Cloaca Maxima. Artist: Robert Macpherson (British, Tayside, Scotland 1811-1872 Rome). Dimensions: Image: 31 x 37.2 cm (12 3/16 x 14 5/8 in.). Date: by 1858.After studying medicine in Edinburgh, Robert Macpherson left Scotland in the early 1840s and, for reasons of health, settled in Rome. Eventually abandoning medicine, Macpherson gained notoriety as a topographic painter, a connoisseur, and a dealer of art, enjoying a central role among the artists--and later photographers--who frequented the Caffè Greco. His striking appearance (tall and fair-skinned, with long red hair and blue eyes, rendered all the more exotic by the native Scottish kilt he customarily wore) and gregarious nature won Macpherson the friendship of fellow artists and the patronage of well-to-do travelers. Further contact with British writers and intellectuals came with his marriage in 1849 to Gerardine Bates, the favorite niece of the author and art historian Anna Jameson.Hampered by lack of discipline rather than po