NONFICTION - Nov. 22, 1992

CAMPAGNA ROMANA: The Countryside of Ancient Rome by Joel Sternfeld (Knopf: $60.; 109 pp. ) Showing two images of the Roman countryside-- Il Mondo Vecchio e Il Mondo Nuovo , the old world and the new--Sternfeld’s 88 full-color photographs provide a sharply focused warning that towers and temples sit forgotten all around us. But to preserve them, you must at first see them. Page after page, old-world vestiges are bathed in a rare Roman light, silently juxtaposed amid the real rubble of the new--the past buried by the awkward weight of the present. There’s the 2nd Century pyramidal tomb that’s now a shady lovers’ lane, and women gathered in rickety folding chairs beside the remaining stub of an ancient Roman edifice. There is a haunting nobility to these photographs. Much of the countryside Sternfeld documents is being considered for an archeological park. His work makes the case that unless action is taken, the historic campagna will soon be lost. But his pictures tell another story. They school the eyes to a new way to see America, its countryside and its cities. The lesson: Preserve the dignity of the old, or be forever stuck with the single-minded dimension of the new.