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View of the Piazza del Campidoglio from the left side of the Cordonata
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The simplicity of the design partakes of the inevitable. Considering it from any point of view,
it is not only impossible to think of anything better, it is impossible to think of anything else.
If it is not the work of Michelangelo, there must have been two Michelangelos in 1538!
In Piranesi's engraving of the Campidoglio a fine balustrade like the one on the stairway
surrounds the fountain. It follows the contour of the lower basin and stands at some three or
four feet distant from it. This balustrade, which has disappeared, enhanced distinctly the beauty
of the fountain, bringing it more into harmony with the entire composition.
The river-god is one of the earliest sculptural personifications of natural phenomena.
In these days comparatively little heed is paid to the smaller waterways, so the modern spirit
fails to see the significance of these conventionalized figures. To the ancients, however, the
statues personified that physical object upon which all civilized life depended?a great stream of
unfailing water. The rivers of Greece were small, while the Roman Empire contained some of the
largest in the world; but the ideas they represented were the same. The river, small or great,
made the city. The river gave food and drink to the inhabitants, connected them with the outside
world, brought trade, turned the mills, defended the city from invasion, carried away pestilence,
cleansed, purified, and supported all the works of men; and therefore Father Tiber and bis brothers
were to be worshipped and to be honored, and statues were to be set up to them in public places,
so that men should remember what they owed to their river. The river is always personified as a
benign and majestic figure in the full strength of mature manhood,with long and abundant hair and
beard. The lower limbs are draped, so that the mystery of partial concealment hangs about him.
On one arm he bears a horn of plenty; while with the other he reclines upon some support, which
is usually the characteristic emblem of the particular stream which he represents.
Power, abundance, and calm strength are the qualities of a great river; and these qualities
the ancients most adequately expressed in their own peculiar medium, which was sculpture. Men
of to-day put their ideas into music, or more explicitly into prose or verse, and there are still
those who appreciate the significance of the river. Washington Irving's epithet of the
"lordly Hudson" proves the hold that great river had over his perception and imagination; and not
any statue of a river-god can give the conception of a river which is to be found in Arnold's
"Sohrab and Rustum":
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