Ponte Sisto
Title
Subject
Description
Ponte Sisto connects connecting the east bank of the Tiber River to its west bank at Trastevere. The original bridge, called Pons Agrippae, Pons Antoninus, Pons Aurelianus, Pons Janiculensis, or Ponte Valentinianus, depending on the source, was an ancient Roman structure. It collapsed sometime between the late 8th and 11th centuries, severing an important physical link between Trastevere and the more heavily settled east bank of Rome. What is fascinating about this site, however, is that it continued to have importance after its collapse. It had a tangible impact on the shipping patterns of the Tiber, for its ruins made the already-narrow channel even more treacherous. Yet the bridge also continued to have a more abstract significance: the standard guidebook of the 11th to 14th centuries, known as the Mirabilia, lists this bridge as one of many extant structures, and references it for geographic orientation. Thus, the site continued to be known and even important during the medieval era.
In 1473, Pope Sixtus IV decided to reconstruct the bridge slightly downstream to provide alternate routes of foot traffic for the 1475 Jubilee, and named the ponte after himself. Jill E. Blondin argues that Sixtus undertook his urban restoration work to promote himself, and to communicate "the message of his secular and sacred authority to observers" (1). In her analysis of both the bridge and Sixtus's other public works, Blondin finds that Sixtus emphasized both his own greatness and the greatness of antique and contemporary Rome. Blondin concludes that Sixtus "drew on antique symbols, sculptures, and buildings to create a glorious, new Christian Rome fashioned to represent him squarely in charge of the civic and spiritual dimensions of the city" (24). With Blondin's reminder of the continuing power of ancient Rome throughout the medieval and Renaissance periods, we may begin to imagine the Ponte Sisto as a site that, due to its ancient origins, may have continued to have symbolic significance even when it was in pieces in the Tiber.
Abstract
Creator
Source
Blondin, Jill E. "Power Made Visible: Pope Sixtus IV as Urbis Restaurator in Quattrocento Rome," in The Catholic Historical Review Vol. 90., No. 1 (Jan., 2005): 1-25.
Krautheimer, Richard. Rome. Portrait of a City, 312-1308. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000.
Nichols, Francis Morgan ed. and trans. Marvels of Rome: Mirabilia Urbis Romae. New York: Italica Press, 1986. "
Identifier
Coverage
Spatial Coverage
Description
Ponte Sisto connects connecting the east bank of the Tiber River to its west bank at Trastevere. The original bridge, called Pons Agrippae, Pons Antoninus, Pons Aurelianus, Pons Janiculensis, or Ponte Valentinianus, depending on the source, was an ancient Roman structure. It collapsed sometime between the late 8th and 11th centuries, severing an important physical link between Trastevere and the more heavily settled east bank of Rome. What is fascinating about this site, however, is that it continued to have importance after its collapse. It had a tangible impact on the shipping patterns of the Tiber, for its ruins made the already-narrow channel even more treacherous. Yet the bridge also continued to have a more abstract significance: the standard guidebook of the 11th to 14th centuries, known as the Mirabilia, lists this bridge as one of many extant structures, and references it for geographic orientation. Thus, the site continued to be known and even important during the medieval era.
In 1473, Pope Sixtus IV decided to reconstruct the bridge slightly downstream to provide alternate routes of foot traffic for the 1475 Jubilee, and named the ponte after himself. Jill E. Blondin argues that Sixtus undertook his urban restoration work to promote himself, and to communicate "the message of his secular and sacred authority to observers" (1). In her analysis of both the bridge and Sixtus's other public works, Blondin finds that Sixtus emphasized both his own greatness and the greatness of antique and contemporary Rome. Blondin concludes that Sixtus "drew on antique symbols, sculptures, and buildings to create a glorious, new Christian Rome fashioned to represent him squarely in charge of the civic and spiritual dimensions of the city" (24). With Blondin's reminder of the continuing power of ancient Rome throughout the medieval and Renaissance periods, we may begin to imagine the Ponte Sisto as a site that, due to its ancient origins, may have continued to have symbolic significance even when it was in pieces in the Tiber.
Creator
Anna Guasco (2016)Coverage
1500sSource
Blondin, Jill E. "Power Made Visible: Pope Sixtus IV as Urbis Restaurator in Quattrocento Rome," in The Catholic Historical Review Vol. 90., No. 1 (Jan., 2005): 1-25.
Krautheimer, Richard. Rome. Portrait of a City, 312-1308. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000.
Nichols, Francis Morgan ed. and trans. Marvels of Rome: Mirabilia Urbis Romae. New York: Italica Press, 1986. "