Baroque Art

2 Melbourne Art Journal 13 Lisa Beaven: Claude Lorrain and La Crescenza 3

Chapter 5

Claude Lorrain and La Crescenza: The Tiber Valley in the Seventeenth Century

Lisa Beaven

Fig. 1. Plaque for alms on the façade of S. Maria dell’Orazione e Morte, Rome. (© David R. Marshall 2012.)

La Crescenza is a large fortified casale (farmhouse) situated near the Tiber river between the via Flaminia and the via Salaria in the Roman Campagna north of Rome.1 The Campagna is an undulating plain of volcanic tuff, criss- crossed by fossi or small creeks, that extends from Lake Bolsena in the north to the Astura river in the south.2 It was Claude Lorrain’s particular subject, and hundreds of his drawings attest to his extensive sketching trips there, particularly during the 1640s. As Joachim von Sandrart observed, Claude ‘embarked upon a difficult, arduous ap- prenticeship that lasted years, going into the countryside each day and making his long way home afterwards’.3 While it is apparent from the large number of these drawings that Claude saw open air sketching as an end in itself, he also drew on these drawings for his paintings, so that the topography of the Campagna is embedded in his pictorial works.4 Yet because of their ideal qualities, his paintings have been seen as having more in common with pastoral poetry and literary texts than the topography of the Campagna.5 It may therefore be useful to attempt to map them onto the actual social and climatic condi- tions of the seventeenth century Campagna that Claude experienced.

Claude’s extensive trips into the Campagna coincided with a dramatic worsening of social conditions, one fac- tor of which was climate change. The years from 1300 to 1700 was a period of global cooling known as the Little Ice Age. Between 1500 and 1700 the winters were often very cold, the summers cool and there was increased rainfall.6 Things came to a head in the middle of the seventeenth century: the years from 1639 to 1643 and from 1646 to 1650 were particularly cold, ushering in what was to be the coldest half-century of the Little Ice Age.7 The Tiber flooded frequently during the 1640s, and famine fol- lowed: there were catastrophic crop failures in 1643–44, 1649–50 and 1652–53.8 During the second half of the century much of the agricultural land in the Campagna was abandoned or worked only seasonally.

Another factor was malaria. Although documented in the Campagna from classical times, by the end of the sixteenth century it had worsened to such an extent that by the second half of the seventeenth century large parts of the region were depopulated.9 In a treatise published in 1677, but written earlier in the century, Giovanni Battista Doni argued that the countryside around Rome was almost completely empty of inhabitants and that those peasants that remained were sick from mal’aria (‘bad air’) and from the ‘earth on which they sleep’.10 Some idea of the extent of the problem of malaria and the desperate situation of the countryside can be gained from edicts is-

Claude Lorrain, La Crescenza. Detail of Fig. 33.

4 Melbourne Art Journal 13 Lisa Beaven: Claude Lorrain and La Crescenza 5

sued by ecclesiastical and civic authorities in the 1660s and 1670s concerning the treatment of workers who fell sick in the countryside.11 Other edicts forbad the plundering of bodies left in the fields or beside roads and the casual burying of dead bodies instead of notifying the local priest so that they could be buried with the proper rites.12

Further evidence of rural illness is found in the Elenco dei Morti, a list of the dead compiled by the confraternity of S. Maria dell’Orazione e Morte, whose mission was to collect unburied corpses, particularly from the Campag- na.13 The members of the confraternity recovered as many bodies as they could from the fields, as well as those that had been thrown into wells or into the Tiber by overseers anxious to avoid bureaucratic complications.14

The role of the confraternity is vividly conveyed in the plaque for alms displayed on one side of the entrance to the church of S. Maria dell’Orazione e Morte (Fig. 1). In one busy week at the end of May 1637 the confraternity

collected 47 corpses in the zone of Maccarese, Palidoro and Castel di Guido, the area north of Fiumicino, not far from the mouth of the Tiber.15 In the Holy Year of 1625 the brothers reported a lower than normal number of bodies collected—66 in the country and 50 in Rome— noting that in other years the number collected ranged from 200 to 250, and often exceeded 300.16 Some of these were victims of violence, but many of those described as having died ‘naturalmente’ would have died from malaria. This is evident from the symptoms displayed by those who were still alive when found by the members of the confraternity: many are described as ‘morobundo’—that is, in a coma—which is one of the symptoms of adavanced malaria.17 For example an entry dated 5 April 1630 reads: ‘in the same place [the landholding of Vallerano, 7 miglia outside Porta S. Paolo] was found a poor farm worker in a coma on little straw inside a cave, who was called Ludovico N. from Pesaro’.18

It was this countryside filled with disease that was drawn by Claude. To be sure, his favourite site was Tivoli, which was high enough to be healthy, but another fa- vourite was the banks of the Tiber north of Rome.19 This section of the Tiber valley, where the river slowly coils its way through a wide, flat alluvial plain, presented views that were both deep and panoramic and, combined with the occasional medieval tower, picturesque as well.20 This area is carefully recorded in the Cingolani map of 1704 (there was an earlier edition in 1692) (Fig. 2) and the Ameti map of 1693 (Fig. 3). Claude’s drawings frequently show the course of the Tiber, beginning at the bridge that carries the Via Flaminia (Figs. 2 and 3 [1]) over the Tiber, the ancient Pons Milvius, known as Ponte Molle or Ponte Milvio [4], and including the area around a fountain on the left bank known as the Acqua Acetosa [6], a ruined medieval tower on the opposite side near the Via Flaminia known as the Tor di Quinto [8], and the casale of La Crescenza

Fig. 1. Eugène von Guérard, Tower Hill, 1855. Detail. Oil on board, 68.6 x 122.0 cm. Warrnambool Art Gallery, Acc. no. 06/ 003. On loan from the Department of Sustainability and Environment. Gift of Miss Effie Thornton 1966. Reproduced with permission from the Warrnambool Art Gallery. (Photograph: John Brash.)

Fig. 1. Eugène von Guérard, Tower Hill, 1855. Detail. Oil on board, 68.6 x 122.0 cm. Warrnambool Art Gallery, Acc. no. 06/ 003. On loan from the Department of Sustainability and Environment. Gift of Miss Effie Thornton 1966. Reproduced with permission from the Warrnambool Art Gallery. (Photograph: John Brash.)

(Opposite) Fig. 2. Giovanni Battista Cingolani dalla Pergola, Topografia geometrica dell’Agro Romano: overo la misura pianta, e quantita di tutte le tenute, e casali della campagna di Roma con le citta terre, e castelli confinanti ..., Rome, 1704 (first ed. 1692), with additional labelling.

(Above) Fig. 3. Giacomo Filippo Ameti, Il Lazio con le sue piu cospicue strade antiche, e moderne ..., Rome, 1693, with additional labelling.

1. Via Flaminia 2. Porta del Popolo 3. Building near the Tiber 4. Ponte Milvio/Ponte Molle 5. Torre Lazzaroni 6. Acqua Acetosa 7. Fortified farmhouse near Acqua Acetosa 8. Tor di Quinto 9. La Crescenza 10. Osteria di Grottarossa 11. Osteria di Malborghetto 12. Acqua Traversa 14. Bridges over the Fosso dell’Acquatraversa and the Fosso della Crescenza 15. Fosso della Crescenza 16. Villa Madama

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[9]. Claude also drew extensively in the grounds of the Vigna Madama [16], from where there was a view across the Ponte Molle up the Tiber valley to the Apennines (Fig. 4).21 This view was described by the French writer Maximilian Misson as

a beautiful landskip of little hills well cultivated. Over-against it the Tiber creeps thro’ the Fields and Meadows; and the farthest off from the Sight, the snowy Tops of the Apennine do insensibly mingle with the Clouds. Behind it is a shady Wood of tall Trees [the Vigna Madama], adorned with cool and solitary walks, which are incomparably charming … .22

It is no exaggeration to say that Claude’s painting style from the 1640s onwards was grounded in his experi- ence of this territory. Typically his compositions consist of a foreground space, and then a sweeping view of a wide valley, based on this stretch of the Tiber valley, through which we follow the meandering curves of a river into the distance, where it is crossed by a weir or a bridge with a series of arches inspired by the Ponte Molle (Fig. 5).

Via Flaminia and Ponte Molle

For his sketching trips Claude would leave the city by the Porta del Popolo, and walk up the via Flaminia to Ponte Molle. This was a well-trodden route, frequently described a century later by Grand Tourists travelling in the other direction. For example Monsieur de Blainville, whose travels were published in 1757, wrote that

[a]fter passing the Ponte Molle [4] we travelled for a Mile and half along the Flaminian Road, which is here relaid with modern Pavement, amidst Gardens, Taverns, and Country Seats; at length we entered the famous City of Rome by the Porta del Popolo [2], formery Porta Flumentana.23

William Beckford called it ‘an avenue between ter- races and ornamented gates of villas, which leads to the Porta del Popolo’.24 The villas and ‘country seats’ noted by Misson and Beckford included the Villa Odescalchi,

Fig. 4. Claude Lorrain, The Tiber from Monte Mario looking North. RD 356. Brush drawing in dark brown wash on white paper, 18.5 x 26.8 cm. London, British Museum Oo.7-212. (© Trustees of the British Museum.)

Fig. 5. Claude Lorrain, Landscape with the Marriage of Isaac and Rebecca, 1648. Oil on canvas, 152.3 x 200.6 cm. London, National Gallery, NG 12. (© The National Gallery, London 2013.)

on the right on leaving the Porta del Popolo, followed by the Vigna Giustiniani, where Claude made sketches and, according to Sandrart, also painted pictures of ‘large trees, landscapes and cascades’.25

Claude would follow the via Flaminia until it almost met a bend in the river about half way to Ponte Molle (Figs. 6, 7). He often drew the view from this spot, care- fully recording its high, stepped bank, and the dome of Saint Peter’s in the distance (Fig. 9).26 The terraced ap- pearance of the bank here was caused by the force of past floods that had cut into it at various levels depending on the height of the floodwaters. While the Tiber valley north of Rome had been subject to flooding since ancient times, the increased rainfall of the Little Ice Age had caused floods to become more frequent and intense.27 Exceptional floods, defined as a rise in the level of the Tiber above 16 metres, occurred five times during the seventeenth cen- tury: in 1606, 1637, 1647, 1660 and 1686.28 At times of exceptional floods the Tiber would spread out to occupy the entire valley, causing widespread devastation and loss of life. Gigli reports on the exceptional flood that began on 6 December 1647, when many people were drowned

in their houses and the damage was such that a number of houses had to be demolished.29 More regular flooding, when the river rose a still substantial 10–13 metres, oc- curred in most years and could still be destructive. For example Gigli reports that in a flood that occurred in June 1653, not otherwise recorded, fields were flooded and sheep and shepherds were washed away. This was fol- lowed in August by an outbreak of an unspecified illness, almost certainly malaria, and Roman hospitals were filled to overflowing with the sick.30 In October 1653 there was evidently another epidemic of malaria, since Gigli noted that many of those who were dying had spent periods of time outdoors or in the Campagna.31 In November 1653 and November 1655 there were more outbreaks of what Gigli calls a ‘febre maligne’.32

As early as 1603 the Via Flaminia near the point where Claude made his drawing (Fig. 9) was in need of repair, and in the next twenty years its condition deteriorated as

8 Melbourne Art Journal 13 Lisa Beaven: Claude Lorrain and La Crescenza 9

it was encroached upon by the erosion of the river bank by floodwaters. This is vividly illustrated in an etching by Herman van Swanevelt dating to c. 1652–53 looking downstream towards S. Andrea in Via Flaminia (Fig. 8).33 In 1669 Carlo Fontana wrote that the violence of the water had consumed a number of vineyards and carved great holes in the banks of the river.34 In 1696 Eschinardi stated that travelling along the via Flaminia was dangerous as the road was in a ruinous state, due to the erosion caused by

(Top left) Fig. 6. G. B. Falda after Cornelio Meyer, Via Flaminia and the Tiber. From Cornelio Meyer, L’Arte di restituire a Roma la tralasciata navigatione del Tevere, Rome, 1685, p. 27.

(Left) Fig. 7. G. B. Falda after Cornelio Meyer, Plan of the Tiber passetto near Via Flaminia and the Tiber. From Cornelio Meyer, L’Arte di restituire a Roma la tralasciata navigatione del Tevere, Rome, 1685, p. 28.

(Below) Fig. 8. Herman van Swanevelt, S. Adriano in Via Flaminia. Etching. From Diverses veuës dedans et dehors de Rome, 1652–53. Etching, 115 x 179 mm. London, British Museum, F,2.227. (© Trustees of the British Museum.)

(Above right) Fig. 9. Claude Lorrain, View of the Tiber at Rome (RD 101). Pen and brown wash, 202 x 265 cm. Kansas City, The Nelson- Atkins Museum of Art, William Rockhill Nelson Trust, 33-99 A. (Robert Newcombe.)

(Below right) Fig. 10. Herman van Swanevelt, Vinnia Papa Iulio in Via Flaminia. Etching. From Diverses veuës dedans et dehors de Rome, 1652–53. Etching, 115 x 179 mm. London, British Museum, F,2.225. (© Trustees of the British Museum.)

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the river, as can be seen in another Swanevelt print, looking upstream towards the Villa Giulia (Fig. 10).35

In 1675 the banks had been eroded to such an extent that Clement X hired Cornelius Meyer, a Dutch engineer, to construct a passonata (a barrier made of palings), to protect the road from the river. Meyer descibed how the very swift currents and powerful waves caused by the floodwaters were feared by boatsmen, and did great dam- age to the buildings of the city, ‘assailing’ the inhabitants inside their homes.36 Two engravings probably designed by Gaspar van Wittel included in Meyer’s publication show the damage to the banks of the river next to the via Flaminia and depict in detail the passonata (Figs. 6, 7).37 While the passonata may have succeeded in stabilizing the river bank—apparently at the expense of navigability, since the work did not please all the boatmen on the river38—the presence of stagnant water behind the barrier made this stretch of road even more unhealthy in summer.39 Even without this the banks of the Tiber had long been rec- ognized as being unhealthy: in 1625 an edict was issued banning hunting along the banks of the Tiber from the

But compared with the large quantity of landscape drawings by Claude, there are relatively few by Poussin. None of the securely attributed Poussin landscape draw- ings demonstrate that he walked upstream from Rome along the banks of the Tiber sketching as he went as Claude did. The only drawings that show the same part of the Tiber valley favoured by Claude are no longer accepted by Rosenberg and Prat as autograph works by Poussin.51 This means that the association of Poussin with this part of the Tiber valley depends almost entirely on his painting Landscape with Saint Matthew (Berlin, Gemäldegalerie) in which the landscape closely resembles the bend of the Tiber at the Acqua Acetosa.52 In place of the Tor di Quinto, however, Poussin inserts the Torre delle Milizie, actually in Rome, and idealises the setting, both aspects of that work that suggest that we should be wary of believing too closely in its topographic fidelity.

The Torre Lazzaroni

The first structure that Claude would have seen as he progressed up the left back of the Tiber was the Torre Lazzaroni, erected in the eleventh century, in part from spoglie takem from nearby tombs (Figs. 2 and 3, [5]).53 This was situated on the right bank of the Tiber, close to the Ponte Molle and before the Tor di Quinto. It can be seen in a drawing by Claude from the 1630s (Fig. 13) and in etching by Swanevelt (Fig. 12).54 Claude’s drawing shows a short round tower with a squat farmhouse attached to it, built very close to the bank of the river, while in the distance the Tor di Quinto is visible.55 The Torre Lazzaroni can also be seen in a much later drawing by Francis Towne, which also shows the path along the left bank followed by Claude (Fig. 15).56

Ponte Milvio to the Osteria of Acquatraversa (the Aqua Traversa was a creek that crossed the Via Flaminia between the Tor di Quinto and La Crescenza, see Figs. 2, 3 [12]) and further north from March to the end of August in order to prevent hunters from succumbing to malaria.40

Claude would then continue to the Ponte Molle, which also features in several of his drawings, almost always seen from the left bank.41 Some show small boats, while others include long rafts in the foreground, the method of transport for cargoes of timber that would be unloaded downstream at the Porto di Ripetta.42 The flood of 1647 swept away the wooden section of the bridge on the left bank, which can be seen in a drawing attributed to Jan Both of the 1640s43 and in an etching of the view from the left bank by Gomar Wouters that illustrates Meyer’s volume in 1685 (Fig. 11).44 This section was re- placed and finally removed in the restoration carried out by Giuseppe Valadier in 1805. Meyer refers to floodwaters having critically eroded the approaches on the right bank, threatening access.45

At this point Claude’s route split into two. Either he would cross the Ponte Molle and make his way to La Crescenza along the right bank (or along the via Flaminia), or he would continue along the left bank on a well-worn path as far as the Acqua Acetosa. There were several significant landmarks in this section of the Tiber valley: the Torre Lazzaroni (Figs. 2 and 3 [5]), an ancient tower converted into a farmhouse by the river just beyond the Ponte Molle, the Acqua Acetosa itself, a spring marked by a monumental fountain [6], a fortified casale nearby [7],46 and on the right bank opposite the Acqua Acetosa, the Tor di Quinto [8].

This area was fascinating not only to Claude Lorrain, who also painted it,47 but also to Herman van Swanevelt. Given the presence of several almost identical drawings and prints by these artists, it seems that on occasion they would make the expedition together and draw from the same spots.48 According to a nineteenth-century tradition, this itinerary was also a favourite of Nicolas Poussin, to the extent that it was known as the promenade de Poussin, and French plein-air painters such as Achille-Etna Michal- lon re-named La Crescenza la Fabrique du Poussin.49 Yet Poussin’s involvement with this area seems to have been slight. Félibien mentions his habit of

withdrawing alone to the vineyards & the places farthest from Rome, where he was free to contemplate antique statues, agreeable prospects, & to observe Nature’s finest sketches of the things he came across, either by way of landscapes, such as terraces, trees, or beautiful light effects; or for his history compositions.50

(Above left) Fig. 11. Gomar Wouters, Ponte Molle. From Cornelio Meyer, L’Arte di restituire a Roma la tralasciata navigatione del Tevere, Rome, 1685, p. 26. (British School at Rome.)

(Below left) Fig. 12. Herman van Swanevelt, Sopra la ripa del fiume vicino a Ponte Molle. Etching.

(Right) Fig. 13. Claude Lorrain, A Farmhouse by the Tiber, RD 12. Pen and brown ink with brown wash, 11.9 x 9.2 cm. London, British Museum, Oo.6-27. (© Trustees of the British Museum.)

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S. Giuliano

Continuing along the left bank, the next feature that Claude came across was the little chapel of S. Giuliano (Fig. 3 [13]). This was perched on a rocky outcrop, and is just out of sight to the right of the watercolour by Towne (Fig. 15). It can be seen in a watercolour by Thomas Jones looking the other way, with the Torre Lazzaroni beyond (Fig. 17).57 It can clearly be seen in another watercolour by Towne, with the broad curved back of the Acqua Ace- tosa fountain visible beyond near the water level, with a fortified farmhouse above it (Fig. 16).58 The same view was drawn by Claude but from a lower position, nearer the water, with the cliff below S. Giuliano in the right foreground (Fig. 14)59 (Opposite top) Fig. 16. Francis Towne, The Banks of the Tiber, with S.

Giuliano, Looking Upstream, 1780. Grey and brown wash with watercolour and pen and grey ink outlines, 206 x 401 mm. London, British Museum Nn,2.4. (© Trustees of the British Museum.)

(Opposite bottom) Fig. 17. Thomas Jones, The Banks of the Tiber, Looking Downstream, 1777. Watercolour, pen and brown ink, 215 x 277 mm. Inscribed: ‘9 / above Ponte Mola [overwritten to read ‘Molle’] 4 March 1777 / near the Aqua cetosa Evening scene / TIBER’. London, British Museum, 1981,0516.18.9. (© The Trustees of the British Museum.)

(Above ight) Fig. 14. Claude Lorrain, Tiber Landscape (RD 172r). Pen, brown wash, 192 x 270 mm. London, British Museum, Oo. 6-124, H. 17.

(Below) Fig. 15. Francis Towne, The Banks of the Tiber, Looking Upstream, 1780. Pen and grey ink with grey wash and watercolour, 207 x 269 mm. London, British Museum Nn,2.3. (© Trustees of the British Museum.)

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The Acqua Acetosa

The Acqua Acestosa marked the point where the vigne surrounding Rome came to an end and the Agro Romano began, as can be seen in the Cingolani map (Fig. 2, [6, 7]). It was a mineral spring that became very popular with Ro- mans at the beginning of the seventeenth century because of its purported health benefits for the digestive system, the liver, and a multitude of ailments.60 Many Romans walked there along the same route as the one taken by Claude in order to drink the water. In summer the crowds could be considerable, and even in mid-winter Claude shows a number of people there, walking and enjoying the views out over the river (Fig. 19).61 Claude might also have met on this walk the acquacetosari, the men who carried water from the spring to different parts of the city.62 He may also have stumbled on dead bodies, since in addition to the malarial epidemics that resulted in the victims dying in large numbers on the roads like this in some years, the Acqua Acetosa was also the site of drownings in the sum- mer months and the occasional murder.63

In 1613 Pope Paul V had built a fountain with an inscription to enclose the spring. At the time when Claude

(Above) Fig. 18. Herman van Swanevelt, Veduto daqua assuttosa for di Roma, from Diverses veuës dedans et dehors de Rome, 1652–53. Etching, 115 x 179 mm. London, British Museum, no. F,2.219. (© Trustees of the British Museum.)

(Below) Fig. 19. Claude Lorrain, View of the Acqua Acetosa (RD 874). Present whereabouts unknown, from the Wildenstein album. (Sotheby’s.) (Above right)

(Above right) Fig. 20. Giovanni Battista Falda, Fontana celebre d’Acqua Acetosa, 1665. Engraving, from G.B. Falda, Le Fontane di Roma nelle piazze, e luoghi publici della città, con il loro prospetti, Rome, 1675, vol. 1, plate 33.

(Below right) Fig. 21. J. A. Koch, Acqua Cetosa, from Die Römischen Ansichten, 1810. Etching, 168 x 224 mm. London, British Museum, 1983,0305.21. (© Trustees of the British Museum.)

knew it the Tiber floods were causing it to deteriorate, so that in 1661 it had to be restored by Pope Alexander VII, to a new, more monumental design with three arches designed by Andrea Sacchi, recorded in 1665 in an en- graving by Falda (Fig. 20).64 A etching by Joseph Anton Koch from a high viewpoint shows the fountain from the side in the centre middle ground, and on the far bank the Tor di Quinto with Mt Soracte in the distance (Fig. 21).65 Claude made a drawing from a similar high viewpoint, showing clearly the fortified farmhouse on the hill above the fountain that was visible in the views upstream by Claude (Fig. 19) and Towne (Fig. 15).66

As part of the restoration by Alexander VII in 1661 many trees were planted at the Acqua Acetosa to help maintain the integrity of the Tiber banks, which, as we have seen, were being eroded by floodwaters.67 The forces at work to cause this damage can be inferred from Claude’s drawing of the site made in midwinter ‘on the last day of 1662’ immediately following the restoration of the fountain (Fig. 19), which shows strange shapes carved in the banks on either side of the fountain by the force of the water.68 Just how eroded the banks were can be seen in an etching by Swanevelt datable to 1652–53

(Fig. 18), which takes a low view from near the water up to the fortified farmhouse that stood on the rise above the fountain.69 This etching shows the way the banks have been deformed by the floodwaters to the extent that they appear carved and eaten into in a series of uneven curves with small bays and shoals forming in the water. These shoals and a line of sandbanks in the water are also visible in another drawing by Claude taken from further downstream looking towards the fortified farmhouse.70

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The Tor di Quinto

The Tor di Quinto was a defensive tower located beside the Via Flaminia, on the right bank of the Tiber, a short distance upstream from the Ponte Molle and opposite the Acqua Acetosa (Figs. 2 and 3, [8]). It was clearly vis- ible from the spring, which was the favoured viewpoint: close views, such as one by Eugène von Guérard in 1831, are rare (Fig. 23).71 The name is said to derived from ‘ad Quintum Lapidem’, that is, at the fifth milestone from the pre-Aurelian gates of Rome.72 Another explanation was that it was so named because of its proximity to the Campi Quintij. The origins of this tower, however, lie in the medieval period, probably the eleventh century, at the same time as the Torre Lazzaroni, when extensive fortifica- tions were being erected in the area, including additions to the ancient Ponte Molle. Rossi has suggested it may have been built to defend the medieval domusculta of S. Leucio located there.73 It rests on rocky fountains that may have originally formed part of an ancient tomb.74 At the time Claude was drawing it, the tower formed part of the tenuta di Tor di Quinto, consisting of 84 rubbia (121.67 hectares) of territory belonging to the Borghese family (Fig. 22).75 Several of Claude’s sketches show that his pre- ferred viewpoint for drawing this landmark was the opposite bank, near the Acqua Acetosa. One drawing shows several figures standing on the edge of the bank looking out on the river, with several small boats moored there (Fig. 24).76

Fig. 22. Carta Topografica del Suburbano di Roma, commissioned by Cardinal Giovanni Francesco Falzacappa, Rome, 1839, detail of the Tenuta di Crescenza and associated landholdings.

Fig. 24. Claude Lorrain, Tiber Landscape (RD 172r). Pen, brown wash, 192 x 270 mm. British Museum, no. Oo. 6-124. (© Trustees of the British Museum.)

Fig. 23. Eugène von Guérard, Tor di Quinto near Rome, 1831. Oil on paper, 16.0 x 23.7 cm. Private collection, UK. Inscribed, ink, verso ‘Meine erste studi nach der Natur/ Torre del Quinto bei Rom / 1831’.

As Claude’s drawings show, the area around the Tor di Quinto was then completely deforested, and was rented out to others for pasture and the production of hay. 77 Fortified casali like the one on the opposite bank (Fig. 2 [7])—which were more common in the Agro Ro- mano than villages or hamlets—and towers like the Tor di Quinto and Torre Lazzaroni were by the seventeenth century occupied only by seasonal workers or formed the central administrative points for farms. This form of land use gave the Roman Campagna a distinctive appearance that was commented on by eighteenth-century English travellers, to whom, accustomed to a different kind of agriculture, it appeared barren. William Beckford writing in 1780 described the approach to Rome through this area as ‘dreary flats thinly scattered with ilex and barren hillocks crowned by solitary towers, [which] were the only objects we perceived for several miles’.78 By the nineteenth century, however, towers like the Tor di Quinto prompted more positive reflections, as they appared to speak elo- quently of the Campagna’s medieval past. Augustus Hare in 1907 referred to them as ‘tall towers of brick and stone, relics for the most part of Frangipani, Orsini, and Colonna feuds, and erected as refuges for the shepherds of one of the great proprietors…’.79

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La Crescenza

On a number of occasions, Claude went up the right bank of the river from Ponte Molle along the Via Flaminia to the fortified casale of La Crescenza. On the way he crossed twin bridges that crossed two creeks—the Fosso dell’Acquatraversa and the Fosso della Crescenza (Figs. 2, 3 and 26, [15])—near where they joined [14].80 After the bridge came La Crescenza itself, occupying a commanding position on the high ground with the valley below [9] (Fig. 25).81 The landholding (tenuta) of La Crescenza adjoined those of the Tor di Quinto, Muratella, Inviolata and Val- chetta (Fig. 22).82 The extent to which the river affected these landholdings can be seen in a description of Valchetta dating from 1600, where the tenuta is described as ‘da precoio, ma è soggetto al Tevere’ (a large animal farm, but it is subject to the Tiber (i.e. it is liable to be flooded)).83

The name La Crescenza derives from the Crescenzi family, who owned it from the early fifteenth century until 1813 when it was sold to the Buoncompagni.84 Much of its structure dates from c. 1480–90, although it incorporates a thirteenth century tower. 85 It appears with the title ‘La Crescenza’ on Eufrosino della Volpaia’s 1547 map.86 It is drawn as a tower with a small dwelling built around it in the Catasto Alessandrino (Figs. 26, 27). Belli Barsali has

argued that originally it consisted of a small building with a loggia reached by an external staircase.87 In the fifteenth century an ambitious building campaign took place that transformed it into a castle, with an impressive merloned façade with two low towers at the corners.88 By 1600 La Crescenza and the adjoining property of Inviolata were both owned by the Crescenzi family, with a total extent of 147 rubbia (212.92 hectares). Of this 51½ rubbie (74.59 hectares) consisted of fields or pasture, described as the best in Rome.89

Numerous Claude drawings record both the building and the surrounding landscape, indicating that it was one of his favourite destinations. The first of these, RD 514, is from the Tivoli sketchbook, and dates to the early or mid 1640s (Fig. 29).90 It shows the rambling fortified building on high ground surrounded by trees and above

(Above left) Fig. 25. Edward Lear (draughtsman), H. Fussell (engraver), Casale della Crescenza.. Engraving, from Edward Lear, Illustrated excursions in Italy, London, 1846, vol. 2, p. 37.

(Below left) Fig. 26. Catasto Alessandrino, map of the tenuta of La Crescenza by Marco Antonio Qualeatti, dated 28 May 1656. Archivio di Stato, Rome, Presidente delle Strade 433/7. (© Archivio di Stato, Rome.)

(Right) Fig. 27. Detail of fig. 26 showing the casale of La Crescenza.

(Below) Fig. 28. Claude Lorrain, Trees, with La Crescenza in the Distance. London, British Museum, Oo.6-44. (© Trustees of the British Museum.)

20 Melbourne Art Journal 13 Lisa Beaven: Claude Lorrain and La Crescenza 21

a small stream. A figure (probably added later) reclines in the foreground and two travellers can be seen in the middle distance. RD 515 (Fig. 28), dateable to 1640–45, also shows La Crescenza on the far right on top of a rise, with the tangle of trees in the foreground.91

Another drawing in Budapest (R589), which Kit- son recognised as being of La Crescenza (Fig. 30), is a close-up view along the side of the castle revealing the left-hand corner tower.92 The figures consist of several women in classical dress carrying spears chasing deer. Röthlisberger noted that the classical figures and the stag could have been added later, and dates the drawing to the first half of the 1640s. In spite of his observation that the drawing is carefully composed, suggesting it was put together in the studio, the distribution of trees, dotted around the casale, correspond well to other drawings of the site by Claude.

Another drawing in the British Museum (RD 672), datable to 1645–50, shows cows descending to a stretch of water in the foreground, and in the background hills dotted with trees (Fig. 32).93 At the far left through a gap in the trees the roofline of La Crescenza is visible. Much the same view can still be had today (Fig. 31).

(Above) Fig. 29. Claude Lorrain, View of La Crescenza (RD 514). Cream coloured paper, chalk, light brown wash. 200 x 302 mm. Harlem, Teylers Museum, S 43. (Teylers Museum.)

(Below) Fig. 30. Claude Lorrain, Landscape (RD 589). Brown and grey wash, 22.3 x 32.9 cm. Budapest, Museum of Fine Arts, no. 2849. (Budapest, Museum of Fine Arts.)

(Above right) Fig. 31. View of La Crescenza today. (© David R. Marshall.)

(Below right) Fig. 32. Claude Lorrain, View at La Crescenza (RD 672). 19.5 x 31.7 cm, chalk, pen, brown wash. London, British Museum no. Oo 6-91. (© Trustees of the British Museum.)

22 Melbourne Art Journal 13 Lisa Beaven: Claude Lorrain and La Crescenza 23

Claude Lorrain’s painted View of La Crescenza (Fig. 33), now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, was painted around the same time, in 1648 to 1650 and is closely related to the drawing just discussed (Fig. 28).94 The painting has darkened but the drawing in Claude’s Liber Veritatis (Fig. 34) that records it reveals that the cows are accompanied by a cowherd sitting under the trees.95 The drawing is inscribed ‘faict ill[ustrissi]mo sig[no]re monsi- gneur di masso’, which Röthlisberger identified correctly as Camillo Massimo. That Massimo commissioned the painting was rejected by Röthlisberger who argued that the inscription postdates the drawing, which suggested to him that Massimo may have bought the painting later.96 Sutherland Harris goes further, suggesting that Massimo saw the work in Claude’s studio and asked him for it.97 In comparison with the Liber drawing for the earlier paint- ing Massimo commissioned from Claude, Coast View with Apollo and The Cumaean Sibyl, which was inscribed ‘quadro facto per Ill[ustrissi]mo Monsig[ignor] di Massimo’, the wording on the Liber drawing for La Crescenza is less explicit. And yet in 1968 Röthlisberger noted how rare it was for Claude in his maturity to include a specific build- ing in his work of his own accord: ‘By the time of Claude’s maturity, such an introduction of an extant building into a

painting is extremely uncommon and may be owing to the explicit instruction of the patron, about whom nothing is known so far’.98

Claude had clear links both with the Crescenzi fam- ily and with Camillo Massimo in the 1640s. In the early part of the decade he painted The Rest on the Flight into Egypt for one of the Crescenzi family, probably Francesco Crescenzi, the owner of La Crescenza,99 and in 1644–45 he painted two landscapes for Camillo Massimo.100 Fur- thermore a strong case can be made for Massimo’s links to the Crescenzi through his mother Giulia Serlupi and his grandmother, Livia Crescenzi (the Serlupi and Crescenzi families were closely linked throughout the seventeenth century, and merged in the eighteenth). It is possible that Massimo visted La Crescenza on occasion. He may therefore have commissioned the work because of family connections.

The internal evidence of the painting, however, to some extent contradicts this plausible hypothesis. The painting is small, very different from the monumental

Fig. 33. Claude Lorrain, View of La Crescenza, LV 118, 1648–50. Oil on canvas, 38.7 x 58.1 cm. New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, acc. no. 1978.205. (© Artstor and the Metropolitan Museum of Art.)

landscapes Claude produced for Francesco Crescenzi and Camillo Massimo,101 and its apparent spontaneity of execution has led some scholars to suppose that it was painted directly from nature.102 Most intriguingly the ca- sale is placed in the distance, screened by a grove of trees and viewed from the side. As Richard Rand has pointed out, the device of screening a distant view with trees is more commonly found in Claude’s drawings than his paintings,103 and gives it an informal character. In spite of its central position in the painting the casale’s inclusion appears almost incidental, much as it does in his drawings of this area, as if it is the site itself which is the subject of the painting. 104. The building also appears much less formidable than it does in several later renderings, such as Edward Lear’s watercolour (Fig. 36).105 Part of the reason for including it may have been precedent: it is probable that he was aware of Pietro Paolo Bonzi’s fresco of the casale (Fig. 35) which at the time he was visiting the site decorated a lunette in the courtyard.106 On balance it is unlikely that the painting was commissioned by Massimo or anyone

(Above) Fig. 34. Claude Lorrain, View of La Crescenza (RD 669, LV 118). Pen and in on paper, c. 1648–9. London, British Museum, 1957,1214.124. (©@Trustees of the British Museum.)

else, and, as Röthlisberger and Sutherland Harris argued, it may therefore have been an initiative of the artist.

In the middle ground of the picture, resting under the trees, is a diminutive cowherd, watching while his cows make their way down the bank to the stream, more easily seen in the Liber Veritatis drawing (Fig. 34).107 It is an idyllic scene, but one that takes on a more sinister quality when combined with the information from the Elenco de Morti. On 19 September 1649—probably the same year that Claude painted La Crescenza—the brothers were called out to collect the body of a 25 year-old vaccaro (cowherd), who had died suddenly, probably of malaria, in a hut on the ‘tenuta detta la Crescenza’.108 Both 1648 and 1649 were bad years for malaria epidemics in the country. On one day in April 1648 the members of the confraternity found four boys dying in different parts of the Campagna, a sure sign of a malarial epidemic.109 1649 was the one of the worst years of the seventeenth century for such deaths, with the Elenco de Morti recording that the brothers collected 184 bodies during the year.110

In 1662, Claude returned to La Crescenza and made several more drawings of the area, one of which is inscribed ‘vista de la crecinsia Claudio fecit / Roma 1662 7etem.bre’ (view of La Crescenza made by Claude / Rome 7 Septem-

24 Melbourne Art Journal 13 Lisa Beaven: Claude Lorrain and La Crescenza 25

ber 1662) (Fig. 37).111 In other words, Claude was there at the end of summer, when the danger of falling ill from malaria was still high. This drawing shows the panoramic view from outside the building looking across the valley, a view that is being enjoyed by two groups of people in the fore- and middle grounds. A closely related drawing, R870a, in the same panoramic format, shows the view in the other direction, towards La Crescenza with Mount Soracte beyond (Fig. 38).112 La Crescenza appears as a rambling fortified house, surrounded by a bare plain. In these panoramic drawings Claude uses the casale either as an observation point from which to view the landscape, or as an accent set deep within that landscape, rather than rendering it as the working farm that it actually was. As Röthlisberger observed of an earlier drawing of similar breadth and sensibility (Panorama from the Sasso near Rome, 1649), distance is the true subject.113 Claude loved La Crescenza less for its qualities as a building than for its raised position that allowed him to scan the surrounding countryside of the Tiber valley. This was the same reason that he was attracted to the Villa Madama on the slopes of Monte Mario.

A further drawing from this same expedition in 1662 (RD 871) (Fig. 40) shows the cliffs of the Grotta Rossa, or

Fig. 37. Claude Lorrain, View from La Crescenza, RD 870. Pen and brown wash, 93 x 275 mm. London, British Museum, Oo. 8-243. (© Trustees of the British Museum.)

Fig. 38. Claude Lorrain, View of La Crescenza, RD 870a. Pen and brown wash, 104 x 275. London, British Museum, Oo. 6-125. (© Trustees of the British Museum.) (Above) Fig. 35. Pietro Paolo Bonzi, La Crescenza. Fresco, Geneva, Les

Musées d’art et d’histoire. (© Les Musées d’art et d’histoire.)

later adapted for housing.115 Claude had recorded these cliffs in an earlier drawing made in 1640 (RD 422) (Fig. 39) described by Röthlisberger simply as a landscape, which shows the Saxa Rubra in the background, with several arched openings representing the entrances to the caves.116 The wooded grove in the foreground of this drawing (with a draughtsman seated in the shade) may have been near La Crescenza. The 1662 drawing (Fig. 40) functions as a close-up of this view, made from a point nearer the escarpment. The same view can be seen in a photograph taken by Peter Mackey between 1890 and 1905 (Fig. 42).117 In the 1662 drawing is a dome-shaped object in the background, identified by Röthlisberger as a haystack,118 but probably a Roman tomb later photo- graphed by Thomas Ashby,119 and visible in a nineteenth- century watercolour by Albert Venus (Fig. 42). An inn, the Osteria di Grotta Rossa was located at the base of the cliffs near here (Figs. 2, 3 [10]).

Grotta Rossa, like La Crescenza and Valchetta, features regularly on the itinerary of the Compagnia di Morte as a

place to retrieve bodies, some of which were found lying in the fields, and others collected from the Osteria.120 For example on 7 August 1645 the brothers collected from the Osteria the body of an 18 year-old campagnolo (field worker), who had died while trying to reach Rome.121 He would have been one of the workers hired to harvest the hay in summer.122 They were divided into categories such as mietitori (reapers), and falciatori (scythers).123 Unlike the shepherds and woodcutters who descended into the Campagna from higher ground in autumn and winter and left before the weather became too hot, the summer workers were in the fields during the most dangerous and

(Below) Fig. 36. Edward Lear, Casale della Crescenza, 1867. Watercolour, with pen and brown ink, 292 x 499 mm. London, British Museum, 1929,0611.69. (© Trustees of the British Museum.)

Saxa rubra, just beyond La Crescenza with two travellers in the foreground and behind them two more figures with a laden donkey.114 The Saxa Rubra, named for the red colour of the tufo rocks of which it is composed, has caves with ancient ruins, possibly of Etruscan origin, some of which

26 Melbourne Art Journal 13 Lisa Beaven: Claude Lorrain and La Crescenza 27

(Opposite above) Fig. 39. Claude Lorrain, Landscape (Saxa Rubra from La Crescenza),, RD 422r, 1640. Chalk, brown wash, heightened in the foreground, 214 x 235 mm. London, British Museum, Oo. 7-221. (© Trustees of the British Museum.)

(Opposite below) Fig. 40. Claude Lorrain, View of the Red Rocks near the Crescenza, RD 871, 1662. Pen, shades of brown wash, 175 x 242 mm. Paris, Louvre, inv. 26,695. (Réunion des Musées Nationaux.)

(Top) Fig. 41. Albert Venus, Saxa Rubra from La Crescenza,1869. Watercolour over graphite, 330 x 626 mm. Los Angeles, J. Paul Getty Museum, 2009.74.2.

(Above left) Fig. 42. Peter Paul Mackey, Via Flaminia and adjacent regions, cliff above Aquatraversa at Due Ponti. Gelatin silver photographic print, 80 x 110 mm. Rome, British School at Rome Library, Mackey Photographic Archive. (Reproduced with the kind permission of the British School at Rome Library.)

(Above right) Fig. 43. Detail of Fig. 41 showing Roman tomb

hottest months of the year, often sleeping in the open.124 It was these workers, usually referred to generically as campagnoli, who made up the bulk of the mortalities from malaria during the period.

These mortalities also occurred in winter: on 18 January 1647 the Compagnia di Morte collected another corpse of a campagnolo from the same inn.125 The nature of malarial illnesses meant that those infected in the summer could survive in a weakened state into the winter months only to be struck down by a minor ailment. Another labourer, simply described as farm worker (lavorante di campagna), who died naturalmente on the adjoining landholding of Valchetta, was collected by the brothers in 1649.126 La Valchetta’s proximity to the Tiber made it unhealthy, while the landholding of La Crescenza lay

28 Melbourne Art Journal 13 Lisa Beaven: Claude Lorrain and La Crescenza 29

between two creeks, the Fosso di Crescenza (Figs. 2, 25 [15] and the Fosso di Acquatraversa, that flowed into the Tiber floodplain. The irony was that the river that made this valley so picturesque for Claude could, in times of flood, leave large areas of the valley underwater, providing perfect breeding grounds for mosquitoes.

Conclusion

Claude’s drawings of the Roman Campagna provide a fascinating record of the Tiber valley at a moment when significant changes were taking place as the result of climate change. His sketching expeditions record the landscape outside Rome in a particular historical mo- ment, when as a result of increased rainfall, ecological conditions in the Tiber valley were deteriorating rapidly, with disastrous consequences for those who frequented it in summer. Paintings like La Crescenza, with its idyllic pastoral setting and soft suffused sunshine, camouflage a far grimmer reality.

La Trobe University, School of Humanities

Notes

1. This article forms part of a larger project to study the landscape imagery of the area around Rome (the Roman Campagna) from 1550–1850 in the context of the ecology, topography and social history of the region. 2. Tomassetti describes the geographical limits of the Campagna as: ‘dal nord ad est: il monte Sant’Oreste [Mount Soracte], il fiume Correse; i monti Corniculani; il Monte Gennaro, i monti Tiburtini, i monti Prenestini. Da est ad ovest, i confini sono: i monti Laziala, monte Cavo; monte Lariano; il fiume Astura, il Mare Tirreno, i monti della Tolfa e i monti Sabitini’ (Tomassetti, 1910–26, vol. 1). Lanciani defines it as ‘the gently undulating plain, forty miles long and thirty wide, inclosed by the Sabatino-Ciminian belt of craters on the north, the fore- Apennines on the East, the Alban hills on the south, watered and drained by the Tiber’ (Lanciani, 1909, p. 8). Martinori defines its limits as from north and east as Mount Soracte, the river Correse, and the Monti Cornicolani, Tiburtini and Prenestini; and from east to west the group of the Monti Laziale, the river Astura and the Tyrrean Sea; and from west to north the Monti della Tolfa and the group of the Sabbatini (Martinori, 1932–34, p. 7). 3. Sandrart, 1925, p. 209. 4. Cf. Röthlisberger, 1968, vol. 1, p. 8: ‘From a purely functional point of view, most drawings reach beyond the target. They are works of art in their own right. Unlike the majority of drawings by Carracci and even Poussin, there are hardly any sketchy or unfinished looking drawings by Claude’. 5. See, for example Harris, 1982. 6. Matthews and Briffa, 2005, p. 20. Lamb refers in particular to the marked variability of the weather in the seventeenth century, with some very severe winters but also periods of great heat. The winter of 1607–8 In England saw severe frosts that killed many trees by splitting their trunks (Lamb, 1977, vol. 2, p. 465, note 2) and in 1608 it was recorded that the sea froze in Scotland allowing people to walk out on ice to ships in the Firth of Forth (Lamb, 1977, vol. 2, p. 466).

7. Le Roy Ladurie, 1972, p. 56, using the evidence of tree rings. Gigli in his diaries mentions the unseasonal cold that lasted from 10 to 17 April 1643 (Gigli, 1994, vol. 1, p. 390) and a destructive hailstorm in June 1643 (Gigli, 1994, vol. 1, p. 391). 8. Sereni notes that reports of reclaimed land returning to swamp become more frequent in both archival documents and in the literature from the 1550s onwards (Sereni, 1997, p. 206.) 9. See Almagià, 1929, p. 534, who noted that contrary to perceived opinion, the most desolate period in the history of the Roman Campagna was not the medieval period, but the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. 10. Doni, 1667. 11. The first edict concerning the treatment of sick workers in the Campagna was issued by Cardinal Gaspare Carpegna on 20 June 1672. On 5 June 1675 he issued another edict directing overseers to look after sick workers and to transport them to the nearest inn or to hospital rather than abandoning them (Tomassetti, 1979, p. 182). 12. That this was commonplace can be seen in the report of the Segretario del Tribunale, Archivio Vicariato, tomo. 3, f. 103: ‘Il Signor Pannagalli venendo da S. Marinella ne ha trovati due morti per strada, et un’altro, che stava per morire’.

13. Elenco dei Morti. 14. Rossi, 1985, p. 243. If it was not possible to establish identification of the body, sometimes the Compagnia delle morte would display it in a public place in Rome in the hope that someone would come forward and identify it. For example the drowning victim retrieved on 16 December 1645 was displayed at the church of Saint Anthony Abbot, near S. Maria Maggiore, and was quickly recognised (Elenco dei Morti, p. 228). 15. Rossi, 1985, p. 243. 16. Bevignani, 1910, p. 133, citing Archivio dell’arciconfraternità, Libro de’ Morti, 1625, c. 20 and Relazione dell’anno Santo, 1625, busta 101, fol. 2). The confraternity was just one of several confraternities and parishes collect- ing bodies in the countryside so the actual number of victims of malaria was higher than this. 17. The advanced stages of P. falciparum malaria (also called aestivo-autumn malignant), which was often fatal, included neuralgia, delirium and coma and sometimes seizures. 18. ‘Nel luogo medesimo fu trovato un povero Campagnolo moribondo sopra poca paglia dentro una grotta, quale aveva nome Ludovico N. di Pesaro.’ Elenco dei Morti, p. 136. 19. For a discussion of Claude’s excursions into the Tiber valley see Whiteley, 1998, pp. 28–30. My account is indebted to his close observation of the drawings. 20. It is interesting, as Whiteley notes, that Claude was less interested in the Tiber river downstream from Rome, but repeatedly visited the Tiber valley upstream. 21. Claude Lorrain, The Tiber from Monte Mario looking South (RD 356). Dark brown wash on white paper, 185 x 268 mm. London, British Museum, Oo.7-212. 22. Misson, 1688, pp. 74–75. 23. Blainville, 1767, p. 321. 24. Beckford, 1986, p. 110. 25. Röthlisberger, 1961, vol. 1, p. 51, quoting from Sandrart’s autobiography: ‘[he] also painted—instead of drawing—large trees, landscapes and cascades from nature in the garden of Prince Giustiniani’. 26. Claude Lorrain, View of the Tiber at Rome (RD 101). Pen and brown wash, 202 x 265 mm. Kansas City, Nelson Gallery–Atkins Museum, Nelson Fund. Claude drew this view of this particular section of the Tiber riverbank several times and all of these drawings show this overhang stepping down in inverted terraces, caused by floodwaters (RD 1, RD 89, RD 115). The villa on the far side of the river appears frequently in drawings but has not been identified. 27. A flood of the Tiber in 69 CE made the Via Flaminia impassable for twenty miles (Ashby and Fell, 1921, p. 129). 28. Di Martino and Belati, 1980, p. 89. The worst exceptional flood was that of 1598 when the waters rose to 19.56 m (Di Martino and Belati, 1980, p. 55). 29. ‘A di 13 di Decembre rovinorno tre Case al Monte d’Oro, per il danno recevuto

dal fiume, e poichè fu calato ne rovinorno (circa vinti altre, al Popolo, all’Orso, et in altri lochi, et quelli, che morirno in diverse maniere furno infiniti, et in diverse maniere, si affogorno carrozze a sei cavalli piene di gente, carrette et huomini a cavallo …)’ (Gigli, 1994, vol. 2, p. 509). 30. Gigli, 1994, vol. 2, p. 687 (August 1653): ‘Moriva di molte gente, et li Hospedali erano pieni d’Ammalati, et fu osservato, che in piazza Navona moriva di molta gente, tanto che alcune case rimasero vuote di habitori’. Floods in the summer months were much more unusual, most occurred between November and February. Gigli, 1994, vol. 2, pp. 680–81 (4 June 1653): ‘In questi giorni cominciò a piovere, et la notte delli 4. di Giugno fu una grande Acqua con tuoni et grandine, che fece molto danno in più luoghi; et il Tevere ingrossato, allagò molti campi, et portò via i fieni, et uccise le pecore, et altri animali, et i loro Custodi, che ne furno raccolti vicino a Ponte Sisto doi Homini morti, et tre porci. Et per le nebbie, che furno, et per l’ardor del Sole, che seccava il grano; molti prevedevano la carestia’. 31. Gigli, 1994, vol. 2, p. 688 (October 1653): Li ammalati erano assaissimi, et morivano in sette giorni di febre maligna, per ogni poco di disordine che si faceva. Et tra gli altri morirono a dì 8 et 9 di Ottobre il Marchese Alfonso Theodolo, et l’Abbate suo Fratello, et il cocchiere, perchè erano andati a caccia, et altri per haver dormito doi notte alla Vigna, et simili’.

32. Gigli, 1994, vol. 2, p. 689 (November, 1653): Moriva molta gente di febre maligna in pochi giorni, et per lo più morivano i giovani’. Gigli, 1994, vol 2, p. 750 (November 1655): In questo tempo in Roma si ammalava gran gente di febre maligna, et morivano molti in pochi giorni’.

33. It is not clear whether this was caused by flooding or simply lack of main- tenance. Somma, citing documentation from the Presidenza delle strade e della Congregazione del Buon Governo, states that ‘accomodare la strada fuori di Porta del Populo. Essendo la Strada … fatta quasi impraticabile in più luoghi per essere rotta & guasta’ (Somma, 2001, p. 175). 34. Fontana was commissioned in 1669 to suggest solutions for the repair of the banks caused by the Tiber floods, but this treatise was only published in 1696: ‘É necessario che precedano le notizie dello stato dell’Acque, le quali con il proprio spirito chiamato da’ Naviganti Filone, che dal Ponte Milvio investisce il Terreno verso Capo Prati, si rigetta con velocità, & impulso à dannificare il luogo delle Ripe del sopracitato sito, ingoiandosi il Terreno con gran facilità, causato dal quel corpo ripercotente, e dalla qualità del Terreno, che si rilassava in libertà dell’Acque, che in pochi anni si vidde’ assorbire buona parte di quelle Vigne, e scavare li fondi grandi’ (Fontana, 1696, p. 16). The number of manuscript treatises on how to protect the city from flooding in the seventeenth century clearly indicate the extent of the problem and as they often also address the problem of making the Tiber navigable, they suggest too that deforestation of higher alpine areas was leading to the river silting up. See Scavizzi, 1979, pp. 237–313. 35. Eschinardi, 1696, pp. 290–91: ‘Correva pericolo questa strada di rovinare, per la corrosione del vicino Tevere; mà sotto Clemente X fù rimetterlo nel suo antico luogo, per opera del Signor Cornelio Mayer Olandese celebre Ingegnero’. Eschinardi seems to be referring to the state of the banks prior to Meyer’s works. 36. Meyer, 1685, p. 29: ‘la rapacità delle sue onde non solo intimorisce i naviganti all’hore di pratticarlo, mà anche à guisa di publico crassatore assassina la Città Santa, abbattendo gli edificij et assediando gli abitanti nelle proprie case’. Also D’Onofrio, 1970, p. 24. 37. There are also two other drawings of the passonata which are linked to Meyer’s treatise and which have been attributed in the past to van Wittel: The Tiber outside Porta del Popolo (pen, brown ink and brown wash, 165 x 429 mm, with an inscription at lower left: ‘maniera francese’; Gabinetto Nazionale delle Stampe, inv. F.C. 125247), and The Tiber outside Porta del Popolo (pen, brown ink and wash, 277 x 494 mm, with an inscription on lower right: ‘V. Vittel’; Gabinetto Nazionale delle Stampe, F.C.125173). For a good summary of the work undertaken on the passonata by Meyer, and other proposals for improving navigation on the river see Lagunes, 2004, pp. 171–89. 38. An edict was issued on 22 December 1695 forbidding any boatmen from interfering with the ‘passonata fuori Porta del Popolo’, suggesting that some were sabotaging it (Nardi, 1989, p. 73). 39. Sallares, 2002, p. 64. Doni, 1667. 40. De Cupis, 1922, p. 108. 41. See RD 167, RD 426 (1640s), RD 427 (1640s), RD 736 (1650s), RD 859 (1660), RD 860 (1661). The Ponte Molle was derived from the Latin Name, Pons Mulvius, which was first mentioned by Livy in 207 BCE (Ashby

and Fell, 1921, p. 137 and Cardilli and Fagiolo, 2010, p. 20). The bridge was fortified in the fifteenth century, acquiring several small guard towers and in 1458 a larger tower was built. After an exceptional flood in 1805 which dam- aged the bridge Giuseppe Valadier was commissioned to restore it (Cardelli and Fagiolo, 2010, p. 20). 42. For example, RD 736 (Ponte Molle, whereabouts unknown) shows a raft in the foreground, while RD 426 (1640s) (Ponte Molle, Ottawa, National Gallery of Canada, no. 4905) and RD 859 (1660) (London, British Museum, Oo. 6-64) show boats. 43. Gigli, 1994, vol. 2, p. 508: ‘Ruppe il Ponte Molle, la parte che è di legno, portò via quattro mole’. Di Martino and Belati estimate this flood to have reached the height of 16.41 m (Di Martino and Belati, 1980, p. 100). Jan Both (formerly attributed to), View of the Ponte Molle across the river Tiber, c. 1640, pen and brown ink, brown wash, 100 x 257 mm. London, British Museum, Oo,6-33. 44. Gomar Wouters, Ponte Molle, in Meyer, 1685, plate 26. 45. Meyer, 1685, no page numbers: ‘Il caso è in termine nel Tevere in vicinanza di Ponte Molle, ove havendo il fiume corrosa, & in parte abbattuta la ripa destra, mostrava di voler lasciare isolato il detto Ponte; onde fù di mestiere ricorrere alle consulte de Periti per porvi pronto rimedio’. 46. In the seventeenth century this fortified farmhouse belonged to the Bon- compagni family. See Eschinardi, 1696, p. 289: ‘un come Castello, che domina sopra l’Acquacetosa, è de’ Signori Buoncompagni’. 47. Claude’s most faithful representation of the Torre Lazzaroni and Ponte Molle is Landscape with the Ponte Molle, 1645. Oil on canvas, 74 x 97 cm. Birmingham City Art Gallery. 48. For the relationship between Claude Lorrain and Herman van Swanevelt, and the close stylistic parallels between their work, see Röthlisberger, 1968, vol. 1, p. 31, Whiteley, 1998, pp. 22–23 and Steland, 2010, p. 15. This relationship was probably at its closest between 1630 and 1635. Plomp also argues for a close relationship between Pieter van Laer and Claude during this time, citing the stylistic similarity of their drawings and prints of cows, sheep and goats (Plomp, 2011, pp. 34–35). 49. Achille-Etna Michallon, The Building called ‘la Fabrique du Poussin’, 1820. Pencil on translucent paper, 215 x 263 mm. Paris, Musée du Louvre. Jean- Baptiste-Camille Corot painted a view of this part of the Tiber and entitled it La Promenade du Poussin, 1826–28. Oil on paper, mounted on canvas, 330 x 510 mm. Paris, Musée du Louvre. As late as 1993, authors were still commenting on the relationship between La Crescenza and Poussin (e.g. Messineo and Carbon- ara, 1993, p. 19: ‘Castello della Crescenza … caro soprattutto a Nicolas Poussin’.) 50. Félibien, 1688, vol. 2, Huitème Entretie, pp. 318–19: ‘se retirer seul dans les vignes & dans les lieux les plus écartez de Rome, où il pouvoit avec liberté considerer quelques Statuès antiques, quelques veûes agréables, & observer les plus beaux effets de la Nature. C’estoit dans ces retraits & ces promenades solitairesqu’il faisoit de legeres esquisses des choses qu’il recontroit propes, soit pour le paisage, comme des terrasses, des arbres, ou quelques beaux accidens de lumieres; soit pour des composi- tions d’histoires’. English translation from Brugerolles and Guillet, 2002, p. 139. 51. Rosenberg and Prat included only 22 landscape drawings as being by Pous- sin in their catalogue (Rosenberg and Prat, 1994). In 1960 and again in 1963 John Shearman had excluded a group of 42 sheets which had been included as Poussin drawings in his catalogue of Poussin’s landscape drawings (the so- called ‘G’ group) (Blunt and Friedlaender, 1963). There is no agreement among scholars concerning who drew these, although Gaspar Dughet, Claude Lorrain, Pier Francesco Mola, and Pietro Testa are among the artists names put forward by scholars. Rosenberg has recently argued that these drawings are in fact by a number of different hands. See Rosenberg, 2008, pp. 343–45. 52. Nicolas Poussin, Landscape with Saint Matthew, 1640. Oil on canvas, 99 x 135 cm. Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Gemäldegalerie. This painting was owned by Abbot Giovanni Maria Roscioli who acquired it directly from Poussin. 53. Martinori, 1932, p. 287. 54. Claude Lorrain, A Farmhouse by the Tiber, RD 12. Pen and brown ink with brown wash, 11.9 x 9.2 cm. London, British Museum, Oo.6-27. Herman van Swanevelt, Sopra la ripa del fiume vicino a Ponte Molle, from Diverses veuës dedans et dehors de Rome, 1652–53. Etching, 115 x 179 mm. London, British Museum. Claude drew it again in the 1660s, from different angles (RD 908 and 909). 55. The Tor di Quinto is correctly identified by Whiteley in his discussion of this drawing although it looks squatter here (Whiteley, 1998, cat. 2, p. 41).

30 Melbourne Art Journal 13 Lisa Beaven: Claude Lorrain and La Crescenza 31

56. Francis Towne, On the Banks of the Tiber, near Ponte Molle, 1780. Pen and grey ink with grey wash and watercolour, 207 x 269 mm. London, British Museum, Nn,2.3. 57. Thomas Jones, Above Ponte Molle, 1777. Watercolour, pen and brown ink on paper, 215 x 277 mm. London, British Museum, 1981,0516.18.1. This chapel is marked on Ameti’s map downstream of the Acqua Acetosa as ‘S. Giuliano’. See also Hornsby (Hornsby, 2002, p. 192) who states that ‘The area near this chapel south of Ponte Milvio was at one time referred to by the name of S. Giuliano’. 58. Francis Towne, On the Banks of the Tiber, near Ponte Molle, 1780. Brush drawing in grey and brown wash with watercolour and pen and grey ink outlines, 206 x 401 mm. London, British Museum, Nn,2.4. 59. Claude Lorrain, Tiber Landscape (RD 172r). Pen, brown wash, 192 x 270 mm. London, British Museum, Oo.6-124, H. 17. A similar viewpoint is found in Tiber Landscape (RD 165r). Pen, grey wash, 205 x 325 mm. Saint Petersburg, Hermitage, 15,928. 60. Tomassetti notes that there was no mention of the fountain before the seventeenth century (Tomassetti, 1910–26, vol. 3, p. 225). In spite of its name, Eschinardi claimed in the 1690s that this fountain was ‘less acid’ than another ‘Acqua Acetosa’, which was located near S. Paolo fuori le mura (Eschinardi, 1696, p. 288). The original fountain, constructed in 1613 carried an inscription citing its health benefits: ‘QUEST’ACQUA SALUBRE RISANA RENI E LO STOMACO LA MILZA E IL FEGATO E GIOVA A MILLE MALE’ (this salubrious water makes healthy the kidneys, the stomach, the spleen and the liver and works for a thousand illnesses). In 1608 the Camera Apostolica instituted the office of the Custodian of the Acqua Acetosa, headed by Pietro Paolo Quartieri (Rendina, 2003, p. 180). In part the purpose of this position was to ensure that any debris carried there by flooding would be swiftly removed (D’Onofrio, 1970, p. 52). 61. Claude Lorrain, View of the Acqua Acetosa (RD 874). Whereabouts un- known, from the Wildenstein album. This bears an inscription by Claude saying that it was made on 31 December 1662: ‘Claudio fecit / Roma 1662 le dernier / iour de l’ané le iour de S.t Silvestre alla acetosa’. In this and another drawing (RD 875). 62. Rendina, 2003, p. 180. The Ameti map of 1693 (Fig. 3) shows a small path beginning just outside the Porta del Popolo at right angles to the Via Flaminia and leading directly to the Acqua Acetosa. The Acquacetosari may have taken this route as it was the most direct. 63. The Compagnia di Morte picked up murder victims at Acqua Acetosa in 1618, 1625, 1630 and 1632 and bodies of those dying of natural causes there in 1621, 1622 and 1623. 64. Giovanni Battista Falda, Fontana celebre d’Acqua Acetosa, 1665. Engraving, from G.B. Falda, Le Fontane di Roma nelle piazze, e luoghi publici della città, con il loro prospetti, G. G. de Rossi (ed.), Rome, 1675, vol. 1, plate 33. 65. J. A. Koch, Acqua Cetosa, from Die Römischen Ansichten, 1810. Etching, 168 x 224 mm. London, British Museum, 1983,0305.21. 66. Claude Lorrain, Tiber Valley at Acqua Acetosa (RD 876). Vienna, Albertina, no. 11,525. 67. Rendina, 2003, p. 181. Ironically Meyer in his treatise on how to make the river more navigable suggests felling existing trees along the banks as timber for the various palisades he suggests be built into the river to guide the current. 68. See note 61 above. Röthlisberger states the fountain was about to be trans- formed at the time Claude painted it, but in fact this drawing post-dates the reconstruction. Röthlisberger, 1968, vol. 1, p. 326. 69. Herman van Swanevelt, Veduto daqua assuttosa for di Roma, from Diverses veuës dedans et dehors de Rome, 1652–53. Etching, 115 x 179 mm. London British Museum, F,2.219. 70. Claude Lorrain, Tiber Landscape (RD 172r). London, British Museum, Oo. 6-124. 71. Tomassetti, 1979, vol. 3, p. 321. The Tor di Quinto was recorded in a document of 1366 (Messineo and Carbonara, 1993, p. 101). 72. This was the view of Rodolfo Venuti, who dismissed another tradition that it was named after Quintus Cincinnatus, who was recalled from retirement on his farm at a time when Rome was threatened: ‘Traversato il piccolo Ponte d’Acqua Traversa si trova a sinistra della Flaminia una vecchia Torre denominata da tempo immemorabile Tor di Quinto. Vogliono molti che questo nome sia derivato celebre Quintio Cincinnato, il quale da molti fatto egregj in serzio [sic] della Repubblica

si ritirò con Racilia sua moglie in questo suo predio per dodervi la quiete. Ma giunsero gli Ambasciatori di Roma, che gli dichiarano i Romano averloi eletto per Dittatore contro i Sanniti. Onde egli rivestitosi dell’armi per barca tornossene in Roma. Per quello che riguarda per altro questo luogo, se devo dire il mio sentimento, credo che questa Torre acquistasse il nome di Quinto dalla distanza di Roma ad Quintum Lapidem, che misurato dalle Porte dell’antica Roma prima dell’aumento di Aureliano, quasi interamente corrisponde’ (Venuti, 1766, part 2, chapter 3, p. 91). Tomassetti (1979, vol. 3, p. 321) rejects also the tradition that it comes from the sepulchre of Quintus Nasonius. 73. Rossi, 1969, p. 101. 74. Martinori, 1932–34, vol. 2, p. 333. 75. Eschinardi, 1696, p. 293. In 1612 Marcantonio Borghese bought the fields and the tenuta of Tor di Quinto for the sum of 24,000 scudi (Martinori, 1932–34, vol. 2, p. 333). 76. Claude Lorrain, Tiber Valley (RD 424). Brown wash, pen, chalk, 245 x 398 mm. Paris, Musée du Louvre. The tower opposite perched on its rocky outcrop is definitely the Tor di Quinto although Röthlisberger does not state this (Röthlisberger, 1968, vol. 1, p. 187). See also Van Tuyll van Serooskerken, Plomp and Mancini, 2011, pp. 158–59, cat. 43. 77. Cingolani’s map of 1692 estimated that of the total landholdings of the Agro Romano, consisting of 109,039 rubbia, only 11,967 rubbia was forest. This is on the accompanying index of the numbers. On hay production, see Coste, 1969, p. 87, who cites a manuscript describing the casali of the Campagna dated 1600: ‘no. 374 QUINTO, del Signor principe Borghese, fora di Porta del Popolo, discosto da Roma miglia tre. Sono tutti prati e sono rubba cinquanta, affittati a mastro Tulio, contatore de pecora, per anni nove, a scudi dicinove il rubbio a tutta erba, cioè fieni, erba d’inverno e d’estate; cominciò l’affitto l’anno 1613’. 78. Beckford, 1986, p. 109. Beckford was crossing the Campagna in autumn, on 29 October 1780. 79. Hare, 1907, p. 3. 80. This bridge is called the Ponte di Quinto on Euphrosino della Volpaia’s La Campagna Romana al tempo di Paolo III, 1547. 81. Edward Lear, Casale della Crescenza. Engraving, from Lear, 1846, vol. 2, fig. 37. 82. Nibby, 1849, vol. 3, p. 363. 83. Coste, 1969, p. 100: ‘Valca e Valchetta, del r. Capitolo di S. Pietro, discosta da Roma miglia cinque, fuor di Porta del Popolo. Sono rub[bie] 700, compresoci rub[bie] 80 di prati; luogo da precoio, ma è soggetto al Tevere; fu affittato a s[ign]or Mario Fano, a di 13 d’agosto 1601; l’istromento a m[on]s[ignor] Quintiliano Gargano’. A rubbia is 14,484 square metres, so 80 rubbia of pasture is 115.88 hectares. 84. In the division of belongings between Francesco Crescenzi and the son of Giacomo Crescenzi, made in 1413, it was described as ‘la tenuta di torre dei Crescenzi’. The Crescenzi family owned it until 1813, when it passed to the Buoncompagni and then to the celebrated tenor Marconi, in 1890 (Martinori, 1932–34, p. 212). 85. The tower is still visible encased in the wall of the main courtyard (De Rossi, 1969, p. 102). 86. Eufrosino della Volpaia, La campagna Romana al tempo di Paolo III mappa della campagna Romana del 1547. See Ashby, 1914. 87. Belli Barsali, 1983, p. 370. 88. Tomei (1942, p. 156) dates the building to 1460, while Belli Barsali (1983, p. 370) dates it to 1480–90. 89. Coste, 1969, no. 527, p. 67. The document Coste publishes appears to be an appraisal of various properties in the Campagna, possibly prepared for a patron interested in purchasing them. The entry under ‘Crescenza’ reads ‘Crescenzi, delli sig[no]ri Crescenzi, alias la Violatella, fuor di Porta del Popolo’. The entry under ‘Violatella’ (p. 100) reads: ‘VIOLATELLA, delli sig[no]ri Crescenzi, vicino Ponte Molle. Sono rub[bie] 110 [159.32 ha], compresoci rub[bie] 45 e scorzi sei [65.57 ha] di prati, quali si affittano scudi sei il rubbio, e sono li meglio prati di Roma. Il casaletto d’Acqua Traversa, attaccato al detto del medemo: sono rub[bie] 37 [53.59 ha], compresoci rub[bie] sei e mezo [9.41 ha] di prati. Sono tutti buoni paesi e si trovano a dare a risposta a erba; sotto sopra sene cava in tutto scudi dieci il rubbio con li fieni; in tutto sono rub[bie] 147 [212.91 ha], compresoci rub[bie] 51½ [74.59 ha] di prato.’

90. Claude Lorrain, View of La Crescenza (RD 514). Cream colored paper, chalk, light brown wash, 200 x 302 mm. Harlem, Teylers Museum, S 43. At bottom left is the inscription ‘CLAV / Ro IV’ in red chalk. This comes from the Tivoli book and is dated by Röthlisberger to between 1640 and 1645. 91. Claude Lorrain, Trees with La Crescenza in the Distance, RD 515. Cream paper, chalk, light gray-brown wash, 185 x 222 mm. London, British Museum, Oo.6-44. Inscribed at the lower edge ‘faict a foro di Roma’. 92. Claude Lorrain, Landscape (RD 589). Brown and grey wash, 223 x 329 mm, enlarged later. Budapest Museum of Art, 2849. Kitson, 1978, p. 127, cat. 118. 93. Claude Lorrain, View at La Crescenza (RD 672). 195 x 317 mm, chalk, pen, brown wash. British Museum, Oo.6-91. Inscribed on the verso ‘Clau / la Crecensia’.

94. Claude Lorrain, View of La Crescenza (LV 118), 1648–50. New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1978.205. 95. Claude Lorrain, View of La Crescenza (RD 669, LV 118). Pen on paper, c. 1648/9. London, British Museum, 1957,1214.124. 96. Only Kitson assumes the painting was commissioned rather than bought later: ‘assuming that the patron commissioned the painting directly from Claude and that he specified the subject, rather than bought the painting ready made, he must have had some connection with the Crescenzi family’ (Kitson, 1978, p. 127, cat. 118). 97. Sutherland Harris, 1985, p. 135, cat. 19. 98. Röthlisberger, 1968, vol. 1, p. 260 (RD 669). 99. Claude Lorrain, The Rest on the Flight into Egypt, oil on canvas, 208 x 152.5 cm, Cleveland Museum of Art. See Röthlisberger, 1961, vol. 1, pp. 243–44. The inscription on the drawing reads ‘quadro faict per ill.mo Conte Crescence. Claudio fecit in V’. Röthlisberger speculates that the painting could have been commissioned by either Francesco Crescenzi or Giovanni Battista Crescenzi, on the grounds that Giovanni Battista was known as the Marquess de la Torre, and Claude may have got the foreign title wrong. Certainly in terms of com- position it relates closely to Claude’s Finding of Moses, one of his vommissions for the King of Spain. 100. For these landscapes see Röthlisberger, 1961, vol. 1, pp. 239–41 and 243–44, and Beaven, 2010, pp. 107–10 and 113–16. 101. It measures 387 x 581 mm. 102. Russell stated: ‘The painting is a very remarkable one and in splendid condition. It gives the impression, as Kitson has pointed out, of having been made from nature’ (Russell, 1982, p. 161). 103. Rand, 2007, p. 77. 104. Russell also comes to this conclusion, arguing that the painting was made by Claude for himself (Russell, 1982, p. 162). 105. Edward Lear, Casale della Crescenza. Watercolour, with pen and brown ink, 292 x 499 mm. Inscribed ‘Crescenza. March 17 1847’. London, British Museum, 1929,0611.69. 106. Pietro Paolo Bonzi, La Crescenza. Fresco. Geneva, Les Musées d’art et d’histoire. Bonzi died in 1636, so the fresco must have been in situ by then, and could have been seen by Claude when made his regular trips to the site in the 1640s and 1660s. It would be interesting to know whether or not Claude ever visited the interior of the casale, certainly it is likely he would have had access to the courtyard. For the attribution of the fresco to Bonzi see Natale et al., 1976, p. 334. 107. Russell noted how small the figures are in this work in relation to the landscape (Russell, 1982, p. 161). 108. Elenco dei morti, 19 September 1649: ‘Morto in Campagna Tommaso N. Di Cosenza, vaccaro di anni 25 circa, improvisamente in una capanna nella tenuta detta la Crescenza, miglia 6 [8.94 km] fuori di Porta del Popolo, per la via di Tor di Quinto, e sepolto nella Capella di S. Andrea al Ponte Milvio’. ‘La Crescenza’ appears a number of times in the Elenco dei morti as the collection point for the bodies of agricultural workers. 109. Elenco dei morti, 25 April 1648, p. 243: ‘Furono ancora presi quattro poveri Monelli gravemente malati, quali furono rivenuti in diversi punti di quelle Campagne, di nome Carlo N. di S. Elgidio = Gio Battista N. Romano = Giovanni di Domenico N. di Ancona = e Giacomo Sabali di Imola = quali furono alla meglio sistemati, e condotti in Roma all’Ospedale di S. Spirito, ove dai Fratelli prodigate

gli vennero tutte le cure possibili’.

110. In 1649, 4497 people died in the hospitals of Rome, almost double the usual death rate (Ferrero, 1972, p. 137). 111. Claude Lorrain, View from La Crescenza (RD 870). Pen and brown wash, 93 x 275 mm. London, British Museum, Oo.8-243. 112. Claude Lorrain, View of La Crescenza (RD 870a). Pen and brown wash, 104 x 275 mm. London, British Museum, Oo.6-125. Röthlisberger has sug- gested that these two sheets (RD 870 and RD 870a) may once have formed a single sheet. 113. Claude Lorrain, Panorama from the Sasso near Rome, 1649. Pen and brown ink, brush and brown wash, with white gouache over black chalk and graphite on buff paper, 168 x 410 mm. Art Institute of Chicago, Helen Regenstein Collection. Röthlisberger, 1985, p. 106. 114. Claude Lorrain, View of the Red Rocks near La Crescenza (RD 871). Pen, shades of brown wash, 175 x 242 mm. Inscribed at the bottom right is ‘La crescenzio clau[dio]/ Roma 1662’. Paris, Louvre, 26,695. 115. As recorded by Eschinardi, 1696, p. 295: ‘Circa un miglio più sù si trova Grotta Rossa in altra Rupe, con Osteria al piede; in questa Rupe, calandosi per un Pozzo, fù scoperto pochi anni sono un antico Ergastolo, dove erano tenuti li Schiavi; questo luogo fù detto latinamente ad Saxa Rubra, e si stima fosse una Città: Cicerone nella seconda Filippica dice di M. Antonio; cum ad saxa Rubra venisset, delituit in quadam Cauponula, atque perpotavit ad Vesperum & si vede à sinistra il Procoio del Ven Capitolo di S. Pietro, detto la Valchetta’. These cliffs extended along the left of the via Flaminia as far as Prima Porta (Ashby and Fell, 1921, p. 139). The ruins include tombs and villas (Messineo, 2007). 116. Claude Lorrain, Landscape (Saxa Rubra from La Crescenza) (RD 422r). Chalk, brown wash, heightened in the foreground, 214 x 235 mm. London, British Museum, Oo.7-221. Inscribed ‘Claudio Gelle / 1640’. Röthlisberger describes this as ‘an important nature drawing with a pictorially framed view on a river valley’ without mentioning the location, but Whiteley (1998, p. 109, no. 49) and the cataloguer of the drawing in the British Museum identify the distant hills as the Grotta Rossa. 117. Peter Paul Mackey, Via Flaminia and Adjacent Regions, Cliff above Aqua- traversa at Due Ponti. Gelatin silver photographic print, 80 x 110 mm. Rome, British School at Rome Library, Mackey Photographic Archive. 118. Röthlisberger refers to two haystacks in this drawing (Röthlisberger, 1968, vol. 1, p. 325). Haystacks are extremely rare in Claude drawings; the only other drawing in Röthlisberger’s catalogue that includes a haystack is RD 955 (c. 1666). The scarcity of such drawings suggests that Claude did not make excursions into the Campagna in the height of summer. 119. It bears a close visual relationship to an ancient tomb that was photographed by Ashby more or less in the same location. See Mari et al., 1986, cat. no. 180, p. 217, where it is described as a tomb at the Grotta Rossa. The tomb appears in the map of Eufrosino della Volpaia with the caption ‘Torrone’. It also appears in a drawing by Corot, reproduced in Julien, 1982, fig. 3b, p. 182, which shows the very close relationship between the tomb and the Grotta Rossa. The Juliens also include a modern photograph of the tomb, now next to the railway station at Grotta Rossa (Julien, 1982, p. 182). 120. The confraternity collected between one and three bodies in most years either directly from the inn at Grotta Rossa, or from the nearby fields. Although most were farm workers, some were pilgrims, and one was a naval officer. 121. Elenco di Morti, p. 227, 7 August 1645: ‘Morto in Campagna N. N. Incognito, di anni 18 circa, povero Campagnolo, naturalmente nell’Osteria di Grotta Rossa mentre veniva a Roma ammalato, miglia 5 fuori di Porta del Popolo, per la strada di Prima Porta e sepolto nella Cappella di S. Andrea al Ponte Milvio’. 122. The first harvest was usually in May, with another at the end of summer. 123. Ago, 1981, p. 61. See also Coste, 1978, p. 171. 124. Much of the seasonal work was winter-based, so that the population of rural settlements would increase dramatically in autumn and winter. Chestnuts, the staple of peasant diets, were collected in autumn, and the chestnut leaves were fed to the livestock. It appears that for many of the aziende of the Roman Campagna the permanent domestic servants would leave during the summer months, while the poorest seasonal workers would arrive, thus again swelling the population numbers. The demography of the Roman Campagna was therefore quite complex, with influxes of people in winter and summer. For more on

32 Melbourne Art Journal 13 Lisa Beaven: Claude Lorrain and La Crescenza 33

this see Rossi, 1985, p. 101. 125. Elenco di Morti, p. 232, 18 January 1647: ‘Morto in Campagna N. N. Incognito, povero Campagnolo, naturalmente all’Osteria detta di Grotta Rossa, miglia 5 fuori di Porta del Popolo, per la via di Tor di Quinto, e sepolto nella Capella di S. Andrea al Ponte Milvio’. 126. Elenco dei Morti, p. 250: ‘Morto in Campagna Domenico di Bartolomeo N. di Bacanati, di anni 40 circa, lavoranti di Campagna, naturalmente nel Casale della Valchetta, miglia 6 fuori di Porta del Popolo per la via di Tor di Quinto, e sepolto nella Cappella di S. Andrea al Ponte Milvio.’

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Ago, 1981: Renata Ago, ‘Braccianti, Contadini e Grandi Proprietari in un vil- laggio Laziale nel primo Settecento’, Studi Romani, vol. 46, 1981, pp. 60–87.

Almagià, 1929: Roberto Almagià, ‘The Repopulation of the Roman Campagna’, Geographical Review, vol. 19, no. 4, 1929, pp. 529–55.

Ashby, 1914: Thomas Ashby, Campagna romana al tempo di Paolo II. Mappa della Campagna romana del 1547 di Eufrosino Della Volpaia riprodotta dall’unico esemplare esistente nella Biblioteca Vaticana, Rome: Danesi, 1914.

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