Early Book Collections | Art and Architecture

River Gods: The Tiber & the Nile

Nicolas Beatrizet (ca. 1515-65), and Antoine Lafréry (active 1544-77), executed these two inscribed, separately issued engravings of ancient Roman river god sculptures around the middle of the sixteenth century. They form a small part of their much larger decades-long collaboration on the so-called Speculum Romanae Magnificentiae—a massive collection of engravings of Rome and Roman antiquities for Grand Tourists, antiquaries, and collectors, which was first gathered together under the title “Mirror of Roman Magnificence” in the mid-1570’s. Many portfolio collections of the Speculum are preserved today, and almost no two are the same, since they vary greatly in the number of prints, with many individual prints having been reissued and sometimes altered over time. The largest collection, clearly assembled by a wealthy patron and art aficionado, is currently held by the University of Chicago Library, numbering nearly 1,000 separate prints in all, which has been digitized. The most sought after of these prints are those that are preserved in their first and visually richest states, such as these.

The “Speculum” originated at Rome following the sack of 1527 when the Spanish emigree Antonio Salamanca began regularly to produce engravings of Roman subjects. By the 1540s, the French emigree Antoine Lafréry (Italianized as Antonio Lafreri) began his rival enterprise, copying many of Salamanca’s engravings while also commissioning new images of ancient and Renaissance Roman, subjects such as these two river gods, as well as Rome’s ancient Egyptian obelisks, temples, tombs, fountains, palaces, &c. In 1553, the two competing Roman publishers joined forced for a dozen years, marking the most intensive period of print production for the Speculum.

Salamanca died in 1562, and following Lafreri’s death in 1577, two-thirds of the existing copper plates were passed on to his heirs, with the remaining third sold to other publishers along with some stock of printed engravings. These new owners continued to print the existing images while still producing new prints, making the provenance of nearly every engraving in the Speculum series among the most complex in the history of Renaissance prints. Many of the earliest Speculum portfolios were invariably disbound and sold off individually, a practice that continued across the centuries.

These colossal ancient statues of the Rivers Tiber and Nile were unearthed in Rome in 1512 and 1513 in the vicinity of the ancient Sanctuary of Isis and Serapis. The Tiber, discovered first, was immediately transferred to Pope Pius II’s cortile delle statue (sculpture court) in the Belvedere villa at the Vatican—arguably the first purpose-built, semi-public art museum of the Renaissance, and the seed of the vast Vatican Museum today. There it joined other Hellenistic sculptural masterpieces that had also recently been unearthed, including the celebrated Laocoön (discovered and appropriated for the collection in 1506) and the Apollo Belvedere (owned by Julius II since 1489, long before his papacy, but not installed in the Belvedere until 1511.) The statue of the Nile was discovered in February 1513, the same month as Julius II’s death, and was eventually installed in the cortile delle statue early in the reign of Julius’ successor, the Medici pope Leo X.

As mirror images, the statues of the Tiber and Nile functioned as a pair, much as they had in antiquity; accordingly, in the cortile of the Belvedere, they were positioned facing each other from across the courtyard. Beatrizet deftly transfers the paired consciousness of these two freestanding sculptures into the two-dimensional space of these prints. Rather than showing the edges of the base upon which the statues sit, he has instead extended the sculpted motif of water surrounding the statues into the foreground, creating the illusion of the gods floating upon the rivers they personify. Beatrizet has also devised a clever solution for depicting the sculptural friezes carved along the bases of the statues. The artist has reproduced them as three-part frames that run around the top and side edges of the engraving. As Claudia Lazzaro has observed, “the Tiber and Nile led to a clear understanding of the ancient type, the identification of other statues, and ultimately the tremendous popularity in the sixteenth century of river gods in fountains, festivities and triumphal entries, political propaganda, and much more.” Attracting artists far and wide for centuries, some of the earliest extant visual evidence of their interest appear in the celebrated 1530s drawing book of Maarten van Heemskerck, and in finished drawings by Eneo Vico, both of which may have been prepared as the basis of engravings such as these.

The first state of six—this was among the more heavily reprinted engravings in the Speculum—this print is especially rich in historical detail thanks to the extensive address to the reader by Lafréry describing the statue:

ECCE TIBI CANDIDE LECTOR TIBERIS FLUVI SIMULACHRUM EID LUPA ROMULUM REMUM QUE CONDITOREIS URBEIS LACTANS INDICAT DUPLICI LAUDE INSIGNE ET SCULPTURAE MAIESTATE ET IN EIUS FLUMINIS PROPRIEIS EXPLICANDEIS EXCELLENTIA CORNUCOPIAE ENIM AMNIS UBERTATEM DEMONSTRAT LUPUS OVIS ARIES VULPES EQUUS SUS HEIC EXPRESSA FREQUENTIA SUNT CIRCA FLUVIUM ANIMALIA EIUS OPPORTUNITATEM NAVIGIA ONERA SECUNDO ADVERSO ADQUE TRANSVERSO FLUMINE PORTANTIA HOMINES QUE IN EO NATANTES ET PISCANTES CUM AEDIFICIEIS DECLARANT EIUS AQUA CUM SIT OMNIUM SALUBERRIMA PER LONGA TEMPORA PRAETER CAETERARUM NATURAM IN QUOVIS VASE EXTRA ALVEUM SUUM INTEGRA CONSERVATUR ET IN CORRUPTA A CUIUS ETIAM COLORE ALBULA AB ANTIQUEIS APPELLATUS EVIT NUNC TIBERIS A REGE EIUS NOMINIS VEL IUXTA EUM CAESO VEL IN EO SUBMERSO DICITUR ORITUR IN APOENINO ET IN TYRRHENIBUS AVEGTUR EST AUTEM HOC EX ANTIQUO MARMOREO SIMULACHRO QUOD IN VATICANO ADHUC EXTAT DILIGENTER DEFORMATUM ET IN HAC TABELLA ANT. LAFRERI AENEIS FORMIS AD AMUSSIM EXCUSUM.

[“Behold for yourself, serene reader: this engraving of the Tiber river together with the she-wolf, who suckles Romulus and Remus, founders of the city highlights… the majesty of the sculpture and the excellence of the river’s characteristics, which are [now] to be illustrated: The cornucopia illustrates the abundance of the river: the wolf, the sheep, the ram, the fox, the horse, the pig, depicted here, are animals frequently found close to the river. The boats that carry weights (some moving with the current, others against it, or moving from one side of the river to the other), and the men who sail, swim, or fish in it, together with the buildings, show what opportunities the river offers. Its water, being the healthiest of all, once taken from its stream, is preserved unspoiled and uncorrupted for a long time in any container. Because of the color of its water it was called “Albula” by the ancients, while now it is called “Tiber” because of the king who bore that name and who was killed along its course (or was overwhelmed by it.) [The river] originates in the Apennines and flows towards the Tyrrhenian Sea, after receiving the waters of 40 tributaries. The image, diligently outlined and in this panel engraved on copper plate by Antoine Lafréry, reproduces this ancient marble statue, which is still to be found in the Vatican.”]

Like the Tiber plate, the Nile engraving also includes a long explanatory inscription in Latin, much of it dedicated to describing the frieze along the base. The figure of the river is that of an aged man stretched out on his side, bearing a cornucopia of fruit cradled by his left arm, and ears of wheat in his right hand. Egypt is further denoted by the presence of a sphinx, on which the figure of the Nile supports himself, and a gathering of other exotic beasts. The fecundity of the Nile, thanks to its seasonal flooding, is further represented in the sixteen little children. The base of the statue is decorated with a Nile landscape as well as pygmies, hippopotami, and crocodiles. The sculpture was probably inspired by a monumental Hellenistic statue of the Nile originally executed in black basalt, which Pliny the Elder located in the Forum of Peace.

VETERUM MONUMENTORUM STUDIOSE LECTOR QUM EXCELLENS ANTIQUOR SCULPTORUM EX HAC TABELLA INGENIUM LAUDAVERIS NATURAE DEINCEPS MIRACULA QUAE IN EA EXCUSA VISUNTUR CONTEMPLARE NILI AEGYPTII AMNIS TOTIUS ORBIS MAXIMI HEIC TIBEI SIMULACHRUM PROPONITUR QUOIUS SINGULA AD XVI CUBITORUM INCREMENTA TOTIDEM PUERI INDICANT ANIMAL QUO NILI IMAGO NITITUR ORE VIRGINIS RELIQUO CORPORE LEONIS IULIUM ATQUE AUGUSTUM QUE IS CRESCIT DECRESCITQUE DESIGNAT QUOD PER ILLOS MENSEIS SOL EA SIGNA TENERE INCIPI AT FRUCTUUM ET FLORUM ABUNDANTIAM CORNUCOPIAE DEMONSTRAT ADSUNT ANIMALLA FLUMINI TERRAE Q. PROPRIA ET PROPE RIPAS ADNASCENTIA VIRGULTA SE EXIGUUS Q. SCINCOS PRAECIPUUS CROCODILO HOSTIS AGILES DEMUM HOMUNCULI TENTYRITAE NILI ACCOLAE HEI SUNT QUOS LINTRIBUS VEHI VIDES DEFORMES AC STATURA PARVI VERUM ANIMI PRAESENTIA MAGNI QUEIS SOLIS ET VI ET ASTURA CONCESSUM HERBAE VERO SECUNDUM RIPAS NASCENTES COLOCASSIA PAPIRUS AEGYPTIA Q. CALAMUS SUNT HAEC OMNIA TIBI ANT. LAFRERI AENEA TABULA NUNC PROPERT EX ANTIQUO SIMULACHRO QUOD IN VATICANO ADHUC CONSPICITUR EXACTE EFFIGIATA.

[“O reader, passionate about ancient monuments, while, looking at this engraving you would, firstly, praise the excellent ingenuity of the ancient sculptors, contemplate secondly the miracles of nature that are engraved on it: here you are presented with the image of the Nile of Egypt, the greatest river of the whole world, whose sixteen levels of rise and fall are indicated by as many children. The animal on which the Nile rests, with the face of a virgin (and the rest of the body of a lion) designates July and August, in which the Nile waxes and wanes, because the sun in those months begins to occupy those signs [of the zodiac]. The cornucopia designates the abundance of fruits and flowers. Then there are the animals typical of the river and the land, and the bushes that grow on the banks. There is the image of the ox of Serapis, the cow of Isis, the crocodile, the hippopotamus, the ibis, the tiny trochilus [the plover], the skink (*), a particular enemy of the crocodile. And there are the agile little men of Tentira [Dendera], ( *) inhabitants of the Nile: you see them being carried away by their river boats (*), deformed and small in stature but large in presence of mind: they alone are granted by nature to tame, with strength and cunning, the immense beasts of the river. There are the herbs that grow on the banks, the Colocasia plants (*), the Egyptian papyrus which, to you, are all reeds. These things Antonio Lafréry now offers as a print, portrayed precisely as they are found on an ancient statue that to this day can be seen in the Vatican.”]

—Earle Havens