Chapter VI: Part I: By Benjamin Burges Moore

The life of Piranesi was eminently that of a man of genius, characterized by all the peculiarities ascribable to genius, perhaps as failures of human nature, but also distinguished by that which imparts to its possessor an imperishable renown. Those peculiarities are worthy of notice, as they bear so much on the character of his work; but his works, wonderful as they are in point of execution, are less to be admired for this than for the interest of the subjects he chose, _and that which he imparted to them_. In an age of frivolities, he boldly and single-handed dared to strike out for himself a new road to fame; and in dedicating his talents to the recording and illustrating from ancient writers the mouldering records of former times, he met with a success as great as it was deserved, _combining, as he did, all that was beautiful in art with all that was interesting in the remains of antiquity_.”

These words were prefixed to an account of Piranesi’s career published in London during the year 1831 in “The Library of the Fine Arts,” and based upon a sketch of his life written by his son, Francesco, but never published, although the manuscript at that period had passed into the hands of the publishers, Priestly and Weale, only to be subsequently lost or destroyed.

From the engraving by F. Polanzani, dated 1750

It is impossible to study this little known portrait without being convinced of its accurate likeness. It certainly conveys an impression of the man’s dæmonic force, which is not given by the more frequently reproduced statue executed by Angelini.

Size of the original etching, 15¼ × 11¼ inches]

A rendering almost as faithful as an architect’s drawing, which Piranesi’s unfailing genius has transformed into an enchanting work of art. This arch stands in the Roman Forum. It was dedicated 203 A.D. in commemoration of victories over the Parthians.

Size of the original etching, 18⅜ × 27¾ inches]

Eighty years, therefore, have passed since this evaluation of the great Italian etcher was written, yet to-day he is no more appreciated at his full worth than he was then. At all times it has been not uncommon for an artist to attain a kind of wide and enduring renown, although estimated at his true value and for his real excellences by only a few; but of such a fate it would be difficult to select a more striking or illustrious example than Giovanni Battista Piranesi. Living and dying in the Eternal City, Rome, to whose august monuments his fame is inseparably linked, he was the author of the prodigious number of over thirteen hundred large plates, combining the arts of etching and engraving, which, aside from their intrinsic merit as works of art, are of incalculable value on account of the inexhaustible supply of classic motives which they offer to all designers, and to which they, more than any other influence, have given currency.

These prints, in early and beautiful proofs, are still to be bought at relatively low figures, while each year sees the sale, by thousands, of impressions from the steeled plates still existing at Rome in the Royal Calcography;--impressions which, although in themselves still sufficiently remarkable to be worth possessing, are yet so debased as to constitute a libel upon the real powers of Piranesi.

The wide diffusion of these ignoble prints, and the fact that Piranesi’s output was so great as to place his work within the reach of the slenderest purse, are largely responsible for the failure of the general public to apprehend his real greatness; for rarity calls attention to merit, to which in fact it often gives a value entirely fictitious, while there is always difficulty in realizing that things seen frequently and in quantities may have qualities far outweighing those of work which has aroused interest by its scarcity. This is why the fame of Piranesi is widely spread, although his best and most characteristic work is almost unknown, and his real genius generally unrecognized.

Born in Venice, October 4th, 1720, and named after Saint John the Baptist, Piranesi was the son of a mason, blind in one eye, and of Laura Lucchesi. His maternal uncle was an architect and engineer,--for in those days the same person frequently combined the two professions,--who had executed various water-works and at least one church. From his uncle the young Giovanni Battista received his earliest instruction in things artistic, for which he appears to have displayed a conspicuously precocious aptitude. Before he was seventeen he had attracted sufficient attention to assure him success in his father’s profession, but Rome had already fired his imagination, and aroused that impetuous determination which marked his entire career. His yearning after Rome report says to have been first aroused by a young Roman girl whom he loved, but, however that may be, he overcame the determined opposition of his parents, and, in 1738, at the age of eighteen, set out for the papal city to study architecture, engraving, and in general the fine arts; for even in those degenerate days there were left some traces of that multiform talent which distinguished the artists of the Renaissance. When he reached the goal of his longing, the impression produced by the immortal city on so fervid an imagination must have been so deep, so overwhelming, as to annihilate all material considerations, although they could not have been other than harassing, since the allowance received from his father was only six Spanish piastres a month, or some six or seven lire of the Italian money of to-day. By what expedients he managed to live we cannot even conjecture, but it may be supposed that he was boarded, apprentice-wise, by the masters under whom he studied. These teachers were Scalfarotto and Valeriani, a noted master of perspective and a pupil of one Ricci of Belluno, who had acquired from the great French painter and lover of Rome, Claude Lorrain, the habit of painting highly imaginative pictures composed of elements drawn from the ruins of the Roman Campagna. This style was transmitted to Piranesi by Valeriani, without doubt stimulating that passionate appreciation of the melancholy grandeur of ruined Rome already growing in his mind, and afterward to fill his entire life and work.

In this, as in many of Piranesi’s compositions, the figures are frankly posing, but their presence adds such charm to the scene that none could wish them absent.

Size of the original etching, 19 × 27⅜ inches]

A fine rendering of that air of glory which the most dilapidated fragments of a Roman Arch of Triumph never lose. The Arch of Trajan, one of the finest of ancient arches, was dedicated A.D. 114. It is of white marble, 48 feet high and 30½ wide, with a single arch measuring 27 by 16½ feet. The arch is profusely sculptured with reliefs illustrating Trajan’s life and his Dacian triumphs.

Size of the original etching, 18⅜ × 27½ inches]

At the same time, he acquired a thorough knowledge of etching and engraving under the Sicilian, Giuseppe Vasi, whose etchings first aroused the great Goethe’s longing for Italy. At the age of twenty, thinking, probably not without foundation, that this master was concealing from him the secret of the correct use of acid in etching, Piranesi is reported, in his anger, to have made an attempt to murder Vasi. Such an act would not be out of keeping with the character of the fiery Venetian, for, before leaving Venice, he had already been described by a fellow-pupil as “_stravagante_,” extravagant, or fantastic, a term not restricted by Italians to a man’s handling of money, but applied rather to character as a whole, in which connection it usually denotes the less fortunate side of that complete and magnificent surrender to an overwhelming passion which aroused so lively an admiration of the Italian nature in the great French writer, Stendhal. When we, tame moderns, judge the “extravagance” of such characters, it is only fair to recollect that, with all their faults and crimes, these same unbridled Italians were capable of heroic virtues, unknown to our pale and timid age. Men like Cellini and Piranesi, who had much in common, are simply incarnate emotional force, a fact which is, at the same time, the cause of their follies and the indispensable condition of their genius.

After this quarrel Piranesi returned to Venice, where he attempted to gain a livelihood by the practice of architecture. There is reason to believe that at this period he studied under Tiepolo; at any rate there exist in his published works a few curious, rather rococo plates entirely different from his usual manner, and very markedly influenced by the style of Tiepolo’s etching. He also studied painting with the Polanzani who is responsible for that portrait of him which forms the frontispiece to the first edition of “Le Antichità Romane,” and gives so vivid an impression of the dæmonic nature of the man. Meeting with little success in Venice, he went to Naples, after returning to Rome, attracted principally by archæological interests. He stayed at Herculaneum, Pompeii, and Pæstum, where at this time, undoubtedly, he made the drawings of the temples afterward etched and published by his son. The drawings for these etchings of Pæstum, among the best known of the Piranesi plates, are now in the Soane Museum in London.

Size of the original etching, 17¾ × 26⅝ inches]

Size of the original etching, 19½ × 26⅜ inches]

Having decided that he had no vocation for painting, which he definitely abandoned at this time, Piranesi returned to Rome, and settled there permanently. His father now wished him to return to Venice, but he was altogether unwilling to do so, and replied, characteristically, that Rome being the seat of all his affections it would be impossible for him to live separated from her monuments. He intimated that in preference to leaving, he would give up his allowance, a suggestion upon which his father acted promptly by stopping all remittances, so that, estranged from his relatives, Piranesi was now entirely dependent upon his own resources for a livelihood.

His poverty and suffering at this period were undoubtedly great, but his indomitable nature could be crippled by no material hardships. He devoted himself entirely to etching and engraving, and, when twenty-one, published his first composition. At this time he was living in the Corso opposite the Doria-Pamphili Palace, but even if the neighborhood was illustrious, it is not pleasant to think what wretched garret must have hidden the misery of his struggling genius. His first important and dated work, the “Antichità Romane de’ Tempi della Republica, etc.,” was published in 1748, with a dedication to the noted antiquary, Monsignore Bottari, chaplain to Pope Benedict XIV. This work was received with great favor, as the first successful attempt to engrave architecture with taste, and from the day of its appearance Piranesi may be said to have been famous. However, he still experienced the utmost difficulty in finding the money necessary to subsist and to procure the materials requisite to his work. Yet, despite his terrible poverty, his labor was unceasing and tireless to a degree that we can now scarcely conceive. It must be borne in mind that, in addition to etching and engraving, he was engaged in the extensive study of archæology, which led him to undertake many remarkable researches. He became a noted archæologist of great erudition, as is shown by numerous controversies with famous antiquarians of the day. Some idea of the copiousness of his knowledge can be gained from the fact that his argument covers a hundred folio pages in that controversy in which he upheld the originality of Roman art against those who claimed it to be a mere offshoot of Grecian genius. In the preface to one of his books, he refers to it as the result of “what I have been able to gather from the course of many years of indefatigable and most exact observations, excavations, and researches, things which have never been undertaken in the past.” This statement is quite true, and when we realize that the preparation of a single plate, such as the plan of the Campus Martius, would, in itself, have taken most men many years of work, we can only feel uncomprehending amazement at the capacity for work possessed by this man of genius.

From this plate it is possible to gain an idea of the greater beauty possessed by ruined Rome when still shrouded in vegetation. The Arch of Septimius Severus is seen in the middle distance

Size of the original etching, 18⅛ × 27⅛ inches]

A very interesting historical document which makes it possible to realize an aspect of the Forum at present difficult to conceive

Size of the original, 14⅞ × 23¼ inches]

The very spirit of imperial Rome would seem to have filled Piranesi, making him its own, so that the vanished splendor was to him ever present and added to the strange melancholy of the vine-grown ruins which alone remained from the “grandeur that was Rome.” In every age and in every province most Italians have been animated by a lively sense of their direct descent from classic Rome,--a feeling that its fame was peculiarly their inheritance in a way true of no other people, so that this glorious descent was their greatest pride and claim to leadership. In the darkest days of oppression and servitude, when Italy sat neglected and disconsolate among her chains, there were never lacking nobler souls who kept alive a sense of what was fitting in the descendants of classic Rome, and took therein a melancholy pride. But no Italian was ever more completely an ancient Roman than Piranesi, who certainly, in despite of his Venetian birth, considered himself a “Roman citizen.” This sentiment played an important part in, perhaps, the most characteristic act of his whole life, namely, his fantastic marriage, of which he himself left an account not unworthy of Cellini.

He was drawing in the Forum one Sunday, when his attention was attracted by a boy and girl, who proved to be the children of the gardener to Prince Corsini. The girl’s type of features instantly convinced Piranesi that she was a direct descendant of the ancient Romans, and so aroused his emotions that on the spot he asked if it were possible for her to marry him. Her exact reply is not recorded, although it must have conveyed the fact that she was free, but it can surprise no one to hear that the girl was thoroughly frightened by such sudden and overpowering determination. His hasty resolution was confirmed when Piranesi afterward learned that she had a dower of one hundred and fifty piastres, or some three hundred lire of to-day, a fact certain to arouse a keen realization both of his poverty and of the value of money in those days. Without any delay, he proceeded to ask the girl’s hand in marriage of her parents, who, like the girl, appear to have been so terrified and overwhelmed by the cyclonic nature of the man as to be incapable of the slightest resistance. Whatever may have been the motives of all the parties concerned, the fact is that Piranesi was married to the descendant of the ancient Romans exactly five days after he first laid eyes on her classic features! Immediately after the wedding, having placed side by side his wife’s dowry and his own finished plates, together with his unfinished designs, he informed his presumably astonished bride that their entire fortune was now before them, but that in three years’ time her portion should be doubled; which proved to be no boast but a promise that he actually fulfilled.

According to report, he told his friends that he was marrying in order to obtain the money required for the completion of his great book on Roman Antiquities. However, even if he did marry for money, he maintained all his life, to the poor woman’s great discomfort, as jealous a watch over his wife as could be expected of the most amorous of husbands; so his affections as well as his vanity may, perhaps, have been called into play by his marriage. At any rate, his ideas as to family life were worthy of the most severe Roman _paterfamilias_. His son, Francesco, born in 1756, relates that, when absorbed in his studies, he would quite forget the hours for meals, while his five children, neither daring to interrupt him nor eat without him, experienced all the miseries of hunger. His domestic coercion and discipline were doubtless extreme, but the family would seem to have lived not too unhappily.

The Site of the Ancient Roman Forum showing the Arch of Septimius Severus, Columns of the Temple of Jupiter Tonans and of the Temple of Concord and, in the distance, the Arch of Titus, the Colosseum, etc., etc.

Size of the original etching, 16⅛ × 21½ inches]

In this plate can be seen a favorite device of Piranesi’s, which is to enhance the size and stability of massive architecture by placing on some part of the ruin a human figure in active motion. The Arch of Titus was built in commemoration of the taking of Jerusalem. The vault is richly coffered and sculptured, and the interior faces of the piers display reliefs of Titus in triumph, with the plunder of the temple at Jerusalem.

Size of the original etching, 18⅝ × 27¾ inches]

Every two years, if not oftener, a monumental book would make its appearance, to say nothing of separate plates, and Piranesi was now a famous man. With the exception of Winckelmann, he did more than any one to spread a knowledge and love of classic art, while his learning and his researches aroused a widespread appreciation of the nobility of Roman ruins, thereby largely contributing to their excavation and protection. His exhaustive acquaintance with antiquity and his impassioned admiration for its beauty, combined with his singular and interesting character, caused him to mingle with all that was most remarkable in the world of arts and letters in Rome, at the same time bringing him into relation with whatever foreigners of distinction might visit the city. He was, however, then and always a poor man, for his first important work, “Le Antichità Romane,” sold in the complete set for the ridiculous pittance of sixteen paoli, or about seventeen lire, while later the Pope was wont to pay him only a thousand lire for eighteen gigantic volumes of etchings. The very fact that his fertility was so enormous, lowered the price it was possible to ask for his plates during his lifetime, just as since his death it has militated against a correct valuation of his talent. Forty years after he came to Rome, he wrote to a correspondent that he had made, on an average, some seven thousand lire of modern money a year, out of which he had had to support his family, pay for the materials required in his business, and gather together that collection of antiquities which was a part of his stock in trade.

The rapidity with which Piranesi worked, and the number of plates, all of unusually large dimensions, which he executed, are so extraordinary as to leave one bewildered by the thought of such incomprehensible industry. Competent authorities vary in their statements as to the number of plates produced by Piranesi, but accepting as correct the lowest figure, which is thirteen hundred, it will be found that for thirty-nine years he produced, on a rough average, one plate every two weeks. Ordinarily, great productiveness will be found to have damaged the quality of the work accomplished, but this is not true in the case of Piranesi. Although his work is of varying merit, like that of all true artists, and even comprises examples lacking his usual excellence, there is no plate which betrays any signs of hurry or careless workmanship, while in many the meticulous finish is remarkable. Such an output is in itself phenomenal, yet in preparation for these works he found the time to pursue archæological researches and studies, in themselves sufficiently exhaustive to have occupied the life of an ordinary man. Moreover, in his capacity of architect, he executed various important restorations, including those of the Priorato di Malta, where he is buried, and of Santa Maria del Popolo. Most of his restorations were undertaken by command of the Venetian, Pope Clement XIII, who bestowed on him the title of Knight, or Cavaliere, a distinction of which he was proud, as he was of his membership in the “Royal Society of Antiquaries” in London, of which he was made an honorary fellow in 1757.

Showing the relief of the Triumph of Titus and the carrying away of the Seven-branched Candle-stick from Jerusalem. A particularly beautiful and not very well-known plate, which clearly shows Piranesi’s fine sense of composition, and his keen appreciation of that singularly picturesque contrast between the ancient ruins and the more modern buildings in which they were then embedded.

Size of the original etching, 15⅞ × 24¼ inches]

Piranesi, almost without exception, placed a written description of the scene on every one of his plates, using it as a decorative feature. In this case it proves an integral part of a group which makes an interesting etching out of what otherwise would have been a simple architectural drawing.

Size of the original etching, 18⅞ × 27½ inches]

The question of how much assistance Piranesi received in the execution of his plates is an interesting one. In a few prints, the figures were etched by one Jean Barbault, whose name sometimes appears on the margins with that of Piranesi. The latter’s son, Francesco, was taught design and architecture by his father, whose manner he reproduced exactly, although none of the numerous etchings which he left behind him show any signs of those qualities which constitute the greatness of his parent’s work. The daughter, Laura, also etched in the manner of her father and has left some views of Roman monuments. These two children, together with one of his pupils, Piroli, undoubtedly aided him, but their moderate skill is a proof that their assistance could not have been carried very far. That his pupils never formed a sort of factory for the production of work passing under their master’s name, as happened with some famous painters, is made certain by the fact that he established no school which caught his manner and produced work reminiscent or imitative of his. His unparalleled output must, therefore, be almost entirely a result of his own unaided labor.

Piranesi died at Rome, surrounded by his family, on the ninth of November, 1778, of a slight disorder rendered serious by neglect. His body was first buried in the church of St. Andrea della Fratte, but was soon afterward removed to that Priory of Santa Maria Aventina which he had himself restored. Here his family erected a statue of him, carved by one Angelini after the design of Piranesi’s pupil, Piroli. Baron Stolberg writes in his “Travels”: “Here is a fine statue of the architect Piranesi, as large as life, placed there by his son. It is the work of a living sculptor, Angelini, and though it certainly cannot be compared with the best antiquities, it still possesses real merit.”

The singular figure of Giovanni Battista Piranesi, with his power, his fire, and his passionate love of Roman grandeur, not unworthy of some great period of rebirth, appears all the more phenomenal when viewed in relation to his times and his surroundings. The corruption of the pontifical city had been flagrant since the days when it filled with scorn and loathing the wonderful “Regrets” penned by the exiled French poet, Joachim du Bellay, whose homesick heart took less pleasure in the hard marble and audacious fronts of Roman palaces than in the delicate slate of the distant dwelling built by his Angevin ancestors,--but its depravity had at least been replete with virility and splendor. After the Council of Trent, however, the Counter-Reformation spread over the Roman prelacy a wave of external reform, which left the inner rottenness untouched, but veiled it decently with all the stifling and petty vices of hypocrisy, until Roman life gradually grew to be that curious androgynous existence which we see reflected so clearly in Casanova’s memoirs. During the eighteenth century, when Piranesi lived, the whole of Italy had sunk to depths of degradation such as few great races have ever known, not because the people were hopelessly decayed, for their great spirit never died, but lived to flame forth in 1848 and create that marvelous present-day regeneration of Italy, which is perhaps the most astonishing example of the rebirth of a once great but apparently dead nation that the world has yet seen. The debased condition of Italy at that time was caused, rather, by centuries of priestly and foreign oppression, which had stifled the entire country until it had fallen into a state of torpor little different to death. Any sign of intellectual or political activity, however slight or innocent, had long been ruthlessly repressed by Austria and the petty tyrants who ruled the states of Italy. Since men must find some occupation to fill their lives, or else go mad, in a land where every noble and even normal employment was forbidden, the Italian of the day was forced to confine himself within the limits of an idle inanity, concerned only with petty questions and petty interests. It is difficult for people of to-day to conceive the abject futility to which such oppression and enforced inactivity can reduce an entire nation. In France the comparative freedom enjoyed under the old régime gave to the eighteenth century, in its most frivolous and futile moments, a charming grace utterly denied to enslaved and priest-ridden Italy. To realize the situation, it is only necessary to consider for a moment the institution of the cicisbeo, and to read Parini’s “Il Giorno.” In this world of little loveless lovers, of sonneteers and collector academicians, the figure of Piranesi looms gigantic, like a creature of another world. He had a purity of taste in artistic matters quite unknown to his contemporaries, while his originality, his passion, and his vigor seem indeed those of some antique Roman suddenly come to life to serve as pattern for a people fallen on dire days.

A striking image of the romantic desolation in Roman ruins long since removed by modern research

Size of the original etching, 19¼ × 28 inches]

A good illustration of Piranesi’s originality in choosing a point of view so curious as to give a novel air to the best known subjects

The Pantheon, completed by Agrippa B.C. 27, consecrated to the divine ancestors of the Julian family, and now dedicated as the Church of Santa Maria Rotonda, is 142½ feet in diameter and its height, to the apex of the great hemispherical coffered dome, is the same. The lighting of the interior is solely from an opening, 28 feet in diameter, at the summit of the dome. The dome is practically solid concrete.

Size of the original etching, 18⅞ × 22¼ inches]

Francesco Piranesi, after the death of his father, sold the collection formed by him to Gustavus III of Sweden in return for an annuity. He continued the publication of etchings, many, although unacknowledged, from drawings by his father, and was assisted in his archæological research by Pope Pius VI. After various rather dishonorable transactions, as spy to the court of Sweden, he started for Paris by sea in 1798, having with him the plates of his father’s etchings, and accompanied in all probability by his sister Laura. The ship on which he traveled was captured and all it contained taken as a prize by a British man-of-war, England and France being then engaged in hostilities. By some curious chance, the English admiral knew the worth of Piranesi’s work, and persuaded the officers who had made the capture to restore the plates to his son, and in addition obtained, by some still more curious chance, both the admission of the plates into French territory free of duty, and government protection of Francesco’s ownership. At Paris, Francesco Piranesi and his brother, Pietro, tried to found both an academy and a manufactory of terra-cotta. He also republished his father’s etchings and his own, thus creating the first French edition, already inferior in quality to the original Roman impressions. He died in Paris, in 1810, in straitened circumstances. The plates of both the father’s and the son’s work passed into the hands of the publishers Firmin-Didot, who republished them once more. The original plates, which at one time were rented for almost nothing to any one who wished them for a day’s printing, finally found a refuge, as before said, in the Royal Calcography at Rome, where they have been coated with steel and rebitten, so that it is now possible to print as many copies every year as tourists and architects may desire. It can, therefore, be seen that, most unfortunately, the world is flooded with countless impressions which, even if they have value for an architect as documents, or still retain enough character to give them some merit as pictures, are yet so utterly changed and debased as to do the gravest and most irreparable injustice to the reputation of the genius who created them.

This plate shows how Piranesi could render a complicated view without confusion and, at the same time, give an air of novelty to a well-known place

Size of the original etching, 18⅜ × 27⅝ inches]

An example of Piranesi’s skill in making a rather ordinary scene appear dramatic, and arousing a sense of vastness greater than that imparted by the actual building

Size of the original etching, 16⅝ × 23⅝ inches]