View of the bridge and mausoleum, built by the Emperor Hadrian, from Antichità Romane (Roman Ant...

Italian etcher, archaeologist, designer, theorist, and architect, Giovanni Battista Piranesi was born in Venice in 1720. His uncle, a designer and hydraulics engineer, taught him the art of drawing. During his early years, he studied stage design and intricate systems of perspective composition. Piranesi's prints and drawings reveal his talent for combining dramatic perspectives and architectural fantasies.
When Piranesi was twenty, he moved to Rome and began a careful study of the city's ancient monuments <em>Veduti di Roma  </em>(Views of Rome), which he published between 1747 and his death, over 30 years later. He began etching inventive views of ancient ruins and modern Roman structures, images that brought him great popularity, and later began a series of etchings of fantastic prison interiors (<em>Carceri d'invenzione</em>). During his fifties, Piranesi's interest in archaeology took him to southern Italy, where he produced drawings and etchings of Greek architecture. During an expedition, ill health forced him to return to Rome, where he died at the age of 58.
Piranesi's highly original designs and ideas influenced many artists and literary figures during and beyond his lifetime. Neo-classical designers and early Romantic writers were quick to recognise his eclectic, indeed electric vision. Piranesi's extensive artistic output was dispersed widely through prints sold to Grand Tourists, who often visited his flourishing workshop. His prints were reproduced in great numbers, even after his death.

This substantial etching comes from the four-volume <em>Antichità</em> <em> di Roma </em>(Roman antiquities), begun when Piranesi was in his late twenties, and which has over 250 plates. It is, according to Piranesi expert John Wilton-Ely, a ‘magisterial work’ which provides ‘an innovative system of archaeological enquiry intended for the education of contemporary designers and their patrons.’ It brought Piranesi international fame and election to an honorary fellowship of the Society of Antiquaries of London.

Evident in this print are what Wilton-Ely identifies as ‘the chief ingredients of his art - an unorthodox combination of classical motifs, the manipulation of superhuman scale, powerfully receding diagonal perspectives and the modulation of space by skilled lighting’. Piranesi is ‘sublime’ or what a later age would call ‘awesome’. Although this depiction of the Castel Sant’Angelo (originally Hadrian’s Mausoleum) is less ‘gothic’ than the <em>Carceri</em>, where he allowed his imagination free rein, it is still a startling sight. It also has the advantage of being (however unfairly) less familiar than Piranesi’s depictions of the Colosseum and St Peter’s. The foreground river folk and fishermen make a marvellous foil to the winged statues on the bridge and that of St Michael atop the structure. The winged statues clearly prefigure Charles Meryon’s skyline motifs in 'gothic' Paris. All visitors to Rome know the Castel Sant’Angelo, but with his low viewpoint Piranesi makes it look more sublime and sinister (as the later papal prison and the scene of Tosca’s suicide) than the impressive enough reality.

See:

http://www.getty.edu/art/collection/artists/804/giovanni-battista-piranesi-italian-1720-1778/

http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/pira/hd_pira.htm

John Wilton-Ely, <em>The Mind and Art of Giovanni Battista Piranesi</em> (London, 1978)

Dr Mark Stocker   Curator, Historical International Art        July 2017