Veduta della magnifica Sostruzione fabricata per regger la falda del Monte, e per render la Via Appia più commoda...

In the lower right cartouche: Veduta della magnifica Sostruzione fabricata per regger la falda del Monte, e per render la Via Appia più commoda, / e meno declive tra la Valle, e le due opposte Colline. Appio Claudio il Censore l'anno 442 di Roma intraprese la Via dalla / Porta Capena sin' alla Città di Capua. L'Architettura di quest'Opera che si rende particolare nella costruz.e circolare degli / Archi per essere di quell'antica maniera usata prima de' tempi de' Cesari. Quest'opera è fabricata à corsi di pietre quadrate bis= / lunghe di Pietra Albana. La detta Strada è fabricata di grandi lastre di Selce ben connesse. Questo Edificio era prima mol= / to elevato dal piano antico, ora ricoperto dalle rovine, e si vede lungi da Albano un miglio in circa. At lower left: Cavalier Piranesi F.

Plate the work Le Antichità di Albano e di Castel Gandolfo, 1764

Piranesi's archaeological studies in the area of Lake Albano, initiated by his work on the Emissario, were greatly encouraged by Pope Clement XIII whose summer residence at Castel Gandolfo overlooked the lake. At the suggestion of this major patron, who helped to defray the considerable costs, the artist produced a particularly handsome treatise devoted to the local antiquities and dedicated to the Pope. In this work, which is often bound with the works on the Emissario and the Due Spelonche, Piranesi extended his illustrative techniques of combining emotive vedute with highly technical, and often speculative, diagrams on aspects of Roman construction.

The engraving represents, as explained by the caption in the lower left, the substructure built by the Romans in the Valle Ariccia locality to compensate for the considerable slope created by an ancient crater and thus make the Regina Viarum's route straight or, at least, free of great differences in level. The huge Roman viaduct, an admirable work of engineering, was built of square peperino stonework and concrete core. Under the road surface, two arches had been opened in the colossal masonry structure to allow orthogonal roads to pass through and to allow water runoff. At Piranesi's time in that section the Appian Way was well preserved, including its original paving, as shown in his view, where there is a very faithful representation of reality based on comparison with ancient photos taken by Thomas Ashby in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Etching and engraving, signed in plate at lower left. Magnificent example, impressed on contemporary laid paper with “double circle and fleur-de-lis” watermark, in excellent condition.

Bibliografia

Petrucci, 1953, p. 270, n. 483, tav. 25; Focillon, 1967, p. 318, n. 536 bis; Wilton-Ely, 1994, p. 727, n. 670

Ficacci, 2000, p. 473, n. 589;  Regina Viarum. La via Appia nella grafica tra Cinquecento e Novecento, catalogo della mostra (Roma, Istituto centrale per la grafica, 20 settembre 2023 - 7 gennaio 2024), a cura di Gabriella Bocconi, Roma, 2023.