The Italian architect and engraver Giovanni Battista Piranesi (1720-1778) was born in Venice. He started taking drawing lessons at an early age, and was primarily influenced by the work of architect Palladio. At the age of eighteen years old, he moved to Rome with an ardent desire to know the Eternal City and worked as draughtsman at the service of the Venetian embassy to the Vatican. In Rome, Piranesi studied engraving under Giuseppe Vasi, with whom he later clashed. An impulsive, ambitious and prolific artist, Piranesi worked in harmony with his time, as he was always drawn to and cultivated the dramatic, the inspired and the spectacular.

As with the work of French architect David Leroy (1724-1803), the technique and art of Piranesi's drawings aim to make an impact the viewer. A strong impression, which it is the artist's duty to convey, is deemed more important than precision in representation. Piranesi is among the most dynamic exponents of Neoclassicism; at the same time, he belongs to early Romanticism as well, as the remains of classical civilisations become the cause of poetic emotion.

Piranesi also visited Naples, where he depicted the local antiquities with passion and admiration, and created several copper moulds of his works. He returned to Venice in 1744, where he refined his engraving skills. It was there that he published his first major work “Carceri di invenzione” (“Fictitious prisons”, 1750, 1761 and 1780). The uncanny as well as evocative spaces of the prisons invented by Piranesi disturb the viewer and constitute a lasting influence on visual artists, writers and architects from his time to the present.

Later in his life, Piranesi returned to Rome, where he worked mainly as an engraver and painter and less as an architect. His “Monuments of Rome”, made a great impact on his contemporaries. In contrast to the contemporary intellectual atmosphere, and while scholars (such as Winkelmann, Ramsey, Stuart, Revett) direct their attention to Greece, which they see as the primary inspiration of Roman architecture, Piranesi sustained that the Etruscans, a people older than the Greeks, were the first to achieve aesthetic perfection. His ideas provoked a debate among European scholars, and opened new pathways to the study of ancient legacy.

The two thousand copper engravings drawn and etched by Piranesi in his lifetime were published posthumously in Paris by his sons, in a monumental edition (1835-1837).

Written by Ioli Vingopoulou

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  Title page of the third volume.

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  Frontispiece: Imaginary depiction of the Campus Martius (Martian Field), Rome.

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  Map of the Appian Way, Rome, with sections of monumental tombs.

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  Part of retaining wall of crematorium on the Appian Way, Rome.

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  Part of retaining wall of crematorium on the Appian Way, Rome.

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  Remains of crematorium on the Appian Way, Rome.

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  View of the Appian Way, Rome.

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  Remains of funerary structures along the Appian Way.

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  Plan, section and architectural features of mausoleum on the Appian Way, outside Rome.

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  The Horatii and Curiatii mausoleum on the Appian Way.

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  Inscriptions from the mausoleum of the family of Plautus Lucanus.

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  View of the mausoleum of the family of Plautus Lucanus.

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  Plan and architectural features of the mausoleum of the family of Plautus Lucanus, Rome.

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  The tomb of Vibius Marianus (also known as Nero's tomb), Rome.

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  The so-called “Mausoleo a Piramide” on the Appian Way, Rome.

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  Ceiling plan and section of the mausoleum of Saint Helena, Rome.

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  Plan of the mausoleum of Saint Helena, Rome.

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  View of the mausoleum of Saint Helena, Rome.

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  The porphyry sarcophagus of Saint Helena, today at the Vatican museum.

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  Funerary monument on the Appian Way, Rome.

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  View of crematorium and columbarium of the Augustan era on the Appian Way, Rome.

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  Seals, reliefs, urns and other antiquities from crematorium and columbarium of the Augustan era on the Appian Way, Rome.

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  Seals, ans relief from crematorium and columbarium of the Augustan era on the Appian Way, Rome.

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  Fragments of urns and sarcophagi from crematorium and columbarium of the Augustan era on the Appian Way, Rome.

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  Inscriptions and sarcophagi fragments from crematorium and columbarium of the Augustan era on the Appian Way, Rome.

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  Urn inscriptions from crematorium and columbarium of the Augustan era on the Appian Way, Rome.

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  Urn inscriptions from crematorium and columbarium of the Augustan era on the Appian Way, Rome.

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  Urn inscriptions from crematorium and columbarium of the Augustan era on the Appian Way, Rome.

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  View of crematorium and columbarium of the Augustan era on the Appian Way, Rome (imaginary depiction).

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  Ceiling plan of crematorium and columbarium of the Augustan era on the Appian Way, Rome (reconstructed).

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  View of the pyramid of Gaius Cestius, Rome.

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  Inscription from the pyramid of Gaius Cestius, Rome.

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  One of the two pedestals at the entrance to the Capitoline citadel, Rome.

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  Plan of the pyramid of Cestius, Rome.

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  Section of the pyramid of Cestius, Rome.

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  Pyramid of Cestius, Rome: Fragments of murals from the funerary chamber.

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  Pyramid of Cestius, Rome: Vases from the funerary chamber.

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  Pyramid of Cestius, Rome: Vases from the funerary chamber.

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  Pyramid of Cestius, Rome: Fragments of murals from the funerary chamber.

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  View, section and architectural features of the mausoleum of Caecilia Metella on the Appian Way, Rome.

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  View of the mausoleum of Caecilia Metella on the Appian Way, Rome.

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  View of the mausoleum of Caecilia Metella on the Appian Way, Rome.

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  Fragments of marble sarcophagus from the mausoleum of Caecilia Metella on the Appian Way, Rome.

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  Means by which blocks of marble were lifted in the Roman era.

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  Instrument used to lift marble blocks, called the Ulivella and used during the Roman era.