INTRODUCTION
Architecturallyspeaking, we live at a time somewhat similar to that in which the genius of Piranesi first made its impact upon English designers. In the latter half of the eighteenth century English architects and patrons were alike growing a little tired of pure Palladianism. The novelty and spirit of Inigo Jones’s work had given place to the uninspired correctness of Campbell, Kent, and a host of lesser disciples. Restrained and elegant as the work of those architects appears to modern eyes, after the debauch of “free Classic” from which we are now emerging, it is nevertheless true that, at that time, the English Palladian formula was nearly exhausted. The circuses and crescents of Bath, with their unfluted columns and dull ornament, their endless repetitions of correct features, could not be indefinitely extended. The early Georgian houses, so comfortable in the country, began to look a little coarse and provincial in London streets, particularly to those who had taken the Grand Tour.
What more natural, then, that architects should turn again to the source and fountainhead from which Palladio had drawn his inspiration, to see whether it had anything fresh to yield?
The practising architect in England at the end of the eighteenth century required, however, a cicerone to the remains of the antique world just as much as his predecessor did in the seventeenth century. The seventeenth-century architect chose Palladio as his guide; the architect in the latter part of the eighteenth century chose Piranesi. Naturally, the lesson taught was somewhat different. The eighteenth-century architect was much further advanced in scholarship. Palladio gave the main proportions of the Orders and the principles of composition. He laid down definite rules and precepts suitable to beginners. His was the first-year work, to use a school simile. Piranesi takes the scholars of the later years and initiates them into all the mysteries of ornament and stylistic character. Offering no pedantic rules, he makes a direct appeal to the imagination of his students. He reveals to them not only the power but the intimate spirit of the Roman world. He offers them whole collections of vases and candelabra to use or not asthey like. He unlocks a treasure-house—a library full of fresh detail. The detail, too, is rich, complex detail, safe only in the hands of the discerning. But Piranesi’s students in England at that time were fit to profit by such a master; among his more attentive scholars being Robert Adam, Chambers, Dance, and many other architects of the late eighteenth century, and through these he influenced the decorative designers from Chippendale to Pergolesi. Mr. Phene Spiers, not without a certain hyperbole, traces the Empire Style to Piranesi’s designs for chimneypieces. At any rate it is safe to say that the new vigour and life which came into English architecture with the work of Chambers and Adam was derived from a more thorough and complete knowledge of Roman architecture, and that the chief source of that knowledge was the vast collection of thirteen hundred or more engraved plates which Piranesi etched and published at the marvellous rate of one a fortnight throughout a fairly long life.
Now, if any coherence at all can be seen in the trend of modern English architecture, we seem at the present moment to be just as dissatisfied with mere Palladianism as were the architects of the end of the eighteenth century. Like them, too, we are lookingfor a more complete expression of the Classic spirit. To us, therefore, Piranesi may have a very similar lesson. The unfortunate thing, however, is that his etchings, a few years ago so easy to obtain, are daily becoming more rare and expensive. A collection of the best of those issued during the artist’s lifetime could hardly be made to-day for less than a couple of hundred pounds. The Paris reprints which his son issued in 1815 might be obtained for half that sum, but to the ordinary practitioner this may be considered as half infinity. Even Mr. Keith Young’s massive volume of reproductions costs several pounds. The days of Robert Adam were the days when architects were few and patrons were rich. Our own times are less happy in that respect, but they are nevertheless the days of unrivalled opportunity. Piranesi is the magician who can show what opportunities may become; more especially as the process block, albeit lacking in the marvellous gradations of tone and feeling of the original etchings, renders it possible to publish at small cost such a series as are comprised in this volume.
The following are the main facts of Piranesi’s career as far as they areknown:—
Giovanni Battista Piranesi, to give him his full name, was born in Venice in the year1720. His father Angelo pursued the honourable calling of a stonemason, so suited to the progenitor of an architect. His mother was sister to an engineer and architect named Lucchesi, and it was to him that young Piranesi was articled. In his early years he seems to have been something of anenfant prodigueand is reported to have been able to draw the architecture of Venice at the age of eight. At eighteen he persuaded his parents to send him to Rome, and ever after, although signing himself “Venetian Architect,” he remained at work in that city. At first, in his desire to obtain a firm grasp on the technique of the graphic arts, he seems to have attached himself to various masters. The story is told that he threatened one of these masters, Vasi, with the loss of his life because he imagined that some secret in the process of etching was being withheld from him. Such a story, whether true or not, together with the later one that he saw for the first time and married his wife within the space of one week, fits in well enough with the impetuous temperament and fine fury of work which all the etchings exhibit. The numerous controversies in which he was engaged in later years, sometimes involving the erasure of names from dedication and title-pages, are all evidenceof the same characteristics—characteristics which may have made him, according to modern standards, a poor archæologist, but which were not without value to the artist and teacher of artists.
In 1741, when twenty-one years of age, Piranesi published his first etchings, four compositions of ruins, afterwards included in hisOpere Varie, issued by Bouchard at Rome in 1750. In 1748 he published hisAntichità Romane de’ Tempi della Repubblica e de’ primi Imperatori, etc., containing thirty plates of triumphal arches, amphitheatres, and other ancient structures, mostly from places other than Rome. The price of this volume (Mr. Samuel informs us in his admirable book) was 16 paoli, or about 13s. 4d., which shows for how small a contemporary reward Piranesi had to work. In 1750 Bouchard published hisOpere Varie, which contained a number of his imaginative designs for great halls, staircases and monuments, as well as his famous series of prison dreams—theCarceri d’Invenzione. From this time onwards followed in quick succession an immense number of etchings grouped somewhat irregularly in great folio volumes with varying engraved title-pages. TheRaccolta di Varie Vedute(Rome 1751) contains ninety-three small views and includes work by IsraelSilvestre and other etchers. This volume must not be confused with theVedute di Roma, in two volumes, containing large title-pages and one hundred and thirty-seven plates, thirty-four of which were published in 1751, under the titleLe Magnificenze di Roma le più remarcabili.
Perhaps Piranesi’s greatest work, in both size and importance, isLe Antichità Romane, in four volumes, containing a varying number of plates from 216–224. This was first issued in 1756.
In 1761, he etched four plates for Robert Adam illustrating the latter’s design for Sion House, and in 1769 he published hisDiverse Maniere d’Adornare, in which appear the ornate but very stimulating designs for chimneypieces, referred to above. Of his remaining works, perhaps the most important to architects is theVasi Candelabri Cippi Sarcofagi Tripodi Lucerne ed ornamenti Antichi, to give it its full title, which was published in Rome in 1778—the year of his death. This contains a series of magnificent drawings of antiques, largely from his own collection. A great number of these drawings are dedicated to various English gentlemen, each described as “a lover of the fine arts,” which is proof of the interest Englishmen were already taking in Piranesi and his work.
In addition to the foregoing, Piranesi published a number of monographs on special subjects illustrated with etchings. Among these are the volumes on Trajan’s Column, the Theatre at Herculaneum, Hadrian’s Villa, and the Temples at Pæstum, all of which are more noticeable for the boldness of the draughtsmanship than for the archæological views they set forth. It must not be imagined, however, because Piranesi was the interpreter of the romance of the Roman ruins, and through this very romance fired the imagination of Europe, that he was not when he liked an exact draughtsman. The cracks on the obelisk shown in the foreground of his etching of Santa Maria Maggiore tally with those shown in a photograph taken one hundred and fifty years later.
In April, 1757, Piranesi was elected an honorary Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries, which is another proof of the esteem in which he was held in England. He was knighted by Pope Clement XIII. in 1767. He died in 1778, and is buried in the church of Santa Maria Aventina.
Of his five children, Francesco (b. 1748) and Laura (b. 1750) etched in their father’s manner and assisted him in his work. After his death, however, they took to print-sellingrather than creative work, though Francesco still etched plates on his own account. In 1798 he packed up his father’s copper-plates and took them to Paris. During an adventurous journey they fell into the hands of an English Admiral, who, however, knowing the fame of the father, unfortunately restrained his first impulse to throw the plates overboard. It was unfortunate because on arrival in Paris Francesco was able, with the help of the French Government, to republish from the old plates a new edition of his father’s work, which, from the state of the plates, for many years did considerable damage to Piranesi’s fame as an etcher. The plates exist at the present day, and it is believed that prints are still occasionally struck from them. Now, however, the difference between the original Roman impressions and the later Paris ones is well understood, and Piranesi’s renown never stood higher than it does to-day. His son died in 1810.
The plates here reproduced are from the author’s collection, with the exception of the designs for chimneypieces, which have been kindly lent by Mr. Batsford.
C. H. Reilly.