Page - 13 - in The Power of Urban Water - Studies in premodern urbanism

Patric-AlexanderKreuz 2 FromNature to Topography Water in theCities of RomanNorthern Italy Abstract:ThePoand itsnumerous tributarieswereadominant featureofRomannorthern Italy. Ancientauthorsemphasize theregion’s richness inwater–andindicatehowthischallengewas metbycities andsettlements. Inaddition, archaeological research in the regionhasbrought to lightnumerous remainsofwater infrastructure in the cities, dating from the 3rd/2nd centuryBC to the2ndcenturyAD.Thiscomprisesharbours,canalsandbridges,aswellasmanifold installa- tionsandarchitecturesaspartof the local topographies.Theomnipresenceofwatermustclear- lyhave contributed to the regionalurbanexperience. Yetwaterwasnot onlyunderstoodas an infrastructural and technical challenge by the urban communities. It was increasingly embed- ded in urban spaces and architectural complexes, where its display enriched local cityscapes. The paper seeks to outline this tendency towards an increasingly prominent aesthetic role of water in the regional cityscapes. Drawing on a limited number of examples, it addresses three aspectsofwaterandits role inurbansettings: thepresenceof (natural)water inurbancontexts, the decorative use of water to enrich architectural constellations, and the role of water as a locale inurban topographies. With the following remarks, I seek to focus on changing approaches to water in the Roman citiesofnorthern Italyandondifferentways itbecamemanifestas ‘urbanwater’, i.e.anameni- ty contributing tooraccentuatingaspecific, prominentlyaesthetic, qualityof architectural and urban spaces. An aspect of regional cityscapes is thus addressed that not only influenced the experienceandperceptionofurbanspacesor thecitiesasawhole,butalsoplayedanimportant role in defining the urban ambience as a stage for and expression of urban lifestyles, hence relating towider contemporary concepts of adequateurbanity. The period chosen comprises the centuries from the 2nd century BC to the 2nd centuryAD, i.e. the first centuries after the establishmentofRomanrule innorthern Italy–andhereabove all the 1st centuriesBC/AD. It is this period inwhichwecan trace the introductionof newcon- cepts of urbanity in the region and the development of a flourishing urban landscape (Fig. 1). In the context of the following remarks, I understand, possibly too superficially, ‘nature’ to be influenced by human intervention, i.e. environment managed by man in a reactive way. ‘Topography’, on theother hand, designates the elements of formernatural constellations that havebeenappropriatedarchitecturally and inscribed in the cityscapeas ‘places’ or ‘locales’. Note:My thanksgo to theorganisers of theUrbanWater colloquium,NicolaChiarenzaandAnnetteHaug, for the opportunity to contribute to the colloquiumwithapaper onwater in the cityscapesof Romannorthern Italy. It addresses somephenomenaelaborated inmyhabilitation thesis on the changingaesthetic of theRomancities innorthern Italy (in preparation for publication). OpenAccess.©2020Patric-AlexanderKreuz, publishedbyDeGruyter. Thiswork is licensedunder theCreative CommonsAttribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives4.0 License. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110677065-002