2-888-052 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Temple of Vesta - Rome, 1850. 'Here...on the Tiber's banks, stands one of the best preserved relics of Imperial Rome - the ruins of one of the many temples of Vesta which the city contained. It is a circular structure, with a peristyle of fluted Corinthian columns of white marble, and dates from the reign of Marcus Antoninus, in the middle of the second century of the Christian era. Its full proportions are not perceptible until, approaching closely, it is seen to be imbedded in the accumulated soil, which has been excavated all round to the old level...It was formerly used as a Christian church, but is so no longer...The view...shows the temple [and] the Cloaca Maxima, where it opens into the Tiber...and on the right the ruins of the Ponte Rotto, the three arches of which are all that now remain of the ancient Pons Palatinus, the first stone bridge that was ever built over the Tiber'. From "Illustrated London News", 1850.