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Temple of Castor and Pollux
from Remembering the End of Eternity: 19th Century Architectural Mementos of Ancient Ruined Rome, 2021
VIII. An Extraordinary Model of the Ruins of the Temple of Castor and Pollux
29” h., c 1860, giallo antico marble, rosso antico bresciatto marble base
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Book IV of Palladio’s 1570 Quattro Libri contains a precise (and sumptuous) woodcut picturing the formal essentials of a type of Corinthian temple named in honor of Castor and Pollux, twin halfbrothers whose mother was Leda and whose fathers were both mortal (Tyndareus) and divine (Zeus).
A hundred years later, architectural draftsman Antonio Desgodetz published Les Edifices Antiques de Rome, including a not quite photographic view of Rome’s temple to the twins. Accompanying this was the Frenchman’s derisive litany of Palladio’s errors.
With this extraodinarily highly realized, minutely-carved, very closely-observed model of the Forum’s ruins of the Temple of Castor and Pollux, we imagine Monsieur Desgodetz might’ve been tres heureux. Comparing his engraving and this reduction, are the fewest differences. In places, the model surpasses the engraving!
