Muro Torto, Rome,

1851–71

The muro torto is a section of Rome’s Aurelian wall, “twisted” (torto) since ancient times by supporting the weight of the Pincian hill. Artists usually depicted it from one side in order to emphasize its alarming tilt over the road below. Macpherson, a specialist in large-format views of Rome, instead positioned himself across the road at a time of day when the shaded muro torto was off set by sunlight striking<br>the adjacent section of wall.<br>From Macpherson’s chosen angle, his camera’s view is centered on a chalk drawing on the wall. The sketch, in turn, depicts a gate that stands just within view on the camera’s left. The gate, constructed in 1790, had given entry to the<br>Borghese Gardens until it was chained shut in 1829. The chalk graffi to was most likely drawn by an engineer planning to disassemble and move the gate’s eagle-crowned towers to another part of the gardens—a task debated from the 1830s<br>onward, but not executed until the 1930s, under Mussolini.