Anonymus, Rezension von: Pietro Santi Bartoli, "Columna Antoniniana Marci Aurelii Antonini Augusti rebus gestis insignis Germanis simul, et Sarmatis, Gemino bello devictis ex S.C. Romae in Antonini Foro ad Viã Flaminiã erecta, ac utriusque belli imaginibus anaglyphice insculpta nunc primum a Petro Sancti Bartolo, iuxta delineationes in Bibliotheca Barberina asservatas a se cum antiquis ipsius columnae signis collatas, aere incisa, et in lucem edita. Cum notis excerptis ex declarationibus Io: Petri Bellorii, Romae apud auctorem" in: Giornale de’ letterati, ed. Giovanni Giustino Ciampini, 1676, pp. 33-39 (FONTES 19)

Abstract

TEN CONTEMPORARY REVIEWS OF BOOKS ON ART AND ARCHAEOLOGY BY GIOVAN PIETRO BELLORI IN THE GIORNALE DE’ LETTERATI, 1670-1680, NO. 5 The album illustrating the ‘Columna Antoniniana’, or Column of Marcus Aurelius, reviewed in the ‘Giornale de’ letterati’ in 1676, contains engravings by Pietro Santi Bartoli of the column and its relief sculpture. The engravings of the reliefs include legends written by Giovan Pietro Bellori. The title page states that these texts were exerpted from Bellori’s explanations of the column of Marcus Aurelius: “Cum notis excerptis ex declarationibus Io. Petri Bellorii”. No text of an explication of the Column of Marcus Aurelius by Bellori survives. Indeed, it has not been previously noticed that such a text ever existed. Nevertheless, the anonymous reviewer of the ‘Columna Antoniniana’ knew this text very well, as what he writes demonstrates. He writes, in fact, about Bellori’s notes and expositions and about a discourse by Bellori about the column not yet published, “non ancora impresse”. The reviewer draws very extensively on Bellori’s material, and thus many significant aspects of Bellori’s lost work can be recovered. Through Bellori’s historical investigations of the Germanic wars and his study of their representations in relief sculpture, Bellori corrected many errors on the part of modern historians and antiquarians, and he was able to enlarge greatly what was previously known, drawing mainly on ancient writings and on what he observed in the reliefs. Bellori had a marked interest in the military customs and habits of the Germans. He identifies their functionaries, their dress, arms, and armour, their methods of travel, their camps, buildings, and methods of building, and many other things. Bellori also paid particular attention to the artistic aspects of the reliefs, evaluating them in relation to those on the Column of Trajan. Of particular interest is what the reviewer writes about the representation of the pluvial Jupiter. His description and interpretation, clearly deriving from Bellori’s, indicate how extensive Bellori’s analytic descriptions of the ancient reliefs must have been. Drawing on Bellori’s missing introduction and on his descriptions and interpretations of the relief sculpture, the review of the "Colonna Antoniniana", sheds further light on the scope and erudition of Bellori's archaeological studies, and it reveals Bellori to us in his attempts to elucidate the history of Rome and its empire through a close investigation of its monuments