A Tivoli Fantasy

[sberry]

My last project, the Perseus-and-Andromeda thing, was in part inspired by the many paintings in classical art on the topic, and this is true for my current little project, too.

It will show a scene in the ancient town of Tibur, modern Tivoli, about 20 km east of Rome. Tibur had two temples, a round one and a square one. It is often claimed that the round temple belonged to the goddess Vesta, and the square one to Tibur’s very own prophetess-in-residence, the Sybilla Tiburtina. But this is pure speculation, nobody really knows what purpose these temples served in antiquity.

I have for many years now two such models in my stack of unused stuff, and until recently I had no specific idea what to do with them. These temples were cast by Andreas Brune (Imperial Modellbau back then, now Hagen Miniatures), and it seems they are not available anymore. Fortunately, I buy every set that seems interesting as soon as it is released!

The impulse to use them for a Tibur scene came because I repeatedly came across paintings showing the landscape of the site, in particular the dramatic waterfalls. Tibur/Tivoli with its romantic landscape was one of the favorite subjects for artists during the 17th to 19th centuries, and whenever you visit a major museum or exhibition showing European classical art from that time, chances are good that you stumble across a Tivoli piece! (And the famous Tivoli Park in Copenhagen was named after the Italian town, like other such places, too. There is even a Tivoli in Texas, I have learned).

I have a small selection of paintings here, and, as you can see, sometimes the place is depicted in a quite fanciful way. And this is exactly what I will do – I do not attempt to reconstruct the topography in an exact way, it will rather be a Tivoli fantasy…

W. van Nieulandt (1614):

National Museum in Warsaw / Public domain

C. Lorrain (1644):

New Orleans Museum of Art / Public domain

C.F. de Lacroix (1764):

CC BY @ Gemäldegalerie, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin

H. Robert (1789):

Saint Louis Art Museum / Public domain

J.C. Reinhart (c. 1812):

Musée Fabre, Montpellier / Public domain

[sberry]

And finally two prints by Piranesi, which I found quite helpful for my own design of the scene:


Scan from http://www.coe.l.u-tokyo.ac.jp


Scan from http://www.coe.l.u-tokyo.ac.jp

OK, now let’s start with some pics of the project itself. Here is the base of the diorama, version 1:





You can see the foundations of the temples, and the blue line shows the course of the water. But I thought the whole thing had to be steeper, so I made version 2:

[Susofrick]

When I first saw the title I thought it would be some kind of amusement park like Tivoli in Copenhagen and I saw Valdemar's old set of jesters. I was wrong. Anyhow, I'm looking very much forward to follow this.

[sberry]

After using lots of plaster, the heap of old styrofoam leftovers begins to look more like a rocky landscape:

When I first saw the title I thought it would be some kind of amusement park like Tivoli in Copenhagen and I saw Valdemar's old set of jesters. I was wrong. Anyhow, I'm looking very much forward to follow this.

Sorry if the title was misleading! No jesters here, only serious people performing some sacrifice at the temples (to be shown later). And some guys having a barbecue:



They are from the old set “Roman peasants” by Fine Scale Factory, which is, like the resin temples, itself an antique today.

[Iceman1964]

Fascinating project, I really wanna see the results !!!

[Santi Pérez]

I too find it a very interesting project which I intend to follow with great interest, sberry. The initial presentation you have made and the first major advances in the realisation of the project deserve no less.

By the way, doing some research on the internet I found that there is also an amusement park called Tivoli on the Spanish Costa del Sol, as well as a couple of photographs by anonymous authors from the mid-19th century from the archives of the Prado Museum in Madrid, depicting the Temple of the Sibyl in Tivoli at that time.




Santi.

[sberry]

Thank you for your remarks, and also thank you, dear Santi, for those beautiful photos from the Prado!

[sberry]

Here are the temples. As I have experienced several times for such resin casts, the fit of the different parts is not perfect.







But that is not my major concern. Rather, another problem is more important: You simply cannot have a roof sitting directly on the columns, that looks awkward and extremely incorrect – even for an architectural fantasy like the one I am creating here. I know, the idea that classical architecture is simply “something with columns” is popular among some peopl, but unfortunately it is quite wrong.
There always has to be an architrave and a frieze, and thus I delved deep into my scratch box to start a rescue-mission for the temple models and to correct some details. The original roof-tiles of the rectangular temple I didn't like either, for instance.



The open cella of the rectangular temple is another problem. In principle it would be possible, but I feel it looks awkward. So I had to design a front-wall with an entrance.

[Santi Pérez]

Those temples look superb, sberry.

Here are the temples. As I have experienced several times for such resin casts, the fit of the different parts is not perfect...

To fill those gaps I would recommend my favourite material, which is white wood glue, omnipresent in almost all my projects. If the holes are very big, you can also put a first filler of plasticine and then white glue over it. As you can see, I love to use cheap and easily available materials.

Santi.

[sberry]

To fill those gaps I would recommend my favourite material, which is white wood glue, omnipresent in almost all my projects. If the holes are very big, you can also put a first filler of plasticine and then white glue over it. As you can see, I love to use cheap and easily available materials.

We all have our little tricks, and as you say, the cheap and easy solutions are often the best. When I was young and naive, I bought some plastic putty for modeling. But the stuff is solvent-based and dries within seconds, which makes it very difficult to work with. White glue rocks!