The Porto di Ripetta was a port in the city of
Rome
Rome (Italian language, Italian and , ) is the capital city and most populated (municipality) of Italy. It is also the administrative centre of the Lazio Regions of Italy, region and of the Metropolitan City of Rome. A special named with 2, ...
. It was situated on the banks of the
River Tiber
The Tiber ( ; ; ) is the List of rivers of Italy, third-longest river in Italy and the longest in Central Italy, rising in the Apennine Mountains in Emilia-Romagna and flowing through Tuscany, Umbria, and Lazio, where it is joined by the R ...
and was designed and built in 1704 by the Italian
Baroque
The Baroque ( , , ) is a Western Style (visual arts), style of Baroque architecture, architecture, Baroque music, music, Baroque dance, dance, Baroque painting, painting, Baroque sculpture, sculpture, poetry, and other arts that flourished from ...
architect
Alessandro Specchi. Located in front of the church of
San Girolamo degli Schiavoni, its low walls with steps descended in sweeping
scenographic curves from the street to the river. The port no longer exists but is known from engraved views, drawings and early photographs.
Situated on the left bank of the Tiber (as facing south), this was the place to alight for those coming downriver; the
Porto di Ripa Grande on the other bank in
Trastevere
Trastevere () is the 13th of Rome, Italy. It is identified by the initials R. XIII and it is located within Municipio I. Its name comes from Latin ().
Its coat of arms depicts a golden head of a lion on a red background, the meaning of which i ...
served those coming up from the seaward side of the city.
During the second half of the 19th century, the river banks and roads along the Tiber were radically reconstructed to improve the city's flooding defences and its transport connections. The new roads which flank the river were called
Lungotevere.
In the area of the Porto di Ripetta, an iron bridge was constructed between 1877 and 1879 across the Tiber and adjacent to the port. This in turn led to the construction of another more substantial bridge, the
Ponte Cavour, which was opened in 1901, and the Porto di Ripetta was demolished. Photographs from the late nineteenth century record the port, the iron bridge and the new
Ponte Cavour.
[See ''Rome in Early Photographs 1846-1878. Photographs from the Roman and Danish Collections''. Trans. Ann Thornton. ]Thorvaldsen Museum
The Thorvaldsen Museum is a single-artist museum in Copenhagen, Denmark, dedicated to the art of Danish and Icelandic Neoclassical sculptor Bertel Thorvaldsen (1770–1844), who lived and worked in Rome for most of his life (1796–1838). The ...
, Copenhagen, 1977, plates 142-5
Farther upstream along the
lungotevere Arnaldo da Brescia on the left bank of the river, the ramps of the
de Pinedo landing-stage (), built in the late nineteenth century to replace the port, echo in simplified form the latter's design.
Gallery
File:Piranesi-16053.jpg, Engraving by Giovanni Battista Piranesi
Giovanni Battista (or Giambattista) Piranesi (; also known as simply Piranesi; 4 October 1720 – 9 November 1778) was an Italian classical archaeologist, architect, and artist, famous for his etchings of Rome and of fictitious and atmospheric " ...
(ca. 1750)
File:Porto di Ripetta - Plate 085 - Giuseppe Vasi.jpg, Engraving by Giuseppe Vasi
Giuseppe Vasi (27 August 1710 – 16 April 1782) was an Italian engraver and architect, best known for his ''Veduta, vedute''.
Biography
He was born in Corleone, Sicily and later, around 1736, moved to Rome. After a period of intense visits and ...
(1754)
File:Hubert Robert - View of Ripetta - WGA19603.jpg, '' A View of Ripetta'' by Hubert Robert
Hubert Robert (; 22 May 1733 – 15 April 1808) was a French painter in the school of Romanticism, noted especially for his landscape paintings and capricci, or semi-fictitious picturesque depictions of ruins in Italy and of France.Jean de Cayeux ...
, (1766)
File:Tuminello, Ludovico - Der Porto di Ripetta (Zeno Fotografie).jpg, Photograph by Ludovico Tuminello (ca. 1860)
File:Lithograph of Porto di Ripetta by Philippe Benoist (Rome dans sa grandeur -1870).jpg, Lithography by Philippe Benoist (1870)
References
External links
Roberto Piperno, "Porto di Ripetta"
{{Coord, 41.9051, N, 12.4750, E, source:wikidata-and-enwiki-cat-tree_region:IT, display=title
Port cities and towns in Italy
Transport in Rome