Abstract

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:American Journal of Philology 124.4 (2003) 621-624 [Access article in PDF] HARRY B. EVANS. Aqueduct Hunting in the Seventeenth Century: Raffaello Fabretti's De aquis et aquaeductibus veteris Romae. Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 2002. xvi + 309 pp. 38 black-and-white figures. Cloth, $55. Stretching across the Roman Campagna, the tall arches of ancient aqueducts, even in their present ruined condition, are vivid reminders of the powerful state and skilled engineers that built them. Scholarly interest in the geography and topography of the Campagna, with its natural and manmade wonders, had its genesis in such ancient commentators as Pliny the Elder and Strabo, but perhaps no scholars were more energetic than the early modern. Antiquarians and archaeologists perused the ruins of Rome and its countryside, among them the talented epigrapher and hunter of aqueducts, Raffaello Fabretti. A prominent figure in the learned world of seventeenth-century Rome, Fabretti published a study of the city's ancient aqueducts in 1680. It was the earliest modern topographical work to take the water system as its subject and among the most influential studies of its kind. Until now, Fabretti's treatise, titled De aquis et aquaeductibus veteris Romae, was available only in the original Latin (reprinted in The Printed Sources of Western Art series); its language quirky, ornate, and difficult, the treatise was not readily accessible to most readers.In the volume under review, Harry Evans, a veteran scholar of the Roman countryside and its water system, provides a complete English translation of and commentary on Fabretti's Deaquis. In the original text, Fabretti takes his readers on an exhaustive tour of the Roman Campagna that includes not only the aqueducts—whose water sources, conduit routes, and distribution systems he details—but also the ancient road system and city gates; he even assesses the size of the ancient city itself. His discussion encompasses literary, epigraphic, and archaeological evidence and is invaluable for its description of physical remains long since lost. Focusing primarily on the topographical issues addressed by Fabretti, Evans assesses his methods, contributions, and errors; at the same time, Evans offers a glimpse into the lively, often deeply contentious world of early modern scholarship.Fabretti's treatise was initially written as three separate "dissertations," published together in 1680. The first addresses the route and purpose of the Aqua Alexandrina, a third-century imperial conduit; the second explores the sources of the Aqua Marcia and Aqua Claudia in the upper Anio valley east of Tivoli; the third investigates a discrepancy between the number of aqueducts cited by Procopius (14) and the number of water sources listed in the fourth-century regionary catalogues (20). In two introductory chapters, Evans reviews Fabretti's biography and provides historical context for the treatise. Each of the following three chapters addresses one of the dissertations, with Evans' commentary following a full translation of the text. In a brief conclusion, Evan reflects upon Fabretti's contribution to later archaeological and topographical scholarship down to the twentieth century. Evans provides a readable translation of Fabretti's Latin text (while remaining faithful to the original), a text that will amuse [End Page 621] readers with its frequent barbs aimed at rivals in the field. Amply illustrated, including reproductions of the topographical maps that accompany each dissertation, this volume is a significant resource not only for philologists but also for historians of Rome more generally.Like many polymaths of his day, Fabretti had a career in the Church but made his name as a scholar of the ancients. His knowledge of Rome and the Campagna was not simply literary, though his command of the written sources was unquestionable, for as superintendent of the catacombs and custodian of antiquities, Fabretti had ample opportunity to excavate and examine Roman remains firsthand. He formed his own collection of inscriptions and published a number of ambitious archaeological tomes, including one on the column of Trajan. Intimate with the most learned persons of his day, Bernard Montfaucon and Giovanni Ciampini among them, Fabretti moved in the scholarly...