Article contents
‘MONS MANUFACTUS’: ROME'S MAN-MADE MOUNTAINS BETWEEN HISTORY AND NATURAL HISTORY (c. 1100–1700)
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 22 May 2017
Abstract
Rome's man-made mounds occupy a position between built antiquities and natural features. In the Middle Ages and early modern period, particular attention was paid to Monte Testaccio, the Mausoleum of Augustus, and the related ‘mons omnis terra’. Debate focused on the origins and composition of the mounds, thought to contain either earth brought to Rome as symbolic tribute, pottery used to hold monetary tribute, or pottery produced locally. Developing over time in different genres of writing on the city, these interpretations were also employed in works on historical, religious and geological themes. The importation of material, expressive of relations between Rome and the wider world in antiquity, was used to draw positive and negative comparisons with present-day rulers and the papacy, and to associate Rome with Babylon. The growth of the mounds and the presence of ceramics were invoked in discussions of the formation of mountains and montane fossils. If the mounds' ambiguities facilitated their incorporation into other debates, the terms in which they are discussed reflect ongoing engagement with literature on the city. The reception of these monuments thus offers a distinctive perspective on the significance of Rome to connections between spheres of knowledge in this period.
A Roma le colline artificiali, frutto dell'azione umana, possono essere considerate una sorta di via di mezzo tra antichità costruite e realtà naturali. Nel Medioevo e nel periodo moderno particolare attenzione è stata data al Monte Testaccio, al Mausoleo di Augusto e al relativo ‘mons omnis terra’. In particolare il dibattito si è focalizzato sulle origini e sulla composizione di questi rilievi. Si è pensato che contenessero o terra portata a Roma come un tributo simbolico, o ceramiche utilizzate per contenere tributi monetari, o ceramiche prodotte localmente. Sviluppandosi nel corso del tempo in relazione a diversi tipi di scritti sulla città, queste interpretazioni sono state utilizzate anche in lavori su tematiche storiche, religiose e geologiche. L'importazione di materiale, espressione delle relazioni ad ampio raggio di Roma nel mondo antico, è stata usata per tracciare confronti in positivo o in negativo con governanti contemporanei e il papato, e per associare Roma con Babilonia. La ‘crescita’ di queste colline artificiali e la presenza di ceramiche sono state chiamate in causa nelle discussioni sulla formazione di montagne e fossili montani. Se l'ambiguità di queste strutture ha facilitato il loro inserimento in altri dibattiti, i termini nei quali sono state discusse riflettono tuttavia anche il continuo interesse nei confronti di Roma. La ricezione di questi monumenti perciò offre una prospettiva peculiare del significato di Roma con connessioni tra diverse sfere di conoscenza.
- Type
- Articles
- Information
- Copyright
- Copyright © British School at Rome 2017
References
1 On the construction of this idea see Vout, C., The Hills of Rome: Signature of an Eternal City (Cambridge, 2012)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
2 Moryson, F., An Itinerary (London, 1617), 126Google Scholar.
3 Almeida, E. Rodríguez, Il Monte Testaccio: ambiente, storia, materiali (Rome, 1984)Google Scholar.
4 Lanciani, R., ‘Il Testaccio e i prati del popolo romano’, Bulletino della Commissione Archeologica di Roma 42 (1914), 241–50Google Scholar, esp. 242–4; Vos, A., ‘Testaccio: change and continuity in urban space and rituals’, in De Mare, H. and Vos, A. (eds), Urban Rituals in Italy and the Netherlands: Historical Contrasts in the Use of Public Space, Architecture, and the Urban Environment (Assen, 1993), 58–89 Google Scholar, esp. 78–82; Sommerlechner, A., ‘Die ludi agonis et testatie — das Fest der Kommune Rom im Mittelalter’, Römische Historische Mitteilungen 41 (1999), 339–70Google Scholar, at 349–51.
5 Campanelli, M., ‘Settecento Latino III. L'inflazione dei poeti e il Monte di Testaccio in un'epistola di Contuccio Contucci’, L'Ellisse 8/1 (2013), 159–95Google Scholar, at 163–7.
6 Heiken, G., Funiciello, R. and De Rita, D., The Seven Hills of Rome: A Geological Tour of the Eternal City (Princeton, NJ, 2005), 93–4Google Scholar.
7 I owe the first suggestion to an anonymous reader; the contrast is also drawn in Vos, ‘Testaccio’, 77.
8 The phrase is taken from Edwards, Catharine' discussion of the classical city: Writing Rome: Textual Approaches to the City (Cambridge, 1996)Google Scholar.
9 For example, Summit, J., ‘Topography as historiography: Petrarch, Chaucer and the making of medieval Rome’, Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies 30/2 (2000), 211–46CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
10 Works adopting this approach include Yawn, L.E., ‘ Culiseo: the Roman Colosseum in early modern jest’, California Italian Studies 6/1 (2016)Google Scholar: http://escholarship.org/uc/item/7nh588h3.
11 For discussions of Rome in terms of ruin and ruins, see, for example, Viti, P., ‘La rovina di Roma come conscienza della rinascita umanistica’, in Fabrizio-Costa, S. (ed.), Entre trace(s) et signe(s): Quelques approches herméneutiques de la ruine (Bern, 2005), 121–58Google Scholar; Karmon, D., The Ruin of the Eternal City: Antiquity and Preservation in Renaissance Rome (New York, 2011)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Settis, Salvatore, ‘Nécessité des ruines: les enjeux du classique’, European Review of History: Revue Européenne d'Histoire 18/5–6 (2011), 717–40CrossRefGoogle Scholar, esp. 717–27.
12 Summit, ‘Topography as historiography’; Boholm, Å., ‘Reinvented histories: medieval Rome as memorial landscape’, Ecumene 4 (1997) 247–72CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
13 For an interpretation of the Mirabilia attentive to movement through space, see Hamilton, L.I., ‘The rituals of Renaissance: liturgy and mythic history in the Marvels of Rome’, in Hamilton, L.I. and Riccioni, S. (eds), Rome Reimagined: Twelfth Century Jews, Christians and Muslims Encounter the Eternal City (Leiden, 2011), 5–26 Google Scholar.
14 On responses by Protestant travellers, see Foster, B., ‘“The goodliest place in this world”: early Tudor reactions to papal Rome’, in Papazian, M. Arshagouni (ed.), The Sacred and Profane in English Renaissance Literature (Newark, DE, 2008), 27–56 Google Scholar, esp. 36–50.
15 Rappaport, R., When Geologists Were Historians, 1665–1750 (Ithaca, NY, 1997), ch. 3Google Scholar ‘Natural and civil history’, is a particularly helpful account.
16 For discussion of its condition and reception in the Middle Ages and Renaissance, see Riccomini, A.M., La ruina di sì bela cosa: vicende e trasformazioni del mausoleo di Augusto (Milan, 1996), 24–9Google Scholar; S.L. Fugate Brangers, The Mausoleum of Augustus: Expanding Meaning from its Inception to Present Day, Ph.D. thesis, University of Louisville, KY (2007), 83–98.
17 Strabo, Geography, 5.3.8, ed. and trans. Jones, H.L., Geography, 2 (Loeb Classical Library 50) (Cambridge, MA, 1923), 408–9Google ScholarPubMed.
18 Marini, G. (ed.), I Papiri diplomatici (Rome, 1805), 38Google Scholar, doc. 28; 45, doc. 29.
19 ‘in montem qui dicitur sancti Angeli’; Peter the Deacon, Vita beati Romualdi, 25, ed. Tabacco, G. ( Fonti per la storia d'Italia 94) (Rome, 1957), 52Google Scholar; cited in Gregorovius, F., History of Rome in the Middle Ages (London, 1894–1902), III, 551, n. 1Google Scholar. For the sketch, by Baldassare Peruzzi, see Riccomini, Ruina, 42; Brangers, ‘Mausoleum of Augustus', 92–3, fig. 5.3.
20 On the Taddeo di Bartolo and Limbourg Brothers maps, see Frutaz, A.P., Le piante di Roma, 3 vols (Rome, 1962), I, 123–6Google Scholar, II: pls lxxvi–lxxvii; Maginnis, H.B.J., ‘Rome: the missing maps’, in Maginnis, H.B.J. and Zuraw, S.E. (eds), The Historian's Eye: Essays on Italian Art in Honor of Andrew Ladis (Athens, GA, 2009), 45–53 Google Scholar. On the Strozzi map, see Riccomini, Ruina, 28, 36; Sassoli, M. Gori (ed.), Roma veduta. Disegni e stampe panoramiche della città dal XV al XIX secolo (Rome, 2000), 135Google Scholar. Münster, Sebastian, Cosmographia (Basel, 1550), 150–1Google Scholar; Riccomini, Ruina, 26; Gori Sassoli, Roma veduta, 140–1; Brangers, Mausoleum of Augustus, 92–3, fig. 5.1; Maier, J., Rome Measured and Imagined: Early Modern Maps of the Eternal City (Chicago and London, 2015), 45–6CrossRefGoogle Scholar, fig. 10.
21 Mirabilia, ed. Valentini, R. and Zucchetti, G., Codice topografico della città di Roma, 4 vols (Rome, 1940–53), III, 3–65 Google Scholar. For the date of composition, see Miedema, N.R., Die ‘Mirabilia Romae’. Untersuchungen zu ihrer Überlieferung mit Edition der deutschen und niederländischen Texte (Tübingen, 1996), 2–11 Google Scholar; Kinney, D., ‘Fact and fiction in the Mirabilia urbis Romae ’, in Carragáin, É.Ó and de Vegvar, C. Neuman (eds), Roma Felix – Formation and Reflections of Medieval Rome (Aldershot, 2007), 235–52Google Scholar, at 235–6.
22 The literature on the Mirabilia is substantial. In addition to works already cited, see, for example, Frugoni, C., ‘L'antichità: dai “Mirabilia” alla propaganda politica’, in Settis, S. (ed.), Memoria dell’ antico nell’arte italiana , 1, L'uso dei classici (Turin, 1984), 3–72 Google Scholar; Nardella, C., ‘L'antiquaria romana dal “Liber Pontificalis” ai “Mirabilia urbis Romae”’, in Roma antica nel medioevo: mito, rappresentazioni, sopravivenze nella ‘Respublica Cristiana’ dei secoli IX–XIII (Milan, 2001), 423–47Google Scholar.
23 ‘De omnibus regnis totius orbis iussit venire unam cirothecam plenam de terra, quam posuit super templum, ut esset in memoriam omnibus gentibus Romam venientibus’; Mirabilia, 22, ed. Valentini and Zucchetti, 48.
24 Miedema, ‘Mirabilia Romae’, 278.
25 ‘et tanta fuit multitudo praedictae terrae, ibi iussu praedicto posita, quod mons ibi isto modo factus extitit’; Tractatus de rebus antiquis et situ urbis Romae, ed. R. Valentini and G. Zucchetti, Codice Topografico, IV, 101–50, at 137.
26 ‘Et puis commanda Octavien que l'en li aportast de toutes les provinces du monde plain .j. gant de terre, et il la mist environ le temple en senefiance que tout li mondes estoist soumis a Rome’; Ross, D.J.A., ‘Les merveilles de Rome. Two medieval French versions of the “Mirabilia urbis Romae”’, Classica et Mediaevalia 30/1–2 (1969), 617–65Google Scholar, at 628. The text of Les Merveilles de Rome in BnF MS français 22932 is identified by Ross as a late thirteenth-century book-hand, and the version dated to 1249–75.
27 ‘De toutes les parties de monde mandate Octovian de la terre plain I ban que ilh metit sor ledit temple, en signe que toutes les provinches de monde astoient a Romme tributaires’; d'Outremeuse, Jean, Ly Myreur des Histors, Chronique , I, ed. Borgnet, A. (Brussels, 1864), 72Google Scholar. On the relationship between Jean's work and the Mirabilia, see Sommerlechner, A., ‘Mirabilia, munitiones, fragmenta: Rome's ancient monuments in medieval historiography’, in Andrews, F. et al. (eds), Pope, Church and City: Essays in Honour of Brenda M. Bolton (Leiden, 2004), 223–44Google Scholar, at 239; Pucet, J., ‘Jean d'Outremeuse, traducteur des Mirabilia et des Indulgentiae ’, Folia Electronica Classica 25 (2013)Google Scholar.
28 LAT14; Miedema, ‘Mirabilia Romae’, 334–56.
29 On Monte Testaccio, see Maischberger, M., ‘Testaceus Mons’, in Steinby, E.M. (ed.), Lexicon Topographicum Urbis Romae V (Rome, 1999), 28–30 Google Scholar; Rodríguez Almeida, Monte Testaccio, esp. 120–3 for medieval references.
30 Orano, D., Come vive il popolo a Roma: saggio demografico sul quartiere Testaccio (Pescara, 1912), 20–1Google Scholar; Rodríguez Almeida, Monte Testaccio, 121.
31 Graf, A., Roma nella memoria e nelle immaginazioni del medio evo, 2 vols (Turin, 1882–3), I, 154Google Scholar; Sommerlechner, ‘Ludi agonis et testatie’, 349–51.
32 Laureys, M., ‘Between Mirabilia and Roma Instaurata: Giovanni Cavallini's Polistoria ’, in Pade, M., Jensen, H. Ragn and Petersen, L. Waage (eds), Avignon & Naples: Italy in France, France in Italy in the Fourteenth Century (Rome, 1997), 100–15Google Scholar, esp. 104; see also Jacks, P., The Antiquarian and the Myth of Antiquity: The Origins of Rome in Renaissance Thought (Cambridge, 1993), 61–7Google Scholar; Campanelli, M., ‘Monuments and histories: ideas and images of antiquity in some descriptions of Rome’, in Bolgia, C., McKitterick, R. and Osborne, J. (eds), Rome across Time and Space. Cultural Transmission and the Exchange of Ideas, c. 500–1400 (Cambridge, 2011), 35–51 Google Scholar.
33 Laureys, M. (ed.), Iohannes Caballini de Cerronibus Polistoria de virtutibus et dotibus Romanorum (Stuttgart, 1995), 187–8Google Scholar; Graf, Roma nella memoria, I, 154.
34 Marc Laureys identifies this as a misreading of Valerius Maximus’ Factorum et dictorum memorabilium, in which ‘raudera’ was said to be formerly used as a word for pieces of bronze (‘es’ or ‘aes’). Laureys (ed.), Polistoria, 365; Valerius Maximus, Factorum et dictorum memorabilium, 5.6.3.
35 Bonsignore, Giovanni, Libro Imperiale, 3.4 (Rome, 1488)Google Scholar, 36v–37r; Graf, Roma nella memoria, 153. On the Libro Imperiale see Lecker, J., ‘La présence des auteurs classiques dans l'historiographie des pays Romans (XIIIe au XVe siècles)’, Classica et Mediaevalia 47 (1996), 325–57Google Scholar, esp. 352–5.
36 Vergerio, Pier Paolo, Epistolario, 86, ed. Smith, L. (Rome, 1934), 218Google Scholar.
37 Biondo, Flavio, Roma Instaurata, ed. and trans. Rafarin, A., Rome restaurée, 2 vols (Paris, 2005–12), II, 198–203 Google Scholar.
38 Mazzocco, A., ‘Petrarca, Poggio, and Biondo: humanism's foremost interpreters of Roman ruins’, in Scaglione, A. (ed.), Francis Petrarch, Six Centuries Later (Chapel Hill, NC, 1975), 353–63Google Scholar; Jacks, Antiquarian, 113–21, quotation at 114; Firenze, Mariano da, Itinerarium urbis Romae, 8.12, ed. Bulletti, E. (Studi di antichità cristiana 2) (Rome, 1931), 121Google Scholar; Marliani, Bartolomeo, Urbis Romae topographia (Rome, 1544), 63Google Scholar; Palladio, Andrea, L'antichità de Roma (Rome, 1554), 6rGoogle Scholar.
39 Totti, Pompilio, Ritratto di Roma antica (Rome, 1627), 213–14Google Scholar. Jan Goeree, View of the Mons Testaceus and the Pyramid of Cestius, before 1704, pen and black ink with grey wash, 33.3 × 20.5 cm; New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art.
40 Thomas, William, The Historie of Italy (London, 1549)Google Scholar, fol. 35r–35v; Parks, G.B. (ed.), The History of Italy (1549) by William Thomas (Ithaca, NY, 1963), 43–4Google Scholar. On Thomas, see Foster, ‘‘‘The goodliest place in this world’”, 36–42; Woolfson, J., ‘Thomas Hoby, William Thomas, and mid-Tudor travel to Italy’, in Pincombe, M. and Shrank, C. (eds), The Oxford Handbook of Tudor Literature, 1485–1603 (Oxford, 2009), 404–17Google Scholar.
41 Lithgow, William, A most delectable and true discourse, of an admired and painefull peregrination from Scotland, to the most famous kingdomes in Europe, Asia and Affricke (London, 1614), 3Google Scholar.
42 Moryson, Itinerary, 126; de Beer, E.S. (ed.), The Diary of John Evelyn , 2, Kalendarium, 1620–1649 (Oxford, 1955 (repr. 2000)), 360Google Scholar.
43 Some texts have ‘mons omnis terre' or ‘terrae'.
44 A. Graf, Roma nella memoria, 1:154; Sommerlechner, ‘Ludi agonis et testatie’, 349–51.
45 ‘li quali se féciaro venire a rèndare terra de tutte le parti e le fini del mondo per tributo, en memoria de la loro signoria, e fàciarela pónare in uno loco; e de quella terra féciaro uno monte, lo quale fo chiamato da loro monte d'ogne terra’: d'Arezzo, Restoro, La composizione del mondo, 2.5.8, ed. Morino, A. (Florence, 1976), 129Google Scholar.
46 Duhem, P., Études sur Léonard de Vinci, ceux qu'il a lus et ceux qui l'ont lu, 2 (Paris, 1909; repr. 1984), 319–23Google Scholar. For discussion of the formation of mountains by these authors, see Holmyard, E.J. and Mandeville, D.C. (eds and trans.), Avicennae De congelatione et conglutinatione lapidum, being Selections of the Kitâb al-Shifâ’ (Paris, 1927), 26–32 Google Scholar, 48–9; Albertus Magnus, Liber de causis proprietatum elementorum, 2.4–5, trans. Resnick, I.R., On the Causes of the Properties of the Elements (Milwaukee, WI, 2010), 115–18Google Scholar; Vincent of Beauvais, Speculum naturale, 6.20 (Douai, 1624): http://sourcencyme.irht.cnrs.fr/encyclopedie/voir/133 [accessed 31 December 2016].
47 Donato, M.M., ‘Un “savio depentore” fra “scienza de le stelle” e “sutilità” dell'antico: Restoro d'Arezzo, le arti e il sarcofago romano di Cortona’, Studi in onore del Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz, Annali della Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa, ser. IV, 1–2 (Pisa, 1996), 51–78 Google Scholar, at 61.
48 Mottana, A., ‘Oggetti e concetti inerenti le Scienze Mineralogiche ne La composizione del mondo con le sue cascioni di Restoro d'Arezzo (anno 1282)’, Rendiconti Lincei: Scienze Fisiche e Naturali, ser. IX, 10 (1999), 133–229 CrossRefGoogle Scholar, esp. 140–52.
49 ‘lo grande Cesaro Ottaviano Augusto, emperadore de la grande Roma, la quale signorigiò e pose giogo a tutto lo mondo’: Restoro d'Arezzo, La composizione del mondo, 2.7.4, ed. Morino, 189; 2.6.4.6, ed. Morino, 171, refers only to ‘lo grandissimo Cesare’, but the context suggests that Augustus may be meant here too.
50 Given-Wilson, C. (ed. and trans.), The Chronicle of Adam Usk, 1377–1421 (Oxford, 1997), 194–5Google Scholar: ‘… ad summitatem montis omnis terre, ideo quia ex omni terra mundi in signum universalis dominii illuc allata compositus’. On these games, see Sommerlechner, ‘Ludi agonis et testatie’.
51 Given-Wilson, The Chronicle of Adam Usk, lv.
52 John Capgrave, The Solace of Pilgrimes, 1.24, ed. Mills, C.A., Ye Solace of Pilgrimes, A Description of Rome, circa AD 1450, by John Capgrave, an Austin Friar of King's Lynn (London, 1911), 50Google Scholar: ‘As we goo to seynt paules stant a hill on ye rith hand which Þei clepe omnis terra and Þis is Þhe cause whi it is clepid soo. In Þat tyme Þat romanes had lordchip of all Þe world for Þe moost party Þei mad a constitucioun in her senate Þat all Þat puple whech was undir her dominacioun schuld brynge with her tribute certeyn pottis ful of erde summe mor summe lesse aftir Þe quantite of the regioun and Þe distaunce of Þe place. Þis usage lested many Ʒeres and Þat is sene Þer for Þe hill is gret and brod and at Þis day if a man delve in Þat hill he shal fynde all Þe erde ful of schordis of pottis.’ On Capgrave, see Summit, ‘Topography as historiography’, 228–30; Grossi, J. Jr, ‘John Capgrave's “Smal Pyping”: marvelling at Rome in Ye Solace of Pilgrimes ’, Medievalia et Humanistica 30 (2004): 55–83 Google Scholar; Lucas, P.J., ‘An Englishman in Rome: Capgrave's 1450-Jubilee Guide, The Solace of Pilgrimes ’, in D'Arcy, A.M. and Fletcher, A.J. (eds), Studies in Late Medieval and Early Renaissance Texts in Honour of John Scattergood (Dublin, 2005), 201–17Google Scholar.
53 Webb, D., ‘Pardons and Pilgrims’, in Swanson, R.N. (ed.), Promissory Notes on the Treasury of Merits: Indulgences in Late Medieval Europe (Leiden, 2006), 241–75Google Scholar, at 243, 248.
54 Capgrave, The Solace of Pilgrimes, 2.1, ed. Mills, 63.
55 ‘By dem thor, als man vßget zu Sant Pauls, ist der berg, der von aller welt ertrich ist gemacht worden. Da die Romer gutz genug hetten vnd nicht guldes ader silber begerten, da gebotten sie, zu geben vor den zins des ertrich von ydem lande. Da bracht man das ertich vß aller welt in krugen. Da wurffen sie die krugen vf einen haffen; vß der menig wart ein perg’: Miedema, N.R., Rompilgerführer in Spätmittelalter und früher Neuzeit: die ‘Indulgentiae ecclesiarum urbis Romae’ (deutsch/niederländisch): Edition und Kommentar (Tübingen, 2003), 252CrossRefGoogle Scholar; following the edition printed in Rome by Bartholomeus Guldinbeck in 1487. The Latin version is shorter and only refers to ‘Mons omnis terre’; for example, Mirabilia Romae vel potius Historia et descriptio urbis Romae (Rome, 1491), n.p.
56 Miedema, Rompilgerführer, 39–44. Brall-Tuchel, H. and Reichert, F. (trans.), Rom, Jerusalem, Santiago: das Pilgertagebuch des Ritters Arnold von Harff (1496–1498) (Cologne, 2008), 53Google Scholar: ‘Weiter unten auf derselben Seite der Stadt liegt ein kleiner Hügel, “omnis terra” geheißen, “Erde aus alle Welt. Als damals die Römer die ganze Welt unter sich hatten und jedes Land ihnen Zins und Tribut geben musste und sie nun Gold und Silber genug hatten, verlangten sie von jeder Landschaft der ganzen Welt, als Zins einen Topf voll Erdreich aus ihrem Land herbeizubringen. Dann warfen sie die Töpfe mit Erde alle auf einen Haufen. Aus deren Menge wurde ein Berg, “omnis terra” genannt’. On Harff's response to Rome and the indulgence literature, see Tellenbach, G., ‘Glauben und Sehen im Romerlebnis dreier Deutscher des fünfzehnten Jahrhunderts’, in Gatz, E. (ed.), Römische Kurie, kirchliche Finanzen, Vatikanisches Archiv: Studien zu Ehren von Hermann Hoberg , 2 vols (Rome, 1979), II, 883–912 Google Scholar, esp. 903–12.
57 Audebert, Nicolas, Voyage d'Italie, ed. Olivero, A. (Viaggiatori francesi in Italia, 1–2) (Rome, 1981–3), II, 16–18 Google Scholar.
58 Prose commentary on Godfrey of Viterbo, Speculum regum, ed. G. Waitz, MGH, SS 22 (Hannover, 1872), 21–93 (75): ‘Ideo ab omni populo Romano imperio subiecto tributum accipere noluit, sed terram de omnibus regnis mundi loco tributi apportari iussit in signum obedientie, et montem Rome qui dicitur omnis terre iuxta sepulchrum Remi de eadem terra fecit’. The commentary is found in manuscripts, grouped by Waitz as classes 2 & 3, which date to the fifteenth century. On Godfrey's reception, see Scales, L., ‘Purposeful pasts: Godfrey of Viterbo and later medieval imperialist thought’, in Foerster, T. (ed.), Godfrey of Viterbo and his Readers: Imperial Tradition and Universal History in Late Medieval Europe (Farnham, 2015), 119–44Google Scholar.
59 Copenhagen, Kongelige Bibliotek, Gl. Kgl. Saml. MS 666, fol. 3v; given in Hegel, K., Cardauns, H. and Schröder, K., Die Chroniken der niederrheinischen Städte: Cöln, 3 vols (Die Chroniken der deutschen Städte vom 14. bis ins 16. Jahrhundert, 12–14) (Leipzig, 1875–7), II, 15–16 Google Scholar for details of the manuscript; 290 for the quotation in an editorial note, where the mound is simply identified as Monte Testaccio.
60 ‘Want eyn yglich lant all iair bewissen moyst syn gehorsamheit ind bringen syn gult ind rent zo Rome als van silver ind gould ind dar zo eyn stuck erden van sinre lantscaff also dat eyn grois berch dae van in Rome gemacht wart ind was genoempt omnis terra dat is al ertrijch’: Die Cronica van der hiliger Stat va[n] Coelle[n] (Cologne, 1499), 39v; ed. Hegel, Chroniken, II, 290.
61 ‘Già si raccolse in Roma (onde ne crebbe un monte) al tempo, e per precetto d'Augusto un pugno d'ogni terra del mondo, & or s'accoglie in Vineggia per la venuta vostra, Re Cristianissimo, una parte di tutte le nationi del mondo’: Groto, Luigi, Le orationi volgari di Luigi Groto cieco di Hadria (Venice, 1593)Google Scholar, fols 90r–v. The speech is discussed briefly in Greengrass, M., ‘Henri III, festival culture, and the rhetoric of royalty’, in Mulryne, J.R., Watanabe-O'Kelly, H. and Shewring, M. (eds), Europa Triumphans: Court and Civic Festivals in Early Modern Europe , 2 vols (Publication of the Modern Humanities Research Association, 15) (Aldershot, 2004), I, 105–15Google Scholar, at 112; Fenlon, I., The Ceremonial City: History, Memory and Myth in Renaissance Venice (New Haven, CT, 2007), 210Google Scholar.
62 Fenlon, Ceremonial City, 193–215, esp. 215; Brown, P. Fortini, Venice & Antiquity: The Venetian Sense of the Past (New Haven, CT, 1996)Google Scholar, esp. 277–84.
63 ‘Questo medesimo stupore del popolo infinito occupava le menti al presente: in che avreste detto, che tutte le nationi fossero convenute in Vinetia, si come veramente da tutto il Dominio, e da altre parti erano concorsi’: Tommaso Porcacchi, Le Attioni d'Arrigo Terzo Re di Francia, Et Quarto di Polonia, Descritte in Dialogo, ed. and trans. in Europa Triumphans, I, 140–83, at 156–7.
64 ‘e hebbe l'Imperatore a dire, che in Vinetia era tutta la Nobiltà del mondo’: ibid., 154–5.
65 For an overview of this tradition, see Kovacs, J. and Rowland, C., with Callow, R., Revelation: The Apocalypse of Jesus Christ (Oxford, 2004), 179–88CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Jedin, H., ‘Rom und Romidee im Zeitalter der Reformation und Gegenreformation’, in Kirche des Glaubens, Kirche der Geschichte: Ausgewählte Aufsätze und Vorträge , 2 vols (Freiburg, 1966), I, 143–52Google Scholar.
66 On the role of the hills in the identification see Biguzzi, G., ‘Is the Babylon of Revelation Rome or Jerusalem?’, Biblica 87 (2006), 371–86Google Scholar, esp. 373–4, 384–5; Vout, The Hills of Rome, 25–6.
67 Paul of Middleburg, Paulina De rechta Paschae celebratione, et De die passionis domini nostri Iesu Christi, 19.3 (Fossombrone, 1513), n.p.
68 The publication date is given as 1526, but since the work is mentioned in a letter dated January 1521 and the name of the printer is false, this may be an error or deliberate falsification; Benzing, J., ‘Der Winkeldrucker Nikolaus Küffer zu Schlettstadt (1521)’, Stultifera navis: Mitteilungsblatt der Schweizerischen Bibliophilen-Gesellschaft 13 (1956), 63–6Google Scholar.
69 ‘Nec possunt omnes fossores in mineralibus montibus totius Germaniae tantum auri & argenti effodere, quantum Roma vorat, abissus infernalis est. Roma apud gentiles olim aurum & argentum provinciarum respuit, terram modicum pro tributo petiit. testis hodie mons omnis terrae’: Lamentationes Germanicae Nationis (Schlettschadt: Schürer, 1520/6), n.p.; Munich, Bayerische StaatsBibliothek, Res/4 Eur. 332,50.
70 ‘Quando Germania prorsus exhausta fuerit aere & argento & auro, tunc non rimittentur nobis misellis amplius peccata, nec venient ad fores mulgentiae dixerim indulgentiae, sed erimus in maledictionem & in derisum omni populo’: Lamentationes Germanicae Nationis, n.p.
71 ‘Och wat groisser summen geltz ind wie mannich hondert duisent gulden komen alle jair zo Rome uis Duitschland me dan uis einigen anderen lande durch die geistlicheit, des niet vil widderumb heruis kumpt, dat wunder is dat einich gelt in dem vurß lande is, und is ghein wonder dat des goltz und silvers van dage zo dage gebrech und geminret wirt’: Die Cronica van der hiliger Stat va[n] Coelle[n] (Cologne, 1499), fol. 317r; ed. Hegel, Chroniken, III, 810.
72 ‘Ich halden, dat Diutschland … nie so haftichlich van den roemschen keiseren in der zit der heidenschaft mit jairlichen tribute zo geven beschoren wart, as it nu bi unseren ziden ind bi 200 jairen hievur’: Die Cronica van der hiliger Stat va[n] Coelle[n] (Cologne, 1499), fol. 317r; ed. Hegel, Chroniken, III, 810.
73 von Hutten, Ulrich, Klag und Vormahnung gegen dem übermässigen unchristlichen Gewalt des Papsts zu Rom …, in Ulrich von Hutten: Deutsche Schriften (Munich, 1970), 200–43Google Scholar, esp. 207. Hutten is given as the author of the Lamentationes in Grässe, J., Trésor de livres rares et précieux; ou Nouveau dictionnaire bibliographique, 7 vols in 8 (Dresden, 1858–69), IV, 87Google Scholar.
74 Wimpfeling, Jakob, Gravamina Germanicae nationis cum remediis et avisamentis ad Caesaream Maiestatem (Schlettschadt: Schürer, 1519)Google Scholar; Regensburg, Staatliche Bibliothek, 999/4 Theol.syst. 714(45).
75 ‘And as in all things they are glorious, so also in their tributes they appointed that the same shuld be brought in earthen pots, & the pots broken in a certaine place of Rome, where, by the great quantity of broken pots, there is waxed a hil, called Monte testaceo. And this have they done for their glorious name and ostentation, which (confirming this text) beareth recorde of the great riches that hath bene brought to them from al the world’: Napier, John, A Plaine Discovery of the Whole Revelation of Saint John (Edinburgh, 1593), 212Google Scholar.
76 Napier, Plaine Discovery, 212.
77 Meyer, Sebastian, In Apocalypsim Iohannis Apostoli (Zurich, 1539), 72rGoogle Scholar; Bullinger, Heinrich, A hundred sermons vpon the Apocalips of Iesu Christe (second edition, London, 1561), 528Google Scholar, see also 392, 538 for similar sentiments.
78 Commentaries surveyed include those by François Lambert, John Bale, Heinrich Bullinger and Augustine Marlorat.
79 Hadfield, A., ‘Shakespeare and Republican Venice’, in Tosi, L. and Bassi, S. (eds), Visions of Venice in Shakespeare (Farnham, 2011), 67–82 Google Scholar, at 68; Warner, G.F. (ed.), ‘The library of James VI, 1573–83’, Publications of the Scottish History Society, 15, Miscellany (Edinburgh, 1893), ix–lxxvGoogle Scholar, at lxvi.
80 Chastel, A., The Sack of Rome, 1527, trans. Archer, B. (Princeton, NJ, 1983), 72–4Google Scholar, figs 41b, 42.
81 Ibid., 74, 77 fig. 44c.
82 Brightman, Thomas, A Revelation of the Apocalyps (Amsterdam, 1611), 461Google Scholar; on Brightman, see Crome, A., The Restoration of the Jews: Early Modern Hermeneutics, Eschatology, and National Identity in the Works of Thomas Brightman (Cham, 2014), 59–95 Google Scholar.
83 ‘palaces, steeples, corners of streets, high arches, images, baths, temples, roofes, crosses, altars, idols, robes, mitres, and other Babylonish monuments’: Pareus, David, A commentary upon the divine Revelation of the apostle and evangelist, John, trans. Arnold, E. (Amsterdam, 1644), 501–2Google Scholar.
84 Capgrave, The Solace of Pilgrimes, ed. Mills; Fulvio, Andrea, Antiquaria urbis (Rome, 1513)Google Scholar.
85 Revelation 18:11–19; Kraybill, J.N., Apocalypse and Allegiance: Worship, Politics, and Devotion in the Book of Revelation (Grand Rapids, MI, 2010), 140–5Google Scholar, 154.
86 Kraybill, Apocalypse and Allegiance, 154.
87 On the connections between natural and human history in the early modern period, with particular reference to geology and palaeontology, see Rappaport, When Geologists Were Historians, ch. 3; Rossi, P., The Dark Abyss of Time: The History of the Earth and the History of Nations from Hooke to Vico, trans. Cochrane, L.G. (Chicago, 1984), 3–41 Google Scholar; Rudwick, M.J.S., The Meaning of Fossils: Episodes in the History of Palaeontology (London, 1972), chs 1–2Google Scholar.
88 Burnet, Thomas, The Theory of the Earth (London, 1697), 95Google Scholar; discussed in Rossi, Dark Abyss of Time, 33–41.
89 Giovanni Rucellai, Della bellezza e anticaglia di Roma, in Codice topografico, IV, 399–419, at 417; d'Ancona, A. (ed.), Journal de Voyage de Michel de Montaigne en Italie par la Suisse et l'Allemagne en 1580 et 1581 (Città di Castello, 1889), 243Google Scholar.
90 Lithgow, A most delectable and true discourse, 3.
91 Schrader, Lorenz, Monumentorum Italiae quae hoc nostro saeculo & à Christianis posita sunt, libri quatuor (Helmstedt, 1592), 111vGoogle Scholar, numbers ten hills within the walls; ‘Mons Testaceus’ appears at the end of the list, unnumbered.
92 Schott, Frans, Itinerario, overo nova descrittione de’ viaggi principali d'Italia (Padua, 1659), pt 2, 15Google Scholar.
93 ‘Il Testacio poi, viene impropriamente chiamato monte, perche in fatti altro non è, che una gran massa di frammenti de’ vasi radunati in un'ampia pianura’: Martinelli, Agostino, Il Monte Testaceo, ò Testacio (Rome, 1686), 13Google Scholar; see 3–13 for the other hills.
94 Marliani, Urbis Romae topographia, 7, 12–13; Maier, Rome Measured and Imagined, 66–8, figs 16, 17.
95 Gori Sassoli, Roma veduta, 145–6, cat. no. 10; Maier, Rome Measured and Imagined, 111–13, fig. 39.
96 Ducos, J., ‘Esiste-t-il une “géologie” médiévale?’, in James-Raoul, D. and Thomasset, C. (eds), La Pierre dans le monde médiéval (Paris, 2010), 17–35 Google Scholar, at 18.
97 Veneto, Paulo, Super libros de generatione et corruptione Aristotelis; De compositione mundi cum figuris (Venice, 1498), 112vGoogle Scholar.
98 ‘etiam aliqui montes ab hominibus sicut ro[man]i ex testis in quibus tributa afferrebant[ur] montem testaceum fecerunt’: John Michael Albert, De constitutione mundi, 11.8; Florence, Biblioteca Laurenziana, MS Ashburnham 198, fol. 113v; the work in general is discussed in Thorndike, L., ‘The De constitutione mundi of John Michael Albert of Carrara’, The Romanic Review 17/3 (1926), 193–216 Google Scholar, esp. 197–8.
99 ‘Testaceum enim Romae vel figuli ex vasorum fragmentis, vel qui deferebant eum in locum vasa, quibus mortuorum cineres asservabantur, vel qui ex civitatibus, et provinciis tribute populo Romano solvebant, congesserunt’: Faenzi, Valerio, De montium origine (Venice, 1561)Google Scholar, fol. 16r; ed. and trans. P. Macini and E. Mesini (Verbania, 2006), 76–8. On Faenzi's work, see Prete, I. Dal, ‘Valerio Faenzi e l'origine dei monti nel Quinquecento Veneto’, in Leoni, S. Boscani (ed.), Wissenschaft-Berge-Ideologien. Johann Jakob Scheuchzer (1672–1733) und die frühneuzeitliche Naturforschung (Basel, 2010), 197–214 Google Scholar; and Campanale, M.I., Ai confini del Medioevo scientifico: il De montium origine de Valerio Faenzi (Bari, 2012)Google Scholar, esp. 246, where the treatment of Monte Testaccio is set in the context of the archaeology of the site.
100 Rappaport, When Geologists Were Historians, ch. 4, esp. 105–8, 119–35.
101 ‘sicuti etiam fortasse erit dicendum, quod ollae, seu testae ollarum, quae sunt Romae in colle illo Testaceo vocato, fuerint ibi genitae, non autem ab antiquis inibi repositae, ut quidam afferunt’: Falloppio, Gabriele, De medicatis aquis atque de fossilibus (Venice, 1569)Google Scholar, fols 108v–110r. On the work, see Ferrari, G.E., ‘L'opera idro-termale di Gabriele Falloppio: le sue edizioni e la sua fortuna’, Quaderni per la Storia dell'Università di Padova 18 (1985), 1–41 Google Scholar; the reference to Monte Testaccio is noted in Rodolico, F., L'esplorazione naturalistica dell'Appennino (Florence, 1963), 44Google Scholar.
102 Hsu, K.-T., ‘The path to Steno's synthesis on the animal origin of glossopetrae ’, in Rosenberg, G.D. (ed.), The Revolution in Geology from the Renaissance to the Enlightenment (Boulder, CO, 2009), 93–106 Google Scholar, at 96–7.
103 Hsu, ‘The path to Steno's synthesis’, presents this as compatible with an organic origin; Rudwick, The Meaning of Fossils, 41, sees Falloppio as positing spontaneous generation in these cases; G.B. Vai simply describes him as rejecting an organic origin: Vai, ‘The Scientific Revolution and Nicholas Steno's twofold conversion’, in Revolution in Geology, 187–208, at 189.
104 Vicenzo Bruno, I Tre Dialoghi (Naples, 1602), 262.
105 Restoro d'Arezzo, La composizione del mondo, 2.5.8, ed. Morino, 127.
106 ‘Cuius indicium in lapidibus existit, quos in remotis montibus conchis, et ostreis concretos reperimus’: Faenzi, Valerio, De montium origine (Venice, 1561)Google Scholar, fol. 12r; ed. and trans. Macini and Mesini, 56.
107 McCartney, P.J., ‘Charles Lyell and G. B. Brocchi: a study in comparative historiography’, The British Journal for the History of Science 9/2 (1976), 175–89CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 182–3.
108 ‘plura ollarum genera solo naturae beneficio et absque omni humano suffragio effigantur’: J. Długosz, Historia Polonicae, XI, ed. Przezdziecki, A., Joannis Długossi Senioris Opera Omnia, 14 vols (Krakow, 1863–87), XIII, 193–4Google Scholar; Rączkowski, W., ‘“Drang nach Westen”?: Polish archaeology and national identity’, in Díaz-Andreu, M. and Champion, T. (eds), Nationalism and Archaeology in Europe (Boulder, CO, 1996), 189–217 Google Scholar, at 190.
109 Mercati, M., Metallotheca (Rome, 1717), 295Google Scholar; Accordi, B., ‘Michele Mercati (1541–1593) e la Metallotheca’, Geologica Romana 19 (1980), 1–50,Google Scholar at 30. On Mercati, see also Dominici, S., ‘Storia della Toscana, storia della terra / History of Tuscany, history of the earth’, in Monechi, S. and Rook, L. (eds), Il Museo di Storia Naturale dell'Università degli Studi di Firenze, 3, Le collezioni geologiche e paleontologiche (Florence, 2010), 3–17 Google Scholar.
110 On Scilla, see Rossi, The Dark Abyss of Time, 19–24; Findlen, P., ‘Agostino Scilla: a Baroque painter in pursuit of science’, in Gal, O. and Chen-Morris, R. (eds), Science in the Age of Baroque (Dordrecht and New York, 2013), 119–59Google Scholar.
111 ‘Per ultimo, io non averei per cosa difficile, ogni volta, che si volesse chimerizzare, d'assegnar’ anche nella Natura qualche semi, che avessero potuto produrre nel suolo Romano il famosissimo, ed antichissimo a gli stessi antichi, ed oscuro d'origine Monte Testaccio, il quale di vasi rotti è composto’: Scilla, A., La vana speculazione disingannata dal senso: lettera risponsiva circa i corpi marini, che petrificati si trovano in varii luoghi terrestri (Naples, 1670), 39CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
112 ‘simile al preteso, il soprannominato monte Testaccio di Rome, il quale non gira maggiore spazio d'un terzo di miglio e non s'osserva diminuito, ancorchè a tutte le fabbriche d'una Città vastissima, com’è Roma, egli abbia sumministrato, e sumministri buona, e considerabile quantità di se stesso; e ciò si deve considerare da un tempo altissimo in quà, e per l'avvenire se pur bisogna’: Scilla, Vana speculazione, 55.
113 Orbaan, J.A.F., ‘Der Abbruch Alt-Sankt-Peters, 1605–1615’, Jahrbuch der Königlich Preussischen Kunstsammlungen 39 (1919), 1–139 Google Scholar, esp. 21, 116.
114 ‘la cui grandezza maggiore alquanto dovette essere, avendo veduto io a miei giorni levarne infinite carrettate, per rimediar con quelle coccie alla fangosità delle strade circonvicine’: Famiano Nardini, Roma antica, ed. Nibby, A., Roma antica di Famiano Nardini: riscontrata, ed accresciuta delle ultime scoperte, con note ed osservazioni critico antiquarie, 4 vols (Rome, 1818–20), III, 320Google Scholar; cited in Lanciani, ‘Testaccio’, 249.
115 Findlen, ‘Agostino Scilla’, esp. 129.
116 Restoro d'Arezzo, La composizione del mondo, 2.5.8, ed. Morino, 127, for the shells; 2.8.4, ed. Morino, 198–200, for the chapter on the antique vases; on Restoro as artist, see Donato, ‘“Savio depentore”’.
117 Rappaport, When Geologists Were Historians, 90–2, includes Scilla among a number of Italians, as well as scholars of other nationalities, whose activities spanned natural and civil history.
118 Waller, R. (ed.), The Posthumous Works of Robert Hooke, M.D., S.R.S., Geom. Prof. Gresh. &c. Containing his Cutlerian Lectures, and other Discourses read at the meetings of the illustrious Royal Society (London, 1705), 279–328 Google Scholar, at 319–321; discussed in Rudwick, Meaning of Fossils, 74.
119 Waller, Posthumous Works of Robert Hooke, 321.
120 Albertus Magnus, Liber de causis proprietatum elementorum, 1.2, trans. Resnick, 51.
121 ‘quandoquidem amphitheatra multis in civitatibus olim erecta, quibus ad ludos spectandos, utebantur veteres Romani, nunc fere subterranea sunt’: Faenzi, Valerio, De montium origine (Venice, 1561)Google Scholar, fols 5v–6r; ed. and trans. Macini and Mesini, 28–30; Dal Prete, ‘Valerio Faenzi e l'origine dei monti’, 201.
122 Ray, John, Three physico-theological discourses … wherein are largely discussed the production and use of mountains … (second edition, London, 1693), 299–300 Google Scholar.
123 Ibid., 309; Ray, John, Observations topographical, moral, & physiological made in a journey through part of the low-countries, Germany, Italy, and France … (London, 1673), 347Google Scholar, 357.
- 1
- Cited by