An Account of a Book

RAPHAELIS FABRETTI Urbinatis de Aquis & Aqueductibus veteris Romae Dissertationes tres in Quarto Romae, 1680. 1. The first Discourse of the noble and ingenious Fabretti represents the Art and Grandure of the Aqueductus Alexandrinus, which taking name from Severus the Emperor, as Spartanus afflures, runs obliquely for a good Foundation, yet loftily, in most places upon an Arc LXX. foot high, through Procoio di Pantano between the Via Labicana and Prænestina, hard by the noble Sepulcher of the said Emperor and his Mother, unto the Vineyard of the Carthusians in the City, at 14 miles distance from its Fountain. The Duct or Specus is 2½ foot broad, 4½ high, and thick in the sides 2¼, admitting in divers places an aperture or Breath-hole made of Tophus 2½ foot square: and is sustein'd by square Piles of Brick, 8 foot thick, well cemented and inwardly polish't; and cover'd with an Arc of the same matter 12 foot over. 2. The second Dissertation, which treats of Aqua Marcia and Claudia, is opportunely prefact with the measure of the Old Roman Foot: which this Learned Italian afferts to be the Pes Capitolinus, that L. Patrus procur'd, more than an hundred years since, to be express'd on a marble Table in the Capitol, together with the Roman Palm of nine inches, and the Canna Architectonica of ten Palms, and the Decempeda or Rod of ten Foot. Our Author comparing the two last together, found the Modern or Architectonic Palm to make near 9½ inches of the Ancient Roman Foot, the Canna Architectonica reaching to 7½ Feet of the old Decempeda: and consequently that a Roman Mile, or 5000 Foot, contains near 660½ of the modern Canna; not 667 Cannæ, as L. Holstenius estimates in his Discourse De milario Aureo, mistaking the modern Roman Palm for just ¾ of the Antique Roman Foot. Much less will 650 Cannæ of the Later Survivors extend to the length of an old Roman mile, as L. Patrus computed. But the measure of the Pes Capitolinus on the marble Table fore-mentioned, (and not the Print of it p. 88 L. Patz de mensuris, too scanty by ¼ of an inch,) is sufficiently confirmed by three jointed Brass-Foots found in different places, and by several Bricks, carrying one Foot in length, and an half in breadth, taken up from the Ruins in Via Ostiensis and in divers other places. Where- Wherefore this Capitol Foot ought to be preferred unto the rude Draughts on the Monuments of the ancient Architects, M. Abutius, T. Statilius, and N. Cassius; which last is taken for the very Roman Foot by the honor of our Nation Dr. John Greaves. Yet this, as well as the Statilian, falls short of the Capitol-Foot by near half part of an inch, whereas the Abutian is about as much too large. Moreover the Villalpandine Module, argued loofely and inversly from the Content of the Vißafian-Congius, excceeds by half of an Inch the Capitoline or True Roman Foot: for to this do precisely agree, says our wise and experienced Author, the numerous Patterns and Remains of ancient Architecture, that are daily dug up about the City. Soon after he gives a public Example of the Capitoline Foot, telling us it suites exactly with the 73. of those cxxv. spaces into which Villalpandus divides his Semicircular Instrument p. 376. Comment in Ezech. Lastly, the Foot which Ricciolus offers us for Roman in his Almanack, p. 58 surpasseth the Capitoline by a full Digit, or half of the whole: and his other measure Geograph. Reform. f. 34. by half part. But to return to our Aqueduct, highly extoll'd by Pliny, Plutarch, Arrian, Frontinus, and in this Clause of Proserpini, Aternum Marcius humor opus. This Water taking its name from King Ancus, and as deservedly from Publius and Quimus, in the same Marcius Family, οἱ μετανοῶν ὁδοῖς καὶ ἐγκαίνιοι ἐν Ῥώμη ἀπολαύσαντες, &c., ariseth not from the Lacus Fucinus (whence Pliny and Statius would fetch it) but in the Cross-path between the Via Valeria and Sublacensis, two miles short of Cædulus and Curtius, the Fountains of qua Claudia: but observes the same Level with the Claudian, because it descends more precipitate from the Origine. Yet within 5 miles of Rome the Aqua Marcia runs 20 Foot lower than the Aqua Claudia. But at 7 miles distance from Rome, and at a mile and an half from the midway to Marino, as Fabretti after Frontinus exactly measured, the Aqua Marcia is both purified and moduled, by falling into, and soon after rising up from a long square Piscina or Cistern, 6 foot deep, made of Flint, and cover'd with a Net work, by order of Hadrian the Emperor. Now the latter use of these Ponds or Cisterns, that inflaminate the Current of the Aqueducts, is frequently taken notice of by Frontinus: so that Signior Castelli his belov'd Probleme, Ex velocitate aquae modum ejus variare, is not so new as he pretends. 3. The third Dissertation concerning Aqueducts, the best Argument, by the confession of Dionysius, Strabo, Pliny and others, of the Magnificence of Rome, remarques that of the fourteen Aqueducts which Procopius found at the City in his time, ten are now quite lost; and the other four, namely Aqua Crabra or Daminata, Trajana, Alexandrina, and Virgo much corrupted. The last so much fam'd in Antiquity, arising near Rivus Herculanicus, is derived unto Porta Flaminia at the length of LXIII. Acres or 3024. Roman Paces. For to the Ports of Rome, and not (as the Incomparable Holstenius contends) from the gilded Miliarium, the conducts of Ways and Waters are precisely to be estimated. Upon this occasion Signior Fabretti ingeniously acknowledges, against the Exorbitance of J. Lusins and others, that the compass of Rome (ambitus Urbis) by its Ancient Ports, should be reduc't in Plinian numbers from XIII. by an easy change unto VIII Miles; to accord to the magnitude of Athens, which is the Assertion of Strato: as also to the limits of Dionysius, within the ridge of the Hills, the Tumuli, the Tibur, and the Agger. Yet (Rom. amplitude) Rome taken with all its Suburbs, according to the same Pliny and to this Dissertator, made a wide Circuit of LXX. Miles. This in brief from the three Learned Discourses of Signior Raphael Fabretti.