the curator aquarum or water commissioner under Nerva, wrote the De aquaeductu urbis Romae in 97 CE; for a recent discussion of this text, which remains the fundamental source for the study of Roman aqueducts, see Harry Evans, Water Distribution in Ancient Rome: the Evidence of Frontinus (Ann Arbor: 1997). For bibliography on the Acqua Vergine see Guglielmo De Angelis D’Ossat, “Studio bibliografico sull'origine dell'Acqua Vergine,” Bollettino del naturalista(1907): 1-32, Susanna Le Pera, “Aqua Virgo,” in Lexicon Topographicum Urbis Romae, ed. Eva Margareta Steinby (Rome: 1993). Other sources include Alberto Cassio, Corso delle acque antiche portate da lontane contrade fuori e dentro Roma (Rome: 1756), Carlo Fea, Storia delle acque antiche sorgenti in Roma (Rome: 1832), Rodolfo Lanciani, Le acque e gli acquedotti di Roma antica (Rome: 1881; repr., 1975), Esther Boise Van Deman, The Building of the Roman Aqueducts (Washington: 1934), Thomas Ashby, The Aqueducts of Ancient Rome (Oxford: 1935), A. Trevor Hodge, Roman Aqueducts and Water Supply (London: 1992), Rabun Taylor, Public Needs and Private Pleasures: Water Distribution, the Tiber River and the Urban Development of Ancient Rome (Rome: 2000), Harry Evans, Aqueduct Hunting in the 17th century: Raffaello Fabretti's De aquis et aquaeductibus veteris Romae (Ann Arbor: 2002).

5. A variant legend ascribed the name of the Aqua Virgo to the water for its purity and quality; another legend noted water from the channel refused to mingle with water from a neighboring spring dedicated to Hercules. See Le Pera, “Aqua Virgo,” 72.

6. Ashby, The Aqueducts of Ancient Rome, 182. The water of the Aqua Virgo was considered especially well-suited for bathing, and it may have also supplied the Baths of Nero; see Taylor, Public Needs and Private Pleasures, 46.

7. As Agrippan aqueducts made extensive use of concrete, the brick construction probably dates from a later Roman restoration; see Van Deman, The Building of the Roman Aqueducts, 10. Of its total 21 kilometer length, 19 kilometers passed underground; see Maria Grazia Tolomeo, “L'acquedotto Vergine (sec. XVI-XVIII),” in Il trionfo dell'acqua (Rome: 1986), 205.

8. See Taylor, Public Needs and Private Pleasures, 103-06. As Taylor observes, Frontinus indicated that “almost” all the aqueducts traveled across private property; evidently the Aqua Virgo was the exception. The route through the northern Campus Martius also conveniently traversed property belonging to Agrippa’s supporters.

9. According to Frontinus, “initium arcuum Virginis sub hortis Lucullanis.” Lanciani calculated the total length of the Aqua Virgo carried on arcades inside the Aurelian Walls to be 1036 meters; see Rodolfo Lanciani, Le acque e gli acquedotti di Roma antica (Rome: 1881, repr. 1975), 337.

10. Travertine, tufa, and peperino fragments associated with these arcades have been identified; Ashby suggests the original Agrippan arcades were of high-quality travertine construction. See Ashby, The Aqueducts of Ancient Rome, 175-77.

11. Lanciani, Le acque e gli acquedotti di Roma antica, 339. An Aqua Virgo fountain built by Agrippa is described in Chifletius, “Aqua Virgo, fons Romae celeberrimus,” in Thesarus antiquitatum romanarum (1697), chap. 28, c. 1786. Aicher has concluded that terminal display fountains were largely an invention of the post-classical period; see Peter Aicher, “Terminal Display Fountains (Mostre) and the Aqueducts of Ancient Rome,” Phoenix 47, 4 (1993): 339-52.

12. Emilio Rodriguez Almeida, “Arcus Claudii (Via del Nazareno),” in Lexicon Topographicum Urbis Romae (Rome: 1993), 86.

13. Le Pera, “Aqua Virgo,” 72.

14. Almeida, “Arcus Claudii (Via del Nazareno),” 86; see also Filippo Coarelli, Roma: guida archeologica (Rome-Bari, 2001), 309. The arch at Via del Nazareno dates to 46 CE.

15. The structure was dedicated in 51-52 CE; it suffered major alterations early in its history, and some of its decorative elements were later reused in a new arch built by Diocletian further down the Via Lata. See Sandro De Maria, “Arco di Claudio per le vittorie britanniche,” in Gli archi onorari di Roma e dell'Italia romana (Rome: 1988), 280, Emilio Rodriguez Almeida, “Arcus Claudii (a. 43 d.C.),” in Lexicon Topographicum Urbis Romae, ed. Eva Margareta Steinby (Rome: 1993), 85.

16. Frontinus emphasized the clarity of the Aqua Marcia and the Claudia (see Evans, Water Distribution in Ancient Rome: the Evidence of Frontinus, 38.). However, in antiquity the water supplied by the Aqua Virgo was cold and of excellent quality (personal communication by Rabun Taylor).

17. The constant maintenance required for aqueducts in Rome due to the high mineral content of the water is discussed in Taylor, Public Needs and Private Pleasures, 30. See also Hodge, Roman Aqueducts and Water Supply, 99-103.

18. The Gothic destruction of the aqueducts is recorded in Procopius, History of the Wars, 5.19. For the medieval history of the aqueduct system see Richard Krautheimer, Rome: Profile of a City, 312-1308 (Princeton: 1980), Robert Coates-Stephens, “The Walls and Aqueducts of Rome in the Early Middle Ages, AD 500-1000,” Journal of Roman Studies 88 (1998): 166-78.

19. “...tantam aquae abundantiae praefulsit, qui poene totam civitatem satiavit.” Liber Pontificalis, ed. Duchesne, vol. 1 (Paris: 1886), 505. “Poene totam civitatem” probably referred only to the densely populated abitato; see Krautheimer, Rome: Profile of a City, 312-1308, 252. Repairs were recorded for the Aqua Virgo, the Aqua Claudia, the Aqua Traiana, and the “Aqua Jovia,” probably referring to the Aqua Alexandrina and the Aqua Antoniniana; see Coates-Stephens, “The walls and aqueducts of Rome in the early middle ages,” 172-76.

20. This was also a convenient site for a fountain, because it was easily accessible from three directions. The “tre vie” converging at the piazza also probably provided the origin for the name; see John Pinto, The Trevi Fountain (New Haven: 1986), 21.

21. Anonymous, “Codice Einsiedelense,” in Codice topografico della città di Roma, ed. Roberto Valentini and Giuseppe Zucchetti (Rome: 1942), 2.186. Valentini and Zucchetti date the Einsiedeln manuscript to 9-10 CE.

22. “...olim ea forma magnam martii campi planiciem ut signa adhuc apparet.” Andrea Fulvio, Antiquitates Urbis (Rome: 1527), 35r.

23. For the jurisdiction of the Capitoline administration over the Acqua Vergine, see Marconcini, “La magistratura delle acque e sua evoluzione dal XIV secolo al 1860,” 258-65. See also Raffaele Marchetti, Sulle acque di Roma antiche e moderne (Rome: 1886).

24. “Quod marescalci curie capitolii sint patarentes et curam habeant aque fontis trivii,” in book 3, chapter 126; see Camillo Re, Statuti della città di Roma (Rome: 1880), 264.

25. Ibid. The code stipulated the exact length of the conduit to be supervised: “requirere et requiri facere forma dicte fontis et aque trivii a cancellis trivii usque ad ortum ecclesie Sancti leonardi.” This orchard, at the edge of the city, was most likely the property of S Leonardo de Porta Flaminia; see Christian Hülsen, Le chiese di Roma nel medioevo (Florence: 1927), 299.

26. “...nullus audeat facere nec habere goccellum caulam sive per pertussium unde de dicta forma possit extrahere aquam sive per caulas fontis trivii.“ Re, Statuti della città di Roma, 264.

27. Ibid.

28. For the Taddeo di Bartolo map, see Amedeo Frutaz, Le piante di Roma, vol. 1 (Rome: 1962), 125-26.

29. “[Nicholas V] racconciò la fonte de Treyo, secondoché se demostra per lettere et arma sua in più lochi, et questo lo fece in tempo suo.” Stefano Infessura, Diario della città di Roma, Fonti per la storia d’Italia (Rome: 1890), 50. Other sources for the restoration of the Acqua Vergine under Nicholas V include Cassio, Corso delle acque antiche portate da lontane contrade fuori e dentro Roma, Carroll William Westfall, In This Most Perfect Paradise: Alberti, Nicholas V, and the Invention of Conscious Urban Planning in Rome, 1447-1455 (University Park: 1974), Cesare D’Onofrio, Le fontane di Roma (Rome: 1986), Marconcini, “La magistratura delle acque e sua evoluzione dal XIV secolo al 1860,” 258-65, Pinto, The Trevi Fountain, Maurizio Gargano, “Niccolò V, la mostra dell’acqua di Trevi,” Archivio della società romana di storia patria 111 (1988): 225-66, Charles Burroughs, From Signs to Design: Environmental Process and Reform in Early Renaissance Rome (London: 1990), Manfredo Tafuri, “Cives esse non licere: Nicolò V e Leon Battista Alberti,” in Ricerca del rinascimento: principi, città, architetti (Turin: 1992), 32-88, Anthony Grafton, Leon Battista Alberti, Master Builder of the Italian Renaissance (London: 2000).

30. “Il pontefice, col parere dell’uno di questi duoi [Alberti] e coll’eseguire dell’altro [Rossellino] fece molte cose utili e degne di essere lodate: come furono il condotto dell’Acqua Vergine, il quale essendo guasto, si racconciò e si fece la fonte in sulla piazza de’ Trevi, con quelli armamenti di marmo che si veggiono, ne’ quali sono l’arme di quel pontefice e del popolo romano.” Giorgio Vasari, Le vite dei più eccellenti pittori, scultori e architettori, ed. Gaetano Milanesi, vol. 2 (Florence: 1906), 538-39.

31. See Tafuri, “Cives esse non licere: Nicolò V e Leon Battista Alberti,” 32-88.

32. For Alberti’s discussion of the construction and operation of aqueducts, see Leon Battista Alberti, On the Art of Building in Ten Books, ed. Joseph Rykwert, Neil Leach, and Robert Tavernor (London: 1988), 335-41. For an incisive assessment of Alberti’s involvement with Nicholas V’s court, with praise for Tafuri’s “scholarly magic” in transforming Alberti from champion of papal expansionism to critic of papal absolutism, see Grafton, Leon Battista Alberti, Master Builder of the Italian Renaissance, 302ff.

33. The earlier Du Pérac map (1577) did not show the Trevi fountain, as it was taken from the east.

34. There is evidence for more surviving remains of the ancient aqueduct in both the Du Pérac (1577) and Tempesta maps, which showed an arch spanning the Via del Lavatore to the south of the fountain, a surviving fragment of the disused arcades that originally carried the Acqua Vergine into the Campus Martius. The arch was demolished in 1617; see Pinto, The Trevi Fountain, 34.

35. See Ibid., 34ff for this later history. Although Bernini’s design for Urban VIII remained unrealized, it had the important urban consequence of rotating the Trevi fountain to face south, toward the papal palace on the Quirinal.

36. In fact, Franzini abbreviated the inscription; read in its entirety, it placed even greater emphasis upon the personal expenditure by the Pope in the restoration of the Acqua Vergine: “NICOLAUS V PONT. MAX / POST ILLUSTRATAM INSIGNIBUS MONUMENTIS URBEM / SUA IMPENSA IN SPLENDIDIOREM CULTUM / RESTITUI ORNARIQ. MANDAVIT / ANNO DOM. JESU CHRISTI MCCCCLIII / PONTIFICATUS SUI VII.” Transcribed in A. Ciacconius, Vitae e res gestae pontificum romanorum, vol. 3 (Rome: 1667), 961. The austere form of the inscription has been identified as consonant with other markers commemorating Nicholas V’s restorations across Rome; see Burroughs, From Signs to Design, 94.

37. Thanks to John Shearman for this observation. Cassio observed the similarity between Nicholas V and Agrippa, both of whom subsidized the work on the aqueduct entirely with personal funds; see Cassio, Corso delle acque antiche portate da lontane contrade fuori e dentro Roma, 280.

38. The lions are noted by Burroughs, From Signs to Design, illustration caption 33. For the eventual suppression of the lion, as medieval civic symbol, by the wolf, as symbol of the Renaissance papacy, see Massimo Miglio, “Il leone e la lupa: dal simbolo al pasticcio alla francese,” Studi Romani 30 (1982): 177-86.

39. ASR, Camerale I, Tesoro segreto, busta 1287 (18 June 1453), 143r: “Spese che si fanno quest’anno in più disegni fuora di palazzo per mie mani deno dare addi XVIII de jugno duc. 200 [de Camera] con[tanti] a Pietro di Giuliano di Cholona di chomandamento di Nello, e quali N. S. dona per la forma de l’acqua de Treio, e duc. 200 papali lo dette al prefato N. S. più di sono de suo propri de quali non o fatta sicurtà.” The document was published by Eugène Müntz, “Les monuments antiques de Rome au XVe siècle,” Révue archéologique 2, 32 (1876): 166.

40. As noted by Gargano, “Niccolò V, la mostra dell'acqua di Trevi,” 263. A tower shown adjacent to the fountain in the Taddeo di Bartolo map of 1414 may have been demolished as part of these works; see D’Onofrio, Le fontane di Roma, 46.

41. Water collected near the Ponte Salaria, “haud longe a ponte salario,” was the primary source of the aqueduct by the sixteenth century; see Fulvio, Antiquitates Urbis, 34v.

42. Of particular relevance are Gargano, “Niccolò V, la mostra dell’acqua di Trevi,” 225-66, Burroughs, From Signs to Design, passim, Tafuri, “Cives esse non licere: Nicolò V e Leon Battista Alberti,” 32-88.

43. For Stefano Porcari, see Roberto Cessi, “La congiura di Stefano Porcari,” in Saggi romani: storia e letteratura, raccolta di studi e testi 62 (Rome: 1956), 65-112, Hans Baron, The Crisis of the Early Italian Renaissance (Princeton: 1966), 434-35, Massimo Miglio, “Viva la libertà et populo de Roma, oratoria e politica: Stefano Porcari,” in Paleographica, diplomatica et archivistica: studi in onore di Giulio Battelli (Rome: 1979), 381-428, Charles Stinger, The Renaissance in Rome (Bloomington: 1998), 71. Although Porcari was highly respected in Rome, his fanatical republicanism invites question regarding his criticism of Nicholas V’s government; Westfall, In This Most Perfect Paradise, 76.

44. For the history of this office in the fifteenth century, see Orietta Verdi, Maestri di edifici e di strade a Roma nel secolo XV (Rome: 1997).

45. The revised 1452 edition of the statutes is published by Emilio Re, “I maestri di strada,” Archivio della società romana di storia patria 43 (1920), 5-102.

46. “...novamente facti et ordinati sopra li detti edefitij et strate de commandamento del prefato sanctissimo signor nostro papa Nicolò V.” Ibid., 88. Westfall maintains that the magistrates were not agents of the Pope, and that Nicholas V did not want to use them to extend his sway over Rome; however, he conceded they could “function as papal agents.” See Westfall, In This Most Perfect Paradise, 83. However, Tafuri insists that Nicholas V intentionally subordinated this Capitoline office to papal authority; see Tafuri, “Cives esse non licere: Nicolò V e Leon Battista Alberti,” 43-44.

47. Gargano, “Niccolò V, la mostra dell'acqua di Trevi,” 237. Beginning under Paul II the maestri were directly paid by the Camera apostolica and swore fealty to the Pope.

48. For the links between Nicholas V, the Porcari conspiracy, and the Trevi, I refer to Burroughs, From Signs to Design, 95-97.

49. Ibid., 96. The commissarius generalis of the papal household under Nicholas V, Nello da Bologna, was entrusted with the disposal of property confiscated from the Porcari conspirators.

50. Ibid., 97.

51. For a useful discussion of the historic role of the civic government as mediator, see Laurie Nussdorfer, “Il ‘popolo romano’ e i papi: la vita politica della capitale religiosa,” in Storia d'Italia: Roma la città del papa (Milan: 2000), 241-62.

52. Later designs for the Trevi fountain, such as the drawing attributed to Della Porta, retained the joint Capitoline and papal heraldry as prominent features; see Pinto, The Trevi Fountain, 31.

53. For documents between 1466-1468, see Müntz, “Les monuments antiques de Rome au XVe siècle,” 166. The “scalpellini” hired under Paul II were from the De Tocco family, a noted family of masons from Lombardy; see Gargano, “Niccolò V, la mostra dell'acqua di Trevi,” 262.

54. “Praeterea vero utilitati urbanae consulens, ductus aquae Virginis pene amissae, eliminatos prius perpetuo fornice, a monte Quirinali [Pincio] ad Trivii fontem sua impensa perduxit.” Platina, De vitis pontificum romanorum, ed. Giacinto Gaida, vol. 2, Rerum italicarum scriptores (Rome: 1913-1932), 418. For the documents regarding the restoration of the Acqua Vergine under Sixtus IV, see Eugène Müntz, Les arts à la cour des pâpes pendant le XVe et le XVIe siècle, Sixte IV-Leon X (1471-1521), vol. 28 (Paris: 1882), 174-76, Egmont Lee, Sixtus IV and Men of Letters (Rome: 1978), 247-48.

55. Müntz records the payment of 200 florins to masons, dated 10 October 1472: “patrono vinea in qua erat quidam arcus ex marmoribus tiburtinis qui demolitus fuit et dicta marmora portata in usum fornicum novorum aquae ductus Trivii.” See Eugène Müntz, Les arts à la cour des pâpes pendant le XVe et le XVIe siècle, Sixte IV-Leon X (1471-1521), vol. 28 (Paris: 1878-1880), 174.

56. The inscription is discussed by Matthias Winner, “Papa Sisto IV quale exemplum virtutis magnificentiae nell'affresco di Melozzo da Forlì,” in Arte, committenza, ed economia a Roma e nelle corti del rinascimento, 1420-1530 (Turin: 1995), 180-81. For the fresco and its original library setting see also Isabelle Jennifer Frank, “Melozzo da Forlì and the Rome of Pope Sixtus IV, 1471-1484” (Department of Fine Arts dissertation thesis, Harvard, 1991), 62-114.

57. “Praedictam aquam hoc anno non sine maximo dispendio Tua Sanctitas instauratis aquaeductibus restituit.” Francesco Albertini, “Opusculum de mirabilibus novae et veteris urbis Romae,” in Codice topographico della città di Roma, ed. Roberto Valentini and Giuseppe Zucchetti (Rome: 1953), 4.543.

58. “Ea vero aqua quae nunc extat retinens solum aquae virginis nomen, concipitur extra portam pincianam, haud longe a ponte salario profundissimo labens cuniculo, per portam ingreditur pincianam, attollitur sub colle hortulorum lapidea forma ubi huiusmodi legitur inscriptio in hortulo nunc nobilis atque eruditi viri Angeli Colotii Antiquitatum unici amatoris.” Fulvio, Antiquitates Urbis, 33v.

59. For Colocci’s life and interests, see Federico Ubaldini, Vita di Mons. Angelo Colocci, edizione del testo originale italiano (Barb. Lat. 4882), ed. Vittorio Fanelli, Studi e testi 256 (Vatican City: 1969), Phyllis Pray Bober, “The Coryciana and the Nymph Corycia,” Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 40 (1977): 223-39, Vittorio Fanelli, "Ricerche su Angelo Colocci e sulla Roma cinquecentesca," Studi e testi 283 (Vatican City: 1979), Ingrid Rowland, “Raphael, Angelo Colocci and the Genesis of the Architectural Orders,” Art Bulletin 76, 1 (1994): 81-104.

60. For example, the Neapolitan humanist Girolamo Borgia celebrated the garden with an “Ecloga Felix” dedicated to Colocci, Julius II and his daughter Felice della Rovere Orsini; BAV, Cod. Vat. lat. 5225, 1013v-1015v. See Ingrid Rowland, The Culture of the High Renaissance (Cambridge: 1998), 185.

61. Colocci named Salone as the source for the Acqua Vergine in his epigram dedicated to Card. Agostino Trivulzio, who had purchased property nearby; see Ubaldini, Vita di Mons. Angelo Colocci, 57.

62. Ibid., 61. Fra Giocondo’s edition of Vitruvius was published in 1511; see Pier Nicola Pagliara, “Vitruvio da testo a canone,” in Memoria dell'antico nell'arte italiana, ed. Salvatore Settis, vol. 1 (Turin: 1986), 33-38. For the relations between Colocci and Fra Giocondo, see Pier Nicola Pagliara, “Una fonte di illustrazioni del Vitruvio di fra Giocondo,” Ricerche di storia dell'arte 6 (1977): 64, no. 1a, and 90, no. 32b.

63. Uffizi Arch. 1541r, published in Alfonso Bartoli, I monumenti antichi di Roma nei disegni degli Uffizi di Firenze, vol. 1 (Rome: 1914), fig. 75.

64. “Arcus Ductus Aquae Virginis disturbatos per C. Caesarem a fundamentis novos fecit ac restituit.” CIL 6.1252. This inscription referred to the damage caused by Caligula’s construction projects (see note 12); in the drawing, the text is inserted vertically rather than horizontally, revealing more interest in textual rather than archeological veracity (and perhaps weakening the attribution to Fra Giocondo).

65. “...questo opera qui di sopra stava et sta inel girdino di Miser agnollo chollocio in trevi.” The note is transcribed by Alfonso Bartoli, Descrizione dei disegni, vol. 1, I monumenti antichi di Roma nei disegni degli Uffizi di Firenze (Rome: 1914), 19.

66. Ibid.

67. “Donamus quoque eisdem Conservatoribus et popula in perpetuum gabellam omnem vini forensis huiusmodi, cum onere solvendi temporibus consuetis ex proventibus dictae gabellae salaria dictis collectoribus pro tempore debita, ac facultate residuum proventum in dictum ornatum (urbis) et murorum, aqueductuum et pontium, aliasque dictae urbis necessitates pro tempore ingurentes, de Consensu Consilii Romani, et non alias, convertendum.” For this bull, issued 7 March 1513, see Marchetti, Sulle acque di Roma antiche e moderne, 193.

68. Beginning under Eugenius IV in 1433, income from the city wine tax provided a source for the university faculty salaries, with an express prohibition against diverting these funds to other sources; this prohibition however was quickly set aside. See D. S. Chambers, “Studium Urbis and Gabella Studii: the University of Rome in the Fifteenth Century,” in Cultural Aspects of the Italian Renaissance (New York: 1976), passim.

69. “Hic sola aqua ex omnibus antiquis hodie in usum bibendi in urbem influit, et multos habet siphunculos et fistulas ad effundendas aquas vicinis domibus et accolis.” Fulvio, Antiquitates Urbis, 35r.

70. ASC, Cred. I, vol. 14, 125 (8 June 1520).

71. D’Onofrio, Le fontane di Roma, 52.

72. “Sua Santità saria desiderosa si spendessero in condur l’acqua di Salone, quale si condurria con dodici mila scudi vel circa.” ASC, Cred. I, vol. 36, 319 (27 November 1535).

73. The fragmentary manuscript is BAV Vat. lat. 7246; see discussion by D’Onofrio, Le fontane di Roma, 52-59. Agostino Steuco has been the subject of recent investigation by Ron Delph; see Ron Delph, “From Venetian Visitor to Curial Humanist: the Development of Agostino Steuco’s Counter-Reformation Thought,” Renaissance Quarterly 47 (1994): 102-39; idem, “Vallus Grammaticus, Agostino Steuco and the Donation of Constantine,” Journal of the History of Ideas 57 (1996): 55-77; idem, "Polishing the Papal Image in the Counter-Reformation: the Case of Agostino Steuco," Sixteenth Century Journal 23 (1997): 35-47. Although Delph does not discuss this fragmentary text, D’Onofrio’s attribution seems plausible, based upon similarities to Steuco’s 1547 publication “De revocanda in urbem aqua virgine.”

74. These fountains were eventually realized at Piazza del Popolo, Piazza della Colonna, and Piazza Venezia; D’Onofrio, Le fontane di Roma, 57.

75. Ibid., 58.

76. The construction of the triumphal route into the city from the south effectively restored the ancient orientation of Rome toward the Mediterranean; see Maria Luisa Madonna, “L’ingresso di Carlo V a Roma,” in La festa a Roma dal Rinascimento al 1870, vol. 1 (Roma: 1997), 53.

77. “Hora la maggior parte dell’Acquedotto Vecchio è guasto, e si toglie hoggi presso al ponte Salario da un fonte, che è nel monte, che chiamano hoggi volgarmente di Zoie. Questa sola acqua delle tante, che anticamente venivano in Roma, vi viene hoggi, e come ho detto, assai scarsa e poca.” Lucio Fauno, Delle antichità della città di Roma (Venice: 1548), 128r.

78. “Anchora nella fonte di Treio per essere in alcuni lochi repieno il condutto di ruine et altri impedimenti, et similmente che per il tempo si sonno indebolite et rotte le mura di esso, et per li patroni delli poderi donde curre dell’acqua se ne deriva generalmente tanta acqua che alla fine per dette caggioni perviene talmente esausto che in poco tempo non si provede à niente si raddurrà. Donde siamo di parere che vi si faccia una buona provvisione, acciò che per l’honore dell’uffitio nostro le cose publice di questa città mantenghino et conservino con ogni meglior modo che si poté.” ASC, Cred. I, vol. 36, 695.

79. For the Villa Giulia’s appropriation of water from the Acqua Vergine see D’Onofrio, Le fontane di Roma, 169ff.

80. Lanciani, Le acque e gli acquedotti di Roma antica, 341.

81. The restoration inaugurated by Pius IV was recorded by Luca Peto, De restitutione ductus Aquae Virginis (Rome: 1570). See also Giovanni Beltrani, Leonardo Bufalini e la sua pianta topografica di Roma (Florence: 1880), 36-40, D’Onofrio, Le fontane di Roma, 61.

82. The maintenance of the Acqua Vergine was still officially the responsibility of the Capitoline administration, but the Camera apostolica intervened in the repairs, appointing a group of cardinals to supervise and rule upon the development of the water system. For the ensuing conflict between the Capitoline and the ecclesiastics, see D’Onofrio, Le fontane di Roma, 60-188. The operation of the system demonstrated the ambiguous limits of respective jurisdictions characteristic in Rome; see Laurie Nussdorfer, Civic Politics in the Rome of Urban VIII (Princeton: 1992), 45ff.

83. Pius IV awarded the contract for repairing the aqueduct to Antonio Treviso, against the better judgment of the Conservators; see D’Onofrio, Le fontane di Roma, 62.

84. “Noi…al presente Conservatori della camera dell’alma città di Roma conoscendo con quanta spesa et industria i nostri antichi et maggiori hanno sempre havuto cura delle cose pubbliche in questa inclita città, havendo sempre la mira con simile et quasi maggior diligenza di conservarle...per l’autorità del nostro offitio et con ogni altro miglio modo che possiamo Voi messer Cencio Bellincini sopradetto a vita deputiamo facciamo, constituiamo, et creamo custode di detta cloaca, fosso, et acqua [l’acqua Vergine di Treio]…et acciò voi habbiate premio delle vostre fatighe vi costituiamo, assegnamo, stipendio, salario, emolumento, honori, et pesi da dichiararsi da N. S. dal depositario generale della Camera apostolica dove li altri commisarii et custodi di Treio sono pagati.” ASC, cred. I, vol. I, 96. The ancient precedent for such a staff responsible for caring for public structures was well-known by the sixteenth century; Lucio Fauno described the ancient positions of the Edili or Censori, appointed to protect and maintain the aqueducts, in his guidebook of 1548. See Fauno, Delle antichità della città di Roma, 128 recto.

85. Peto, De restitutione ductus Aquae Virginis, A5.

86. Marconcini, “La magistratura delle acque e sua evoluzione dal XIV secolo al 1860,” 260. The continued participation of the Capitoline administration is attested in the expansion of the system into the Campus Martius in 1570; see D’Onofrio, Le fontane di Roma, 99.

87. The Acqua Felice was restored by Sixtus V in 1587, and the Acqua Paola by Paul V in 1612; the administration of these three aqueducts was in turn consolidated in 1742 under the Presidenza degli Acquedotti.

88. Recent scholarship has fundamentally reassessed Ligorio’s tarnished reputation as an unprincipled forger of antiquities; see the collected essays in Robert Gaston, ed. Pirro Ligorio, Artist and Antiquarian, (Florence: 1988), as well as Robert Gaston, “Merely Antiquarian: Pirro Ligorio and the Critical Tradition of Antiquarian Scholarship,” in The Italian Renaissance in the Twentieth Century, ed. Allen Grieco et al. (Florence: 2003), 355-74. See also David Coffin, Pirro Ligorio: the Renaissance artist, architect, and antiquarian (University Park, 2004).

89. Ligorio’s alphabetical dictionary of antiquities, dedicated to Duke Alfonso II d’Este but never published, dates from 1550 through 1558; the last inscriptions were added in 1565. The original (incomplete) manuscript is preserved at the Biblioteca Nazionale di Napoli; eighteen of the original twenty-three “libri” are at the Archivio di Stato di Torino. Fourteen of these volumes were copied for Christina of Sweden and are now in the Vatican Library (BAV Ottob. lat. 3364-3377). See Thomas Ashby, “The Bodleian Manuscript of Pirro Ligorio,” Journal of Roman Studies (1919): 171. Ligorio addresses various constructions pertaining to water, including the Acqua Vergine, under the entry “Piscina,” in volume 16, Libro XVI dell’antichita di Pyrrho Ligorio Patritio Neapolitano et cittadino Romano, nel quale si tratta delli luoghi, et citta, vichi, castelli, et ville, et monti, et d’altre cose illustri. The corresponding volume at the Vatican is BAV Ottob. lat. 3373, 6v-17v.

90. The passage illustrates Ligorio’s archeological approach and is thus worth citing in full: “Il principio del suo letto, finché durava la dura materia nativa, era incrostato l’acquedotto di calcestruzzo, et ivi a poco era di opera signina fabricata, cioè di materia di selici (probably referring to the rubble aggregate mixed into the opus signinum or hydraulic concrete used to line ancient aqueduct channels), sinché il rivo era a guisa di poco muro sopra terra; poscia entrato nella parte sotteranea, era di laterioli murato, et d’opera reticolata, et nelli fondi troppo acquosi, et mal sicuri, era il letto fodrato di tegoloni di piombo (this unusual lining was questioned by Ashby; see Ashby, The Aqueducts of Ancient Rome, 177); uscendo di sotto terra parte per opera di muro si scopre, et di poi di novo sotto terra entra per un’altro spazio, con varii acquisiti. Il suo rivo cresce, et uscendo di nuovo di sotto terra nel principio per luogo tutto murato, ne va a trovare un’opera arcuata, parte laterizia, et parte reticulata. Passa in questa sorte di costruttione, qual vi mostro in questa prima forma disegnata con la parte più alta fatta di reticoli di tufo, con li fianchi di tre palmi grossi molto debilmente fabricata circa i muri, ma vi era il calcestruzzo grosso di quattro oncie molto bene battuto, et condensato, et palmentato, et li reticuli sono di questa fatta tagliati, et ben commessi in calce.” BAV Ottob. lat. 3373, 13v-14r.

91. Van Deman, The Building of the Roman Aqueducts, 171. As noted earlier, Agrippan aqueducts commonly featured concrete construction; these brick arcades thus probably represented a later restoration; ibid., 10.

92. “...prima per la debolezza, che havea, gli furono chiusi gl’archi più di sopra mostrati, con opera reticolata, come e qui di sotto disegnato; il che insegna a tutti coloro, che fabricare volessero, non debbano fare opere deboli, perché sono caduche, et usara col tempo alla posterità, et in questa guisa fu la prima ristauratione.” BAV Ottob. lat. 3373, 14v.

93. Ibid.: “La seconda volta non vi bastando, la chiuserò dell’archi, vi aggiunserò alcuni fianchi, che raddoppiavano li pilastri, et pontellavano gl’archi e i fianchi dell’acquedotto, come e in quest’altro infrascritto disegno. Lo quale ristauro non fu troppo utile, per non esser bene collegato con l’opera antica, et la vecchia con la nuova, si vede, che si separò, et nelle cui separationi essendo nati dell’arboscelli, hanno con le radici rovinata ogni opera.”

94. As observed by Arnold Nesselrath, “Raphael’s archaeological method,” in Raffaello a Roma (Rome: 1983), 365.

95. BAV Ottob. lat. 3373, 16r-17r. For the Arcus Claudii see note 14.

96. In 1594 Flaminio Vacca recorded that excavations under Pius IV near the present Via di Caravita recovered many Claudian reliefs; he also noted that a sculptured relief from the front of the arch still stood at the site until it had been recently moved to the Capitoline. See Flaminio Vacca, “Memorie di varie antichità trovate in diversi luoghi della città di Roma,” in Miscellanea filologica critica e antiquaria (Rome: 1594; repr. 1790), 67-68, n. 28.

97. “...per la maladetta invidia, et ira di coloro, che dissolarono Roma, et Italia, essa opera [the Arch of Claudius] a dì nostri l’havemo veduta in un monte di rovina sottoterra, et cavata, et vendute le sue reliquie alle genti, che ne hanno fatto altri lavori.” BAV Ottob. lat. 3373, 16r.

98. Ibid.: “È restato da noi di fare ufficio, che le cose non fossero guaste, come ricercava il suo privilegio di conservarle a noi dato dal Santissimo Pio Quarto Pontefice Maximo, appresso di cui servendo...” No official record of Ligorio’s duties as Commissioner seem to have survived; for the history of the position, see Ronald Ridley, “To protect the monuments: the papal antiquarian 1534-1870,” Xenia antiqua 1 (1992): 117-54.

99. “...nondimeno mi fu accennato sottovoce da uno, che faceva il bravo, di uccidere chiunque ne facesse querela. Laonde io ho veduto Thomaso Spica, Pietro Tedelino et Mario Frangipanio atterirsi, essendo con me disputati. Le cose furono vendute...” BAV Ottob. Lat. 3373, 16r.

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