Published online by Cambridge University Press: 20 November 2018
This article investigates the relationships between hydraulic engineering and antiquarian studies in Rome in the long decade between the devastating Tiber River flood of 1557 and the completion of the repair of an ancient aqueduct, the Acqua Vergine, in 1570. The essay focuses on the physician Andrea Bacci (1524–1600), the engineer Antonio Trevisi (d. 1566), the jurist and Roman magistrate Luca Peto (1512–81), and the antiquarian Pirro Ligorio (ca. 1510–83). These individuals from both learned and practical backgrounds approached urgent problems of hydraulic engineering by studying ancient texts and artifacts, and they proposed solutions that were influenced by their study. This confluence of antiquarian study and engineering contributed to the development of empirical methodologies in the late Renaissance by making engineering part of a learned discourse.
The research for this paper was supported initially by a fellowship at the Dibner Institute for the History of Science and Technology, by an RSA grant, an AHA Bernadotte E. Schmitt Grant, a Mellon Foundation Postdoctoral Rome Prize Fellowship at the American Academy in Rome, and by NSF grant STS 0240358. Further research, writing, and revisions were supported by fellowships from the Shelby Cullom Davis Center for Historical Studies, Department of History, Princeton University, from the Getty Research Institute in LA, by an NEH Fellowship, and from a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Fellowship. The views, findings, conclusions, and recommendations expressed in this publication do not necessarily reflect those of NEH. This paper has been greatly enriched by the lively discussions at colloquia given at the above institutions and at UC Santa Barbara and UC San Diego. I would like to thank Craig Martin for his papers and discussion on meteorology; Ronald Delph, Anthony Grafton, Priscilla Long, Cesare Maffioli, and Katherine Rinne for their comments on earlier versions of this paper; Bob Korn for help in editing; and RQ reviewer Ingrid Rowland, two anonymous reviewers, and, for superb copyediting, Timothy Krause, all of whom helped to improve this paper. I have used the following abbreviations for libraries and archives in citations of manuscripts: Rome: ASC = Archivio Storico Capitolino; ASR = Archivio di Stato di Roma; Torino: AST = Archivio di Stato di Torino; Vatican City: ASV = Archivio Segreto Vaticano; BAV = Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana.