ITU A|Z • Vol 15 No 3 • November 2018 • 29-39 Piranesi’s arguments in the Carceri

Fatma İpek EK [email protected] • Department of Architecture, Faculty of Architecture, Yaşar University, İzmir, Turkey

Received: November 2017• Final Acceptance: September 2018

Abstract Giovanni Battista Piranesi (1720-1778) is an important Italian architect with his seminal theses in the debates on the ‘origins of architecture’ and ‘aesthetics’. He is numbered foremost among the founders of modern archaeology. But Piranesi was misinterpreted both in his day and posthumously. One of the most important vectors of approach yielding misinterpretation of Piranesi derived from the phe- nomenon comprising the early nineteenth-century Romanticist reception of Pi- ranesi’s character and work. Therefore, the present study firstly demonstrates that such observations derive not from an investigation of the work itself, nor from an appraisal of the historical context, but owe to the long-standing view in western culture that identifies the creator’s ethos with the work and interprets the work so as to cohere with that pre-constructed ethos. Thus the paper aims at offering a new perspective to be adopted while examining Piranesi’s works. This perspective lies within the very scope of understanding the reasons of the misinterpretations, the post-Romanticist perception of the ‘artist’, and Piranesi’s main arguments on the aesthetics, origins of architecture, and law.

Keywords Carceri series, Eighteenth century discussions, Giovanni Battista Piranesi, Post- doi: 10.5505/itujfa.2018.21347 doi: romanticist interpretation, Romanticist perception. 30

1. Introduction ethos. In fact, the pervasive descrip- In the architectural, historical, and tion of Piranesi’s work as cited above archaeological context of the eighteenth goes hand in hand with the descrip- century, Italian architect Giovanni Bat- tion of the biographical character as tista Piranesi (1720-1778) played an im- ‘obscure’ and ‘perverse’.3 For Piranesi’s portant role. He posited crucial theses Vasi, Candelabri, Cippi, Sarcofagi, Tri- in the debates on the ‘origins of archi- podi, Lucerne ed Ornamenti Antichi tecture’ and ‘aesthetics’. He is numbered Disegn (Vases, Candelabra, Low Pil- foremost among the founders of mod- lars, Sarcophagi, Tripods, Lanterns and ern architecture and archaeology. But Antique Design Ornaments; 1778), a Piranesi was misinterpreted both in his work depicting Piranesi’s designs of day and posthumously. The vectors of objects including vases and candelabra approach yielding misinterpretation of (Piranesi, 1778; 1836), ‘it is all done Piranesi derived mainly from the phe- with obsessional, with almost mor- nomenon comprising the early nine- bid precision,’ claims Joseph Rykwert, teenth-century Romanticist reception ‘the morbidity is characteristic, since of Piranesi’s character and work. This the whole of Piranesi’s overwhelming kind of interpretation derived from output is the celebration of his necro- Piranesi’s position on aesthetics and philiac passion for the glory of ancient origins of architecture, and served the ’ (Rykwert, 1980, p. 370). Man- identification of him as ‘unclassifiable’. fredo Tafuri agrees, presenting Pirane- In this context, the Carceri series si as a ‘“wicked architect,” who, in the bear primary importance because they monstrousness of his contaminations, have been accepted as transparent reveals the cracks guiltily repressed by works particularly reflecting Pirane- a deviant rigor’ (Tafuri, 1978, p. 47). 1For an implication si’s so-called darkness, obscurity and These are astounding words as far of ‘darkness’ and madness.1 He was labelled with this as descriptive terms go where architec- ‘madness’ in the Carceri see Tafuri, kind of adjectives; furthermore, his tural historians as eminent as Rykwert 1978, pp. 26, 32-34, arguments on architecture and history and Tafuri are concerned. Far from any 40; Wilton-Ely, were almost imprisoned between the architectural or design consideration, 1978, pp. 81, 89; walls of the Carceri. Thus the present unabashedly they target a psychologi- Wilton-Ely, 1993, study aims at offering a new perspec- cal being. Contemporary Piranesi crit- pp. 46-48. tive to be adopted while examining icism participates in an understanding 2The work is Piranesi’s works. This perspective lies which we may summarize by Georg- further perceived within the very scope of understanding es-Louis Leclerc’s (1707-1788) prover- as ‘exaggerated’, ‘extravagant’, the reasons of the misinterpretations, bial Le style c’est l’homme même: the ‘paradoxical’, the post-Romanticist perception of the style is the man himself. Leclerc’s iden- ‘absurd’, ‘hermetic’, ‘artist’, and Piranesi’s main arguments tification dates to 1753, which makes ‘frenetic’, or on the aesthetics, origins of architec- him Piranesi’s contemporary (Leclerc, ‘ludicrous’. For ture, and law. 1872; 1896). Despite the fact that we the evaluation of ‘obscure’, shall argue that there is a direct line ‘extravagant’, and 2. Le style c’est l’homme même between Tafuri and Rykwert’s assess- ‘excessive’, see As the heading of the study implies, ment and Leclerc’s statement, Leclerc Rykwert, 1980, this reading largely disagrees with cur- had not necessarily meant the remark pp. 364, 370; rent interpretations of Piranesi’s work. in a negative sense. Piranesi, however, for ‘excessive’, ‘paradoxical’, Thus, contemporary scholarship has may very well have been the first whose ‘absurd’, ‘hermetic’, taken Piranesi’s work as representing work was evaluated by Leclerc’s state- and ‘irrational’, a style of architecture described as ‘ob- ment, already in his own lifetime, and, see Tafuri, 1978, scure’, ‘excessive’, ‘irrational’, and the as we are going to see, with negative ef- p. 27 et passim.; like.2 Therefore, the present study first- fect in the long-run. for ‘frenetic’, ‘ludicrous’, ly demonstrates that such observations When we trace the conception iden- ‘extravagant’, see derive not from an investigation of the tifying ethos and style, we find that it Penny, 1978, pp. 7, work itself, nor from an appraisal of has ancient roots. Already rhetorical 10, 30; for ‘frenetic’, the historical context, but owe to the philosophers such as Aristotle (384 ‘extravagant’, see long-standing view in western culture BC-322 BC) and Longinus (first cen- Wilton-Ely, 1993, pp. 12, 18; for that identifies the creator’s ethos with tury AD), identified style and the cre- similar evaluations the work and interprets the work so ator’s (orator’s or writer’s) character see Wilton-Ely, as to cohere with that pre-constructed and described style as the direct ex- 2002, pp. 16, 27.

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innate character. Aristotle’s identifica- tion proved seminal. As we are going to see, the depictions of Piranesi in his own lifetime attributed a lofty char- acter to him in conjunction with his work in the design of monumental and sublime architecture. Misreading the eighteenth-century code for sublime monumentality, later critics were going to identify it with dark perversity. The view identifying the creator’s ethical character with the work con- tinued in the eighteenth century as above all Leclerc’s statement evinced. In fact, the placement of Piranesi’s work and character to the darker side of the human may be traced back to 3 For this evaluation the modern re-emergence, with new of Piranesi’s character, see vigour, of the classical idea around 1750. Piranesi’s 1750 depiction by the Tafuri, 1978, pp. Figure 1. Felice Polanzani, portrait of 41, 47; Rykwert, Piranesi, Opere varie, 1750. Venetian Felice Polanzani (1700-1783), 1980, p. 389; published in the former’s Opere varie Penny, 1978, pp. pression of the psycho-ethical nature di architettura (Miscellaneous works 29, 80. ‘Obsessive’, ‘chaotic’, ‘absurd’, of the ‘man’. While speaking of pro- in architecture; 1750), may be read in and ‘frenetic’ are priety (decorum), with the intention this context [Figure 1] (Piranesi, 1750; other familiar of determining that ‘the style reflects 1836). The facial expression is far from adjectives that have the man himself’, ‘Words are like men’, demure and humble. Piranesi’s charac- been found fit to wrote Aristotle in the Rhetoric (Aristo- ter stands heightened, with a broken describe Piranesi’s character, as has tle, 1994, 1404b 8-12) and, as James A. arm as in the relics of Antiquity which been the diagnosis Coulter has argued, proceeded to map the burgeoning field of archaeology of ‘suicidal mania’. out the ways in which linguistic and was uncovering. The Antiquity here For the description human ethos were analogous (Coulter, ascribed to Piranesi derives from the of ‘obsessive’, 1976, p. 18). According to Coulter, Ar- eighteenth-century theory of sublime ‘chaotic’, and ‘absurd’, see Tafuri, istotle’s phrase of ‘Words are like men’ architecture to which Piranesi contrib- 1978, pp. 36, 49; implied that the canons of behavioural uted very substantially both in design for ‘obsessive’, see propriety were applicable to composi- and in writing. Ancientness and mon- Rykwert, 1980, p. tional style: the style of a man was his umentality, a heightened stance and 370; for ‘frenetic’, dress (Aristotle, 1994, 1405a 10-14). darkened surroundings were essential see Penny, 1978, p. 5 30, and Wilton-Ely, Similarly in the Poetics, Aristotle iden- characteristics of the sublime. The 1993, p. 12; and for tified genre with author’s character: clouds and the play of light and shad- ‘suicidal mania’, ‘Poetry, then, was divided according ow surrounding the architect’s bust, see Jamieson, 1956, to the innate ethics [of the poet]: for the book symbolizing his vast learning p. 106. those who were more solemn imitated and intellectual authority signified to 4For the continuity decent doings and the doings of decent the eighteenth-century mind the na- of the identification persons, while those who were meaner ture of both Piranesi’s character and his of ethos and style from Antiquity imitated those of foul persons, at first work. But Polanzani’s portraiture of Pi- to the eighteenth making satires just as the others [at ranesi is not negative at all. It is an ex- century, see Şengel, first] made hymns and eulogies’ (Aris- ample for identifying ethos with work; 1996, pp. 52-104. totle, 1982, 1448b). ‘When tragedy and in this case an acknowledgement of Piranesi’s contribution to monumen- 5For eighteenth- comedy appeared, those incited [by century these kinds] were drawn according to tal and sublime architecture as in his descriptions of their innate nature toward one or the Le antichità romane (Roman antiqui- the characteristics other [of the kinds] of poetry. Some ties; Piranesi, 1756), Il Campo Marzio of sublimity see became makers of comedies instead of dell’antica Roma (The Campus Martius Kant, 1960, esp. pp. lampoons, others of tragedies instead of ancient Rome; Piranesi, 1762), and 47-50; and Burke, 4 1757; 1937, esp. pp. of epics’ (Aristotle, 1982, 1449a). Ar- the two Carceri series—Invenzioni ca- 41, 45-51, 62-69, istotle explicitly found that a creator pricci di carceri (Capricious inventions 101-102. chose genre and style according to his of prisons; Piranesi, 1745) and Carceri

Piranesi’s arguments in the Carceri 32 d’invenzione (Prisons of the Inven- tion; Piranesi, 1760). Similarly, Joseph Nolleken’s bust of the architect, made in the late 1760s, comprises a study in character [Figure 2]. Clearly in the he- roic genre, this bust too, signifies the authority of the architect-intellectual 6In respects of the and would have equally represented, high seriousness to Leclerc’s century, the nature of Pira- and significant nesi’s work as belonging to the higher contribution represented in genres of architecture. busts, there are There is no proof, however, in that very numerous sculpted face full of attention, contain- examples to which ing a keenness of vision from which one may turn. nothing would escape, of ‘Piranesi’s A rather explicit one is offered by volatile and irascible character’ (Wil- William Kent ton-Ely, 1993, p. 35). John Wilton-Ely’s (1685-1748) in his reading of the bust may be said to de- Temple of British rive from a post-Romanticist, dark Worthies (1734) ethos constructed for Piranesi. By the in Stowe Gardens, Buckinghamshire. late 1760s, the mere fact of representa- Depicted here tion in a bust implied high seriousness Figure 2. Joseph Nolleken, portrait bust of in bust are the and significant contribution in art and Piranesi, late 1760s. financer Thomas science.6 Thus Nolleken’s bust is rath- Gresham; architect er indicative of Piranesi’s artistic and Inigo Jones; poet John Milton; scientific contribution in areas—aside poet William from architecture per se—such as tech- Shakespeare; nical drawing, ichnographic drawing, philosopher and particularly the measured drawing John Locke; of archaeological structures—a bur- mathematician, 7 physicist, geoning field in the eighteenth century. astronomer, Instead of appraising the work by and chemist considering the creator’s character Isaac Newton; alone, not only his work, but the mi- Figure 3. Abrams’ construction demonstrating philosopher and lieu of the spectator or reader of these the co-ordinates of art criticism. statesman Francis Bacon; king Alfred works and the historical as well as wid- the Great; Edward, er textual context of eighteenth-cen- strating these relations is given in the the Black Prince; tury architectural thought ought to be table in Figure 3. queen Elizabeth I; taken into consideration. We need, in The mode of criticism dominant in king William III; other words, a more holistic historical the misleading approach to Piranesi poet, writer, and explorer Sir Walter approach. But the modern mainstays may be said to privilege the ‘artist’ cat- Raleigh; privateer, of western interpretations of the histo- egory and find the man in the style of navigator, ry of architecture remain reductive. Yet the ‘work’. But in fact it would be treat- politician and civil another example is the all-influential ing the ‘work’ like a transparent entity engineer Francis Meyer Howard Abrams who summa- directly and unproblematically repre- Drake; politician John Hampden; rizes extant models in modern criti- senting the creator. In Piranesi’s case, author Sir John cism, and in doing so becomes himself the work has been taken like a transpar- Barnard; and poet a major spokesman of reductionism.8 ent entity—like glass—through which Alexander Pope: all Abrams draws a table in which he con- the Piranesian vision and psyche are major figures who structs a scheme of four categories: at once conveyed to the spectator (of contributed in the arts, science, state work, artist, universe, and audience. the architectural work) and the reader or—in one case— He claims that every approach or crit- (of his architectural writings). But if finance. ical method privileges one of artist, we are able to change this perspective, 7 audience or universe in relation to For Piranesi’s then it became obvious that Piranesi’s contribution in the the work, by which the work becomes drawings, including the Carceri series, area of drawing, see transparent and a starting point for ac- reflect nothing more than his crucial Oechslin, 1981, pp. cessing artist, audience or the concep- arguments on the origins of architec- 15-35; Girón, 2006, tion of universe. Abrams’ table demon- ture, aesthetics and law per se. pp. 74-76.

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suppose, at least, that his labours must in some way terminate here. But raise your eyes, and behold a second flight of stairs still higher, on which again Pira- nesi is perceived, by this time standing on the very brink of the abyss. Again elevate your eyes, and a still more aerial flight of stairs is beheld; and again is poor Piranesi busy on his aspiring la- bours; and so on, until the unfinished stairs and Piranesi both are lost in the upper gloom of the hall. With the same power of endless growth and self-re- production did my architecture pro- ceed in my dreams (De Quincey, 1821; 1971, pp. 105-106).10 De Quincey was describing the Carceri plate in Figure 4, and it is al- ready interesting that Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834), who appar- ently introduced De Quincey to the Figure 4. Plate VII (also known with Carceri, referred to the work as Dreams the name of ‘The Drawbridge’), Carceri (Hind, 1911, p. 81; Jamieson, 1956, pp. d’Invenzione, 1760. 105-108). Coleridge himself was ad- dicted to laudanum (opium) already 8 3. The romantic ‘guilty’ in the For the following Carceri in his twenties, and irreversibly so by account of the The darker perception of Piranesi 1800-1802 (Engell, Bate, eds., 1983, pp. relations between xliv-xlv, 17n.5), which De Quincey de- the work-and- and his work most concretely goes back creator, work-and- to and this movement’s scribed in “Coleridge and Opium-Eat- universe (nature), conception of the creative character ing” (De Quincey, 1845; 2000), V: 179- and work-and- as dark and unique.9 This conception 258). spectator, and for made room for heightened creativity Coleridge’s perception of Pirane- the construction si and the Carceri, and De Quincey’s demonstrating the and a darker, but richer, imagination by co-ordinates of art use of intoxicating drugs, most ostensi- transmission of it to posterity proved criticism in the bly opium. Thus in his Confessions of as seminal as Aristotle’s identification table in Figure 3, an English Opium-Eater (1821) Thom- of ethos with style. In 1950, Huxley was see Abrams, 1958, going to remark that the Carceri rep- pp. 6-8. as de Quincey (1785-1859) described Piranesi’s work: resent, ‘metaphysical […] guilt’ (Hux- 9On the Many years ago, when I was look- ley, 1950, pp. 207-208). A year before, disposition for ing over Piranesi’s antiquities of Rome, Huxley had published the Carceri with darkness in the age Mr Coleridge, who was standing by, commentary in which he observed of Romanticism, described to me a set of plates by that that, see Praz, 1978, artist, called his Dreams, and which re- All plates in the series are self-evi- p. 27. cord the scenery of his visions during dently variations on a single symbol, 10For an the delirium of a fever. Some of them whose reference is to things existing in interpretation of […] represented vast Gothic halls; on the physical and metaphysical depths the De Quincey the floor of which stood all sorts of en- of human souls – to acedia and confu- passage see Hind, gines and machinery, wheels, cables, sion, to nightmare and angst, to incom- 1911, p. 81. pulleys, levers, catapults, etc., etc., ex- prehension and a panic bewilderment 11For a reading pressive of enormous power put forth, (Huxley, 1949 p. 21). of The Castle of and resistance overcome. Creeping Ralph Waldo Emerson, the New Otranto as the along the sides of the walls, you per- England moralist, who had probably narrativization of ceived a staircase; and upon it, groping the architectonics seen a few prints of the Carceri in 1838 his way upwards, was Piranesi himself; (Christadler, 1974, p. 105n.1), wrote in of the Carceri, see follow the stairs a little further, and you Christadler, 1974, his journal in 1841 that three authors p. 83ff. Also see perceive it comes to a sudden, abrupt termination, without any balustrade, had opened the gates to ‘new modes Piranesi, 1760; of existence’ for him: Dante, Rabelais Piranesi, 1745; and allowing no steps onwards to him Walpole, 1764, who had reached the extremity, ex- and Piranesi (Emerson, 1970, p. 97 as 1996; Beckford, cept into the depths below. Whatever quoted in Christadler, 1974, p. 78). The 1786, 1904, 1998. is to become of poor Piranesi?—you connection between Piranesi and Dan-

Piranesi’s arguments in the Carceri 34 te is perhaps readily evident since ear- The Wandering Jew and ’, ly nineteenth-century culture would Ingeborg Weber’s phrasing of such a 12The modern-day foreground the Carceri and identify hero is reminiscent of the phrasing translation of the it with Dante’s Inferno. Emerson in architectural historians use in describ- same section is as follows: ‘I find fact wrote of ‘that infernal architec- ing Piranesi (Weber, 1985, p. 154). All that the ancients ture of Piranesi’ (Emerson, 1970, VIII: these terms and person names belong had three types 7 as quoted in Christadler, 1974, p. to literary figures rather than architec- of prison: one 105n.1). Nor was this perception of the tural ones. Yet they are all influential where rough and Carceri limited to the English speak- names whose perception of Piranesi untutored men might be rounded ing world. As Paul F. Jamieson pointed played rather lasting role. They seem to up to receive out in his 1956 article, those immense- have been influential even in the very night-time training ly influenced by this apprehension of fact that architectural historians of the from learned Piranesi included not only the British stature of Rykwert and Tafuri refrain and experienced Horace Walpole (1717-1797) and Wil- from viewing Piranesi’s work archi- teachers of the noble arts in liam Beckford (1760-1844) in addition tecturally and frame it from the per- matters relating to to Coleridge, De Quincey and Hux- spective of the Romantic poet and the their moral conduct ley, but also the Frenchmen Honoré Gothic novelist. and way of life; the de Balzac, Théophile Gautier, Charles second in which to Baudelaire, Alfred de Musset (Jamie- 4. Piranesi’s role in the story of the confine insolvent debtors and those son, 1956, p. 105), and no one less than Carceri who require the Victor Hugo himself (Mallion, 1962, I observe that the Ancients had tedium of prison pp. 250, 264, 275ff., et passim). The three sorts of Prisons. The first was that life to set right their steps, stairs and spirals of the Carceri wherein they kept the disorderly and wayward lives; in fact fascinated the French Roman- the ignorant, to the intent that every the third where to tics enough to warrant book-length night they might be doctor’d and in- assign those who structed by learned and able professors have committed study (Keller, 1966; also see Poulet, of the best arts, in those points which abominable crimes, 1966, pp. 660-71, 849-62). related to good Manners and an honest those who are Jorgen Andersen rightly argues that life. The second was for the confine- unworthy of the Gothic novels such as Walpole’s The light of day or ment of debtors, and the reformation of of contact with Castle of Otranto (1764) and Beckford’s such as were got into a licentious way of society, and who Vathek (1786) owe their spatial-archi- living. The last was for the most wick- are soon to suffer tectural inspiration to the Carceri (An- ed, wretched and horrid profligates, capital punishment dersen, 1952, pp. III: 49-59).11 Walpole, unworthy of the light of the sun or the or be given over who had travelled on the continent, society of mankind, and soon to be de- to darkness and livered over to capital punishment or shame. However, was familiar with Piranesi works oth- anyone who er than the Carceri and commented in perpetual imprisonment and misery. If any man is of opinion that this last sort determined that 1771 that, of Prison ought to be made like some this last category be an underground This delicate redundance of orna- subterraneous Cavern, or frightful Sep- ment growing into our architecture chamber, like ulchre, he has certainly a greater regard some fearful tomb, might perhaps be checked, if our art- to the punishment of the Criminal than would be proposing ists would study the sublime dreams of is agreeable either to the design of the a penalty for the Piranesi, who seems to have conceived law or to humanity, and tho’ wicked criminal more visions of Rome beyond what it boasted men do by their crimes deserve the severe than what even in the meridian of its splendour. highest punishment, yet the Prince or the law itself or Savage as , fierce as Mi- Commonwealth ought never to forget human reason chelangelo, and exuberant as Rubens, Mercy in the midst of justice (Leoni, should demand. he has imagined scenes that would star- 1726).12 Even if such men tle geometry, and exhaust the Indies to (who are beyond realize. He piles palaces on bridges, and By these words (cited from the redemption) deserve the temples on palaces, and scales heaven translation of Giacomo Leoni as a Pi- ranesi’s contemporary) describing ‘the ultimate of all with mountains of edifices. Yet what penalties for their taste in his boldness! What grandeur in three sorts of Prisons, their structures, crimes, it would be his wildness! What labour and thought situations and compartitions’ in Book expected of republic in his rashness and details! (Walpole, V of his work De re aedificatoria (On and prince alike 1771, 1786, p. 398). the art of Building, 1452) (Leoni, 1726), that they should And in a discussion of the ‘“Gothic Leon Battista Alberti (1404-1472) clas- not be wanting in Villain” and “Byronic Hero”’ in which compassion’. For sifies ancients’ prisons according to the this translation see she describes the cliché of the Roman- criminals’ crimes. If we adhere to the Alberti, 1988, p. tic hero who is at once ‘Satan, Cain, interpretations of our contemporary 139.

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vious fourteen with some additional inscriptions and two more plates (Pira- nesi, 1760).13 Though they are famous with the connotation of obscurity, the Carceri plates are full of important messages formed by Piranesi’s argu- ments on the origins of architecture and the aesthetics. Firstly, concerning origins, Piranesi developed a history of architecture not based on the East/ West division, and supported this by the argument that Roman architec- ture depended on Etruscans which was rooted in Egypt. Secondly, he distin- guished Roman from Grecian architec- ture identified with ‘ingenious beauty’. Thus he placed Romans in another aes- thetical category which the eighteenth century called ‘the sublime’. In this respect, the Carceri plates bear the reflections of sublimity in the Ro- man architecture with their obscured Figure 5. Carcere oscura (also known with and deep spaces; complex stairs; dom- the name of ‘The Dark Prison’), Prima parte inant and impressive vertical emphasis going beyond the margins of the plates, 13 di Architetture e Prospettive, 1743. The scenes in the which seems as expanding throughout plates of the second edition (Carceri historians (like Rykwert and Tafuri, and the sky without any boundaries; and d’Invenzione) are especially latter’s description of Pirane- minute, gesturing human figures scat- even darker than si as the ‘wicked architect’) (Rykwert, tered under the infinite, great-scale ar- the first edition 1980, p. 370; Tafuri, 1978, p. 47), the chitecture of the Romans [esp. Figures (Invenzioni criminals in the third type of prison re- 4, 6, 7, and 8]. Thus stimulating the capricci di carceri). Also see Ficacci, call us Piranesi’s ‘wicked, wretched and feelings of admiration, astonishment, 2005. horrid profligates’ scattered in almost awe, or pleasure and pain, or empathy 14 Winckelmann all plates of Carceri of which spatial in the observers’ minds comprises the defined Grecian design also reminds a ‘subterranean aesthetical effect of sublimity in the architecture cavern’ or ‘sepulchre’. But while etching Carceri. Therefore, according to Pira- as having ‘edle the Carceri, Piranesi’s aim should be nesi, this architecture cannot root in Einfalt und stille far from etching only those desperate the Greeks and their ‘noble simplicity Grösse’ (‘noble simplicity and guilties scattered around the obscured and quiet grandeur’ as claimed by Jo- quiet grandeur’): spaces described above. Then, what hann Joachim Winckelmann (1717- see Winckelmann, were his main ambition and arguments 1768).14 The mainstays of Piranesi’s 1755, 1992, p. 24. which are almost imprisoned by many assumptions on aesthetics, further, For his further historians and researchers between the echoed both in Edmund Burke’s (1729- views on the origin of European walls of the Carceri? 1797) work A Philosophical Inquiry into architecture, also Piranesi’s Carceri adventure began the Origin of Our Ideas of The Sublime see Winckelmann, in 1743 with a single plate Carcere os- and Beautiful (1757), and in Immanuel 1764, 1880. cura (The Dark Prison, Figure 5) pub- Kant’s (1724-1804) work Observations 15For a discussion lished in the series of Prima parte di on the Feelings of the Beautiful and Sub- of Piranesi’s Architetture e Prospettive (Part one of lime (1764); and the eighteenth-centu- integrated architecture and perspectives; Pirane- ry perception distinguished between argument on the aesthetics and si, 1743)—and later published in Opere ‘sublimity’ and ‘beauty’ (Burke, 1757; origins of Roman varie di architettura of 1750 (Piranesi, 1937; Kant, 1764, 1960). In this respect, architecture in 1750, 1836)—continued with Inven- the discussions of architectural origins detail see Ek, zioni capricci di carceri of 1745 (Pira- in the eighteenth century was formed 2006, pp. 8-23; nesi, 1745) with fourteen plates, and by the aesthetical discourses interpret- Ek, Şengel, 2007, pp. 17-34; and Ek, then ended with Carceri d’Invenzione ing Grecian architecture as ‘beautiful’ Şengel, 2008, pp. of 1760 published as sixteen plates in- and Roman—and thus Egyptian—as 27-51. cluding the secondary phases of pre- ‘sublime’. Piranesi was spokesman of

Piranesi’s arguments in the Carceri 36 the latter argument, and thus the orig- inality of his argument lies within his undertaking of these two debates as one interrelated topic.15 Apart from this main argument, the Carceri series also reflect his in- vestigation on the Roman law as well as his general views on law, peace and justice. In this respect, they reflect the characteristics of eighteenth-century 16Perhaps the most important Europe which was troubled and direct- historicist of the ed towards the year 1789 at full speed; Figure 6. Plate XIV (also known with the eighteenth-century and also reflect eighteenth-century It- name of ‘The Gothic Arch’), Invenzioni Italy was still aly which was divided due to the War capricci di carceri, 1745. Franco Venturi. See of the Spanish Succession between Venturi, 1972. the years of 1745 and 1760, when the 17Also see Piranesi, Carceri series were produced. Thus ‘Parere su l’architettura’, in the new governors were disrupting Wilton-Ely, 2002, Italy’s traditional systems in econom- pp. 140-41. ics, taxation and guilds. Traditional 18Sallust’s original systems including the penal code col- words in his Bellum lapsed and new criminal laws brought Igurthinum are as into force. While violence, crisis and follows: ‘Nunc vos upheaval were shaking Italy, Piranesi existumate facta was drawing his Carceri series.16 In this an dicta pluris sint. Contemnunt historical moment, Italian intellectual novitatem meam, groups including Piranesi himself were ego illorum to coalesce in the movement against ignaviam; mihi the penal system, particularly against fortuna, illis probra capital punishment. Thus Italians were obiectantur’ [Think now yourselves exceedingly active in the movements whether words or of the humanization of the penal prac- deeds are worth tice and abolishment of capital punish- more. They scorn ment—which were among the main Figure 7. Plate III (also known with the my humble birth, I projects of the Enlightenment. name of ‘The Round Tower’), Carceri their worthlessness; d’Invenzione, 1760. I am taunted Therefore, it can also be claimed with my lot in that, as one of the humanist intellectu- life, they with als of the Enlightenment, the architect their infamies]. Piranesi was after the advocation of the Piranesi found abolishment of the capital punishment. Sallust’s words in ‘The War with With the purpose of giving more mes- Jugurtha’, 1980, pp. sages at first glance to the observers of 85. 14. Piranesi’s his drawings, he further combined this inscription in argument with the ones on aesthetics Figure 10 is and origins. While condemning the translated by Rykwert as, ‘They capital punishment or torturing (which despise my humble were legalized by the Roman law) in birth [or: my his Carceri, he also praised the ‘sub- originality] and I lime’ Roman architecture in a manner their cowardice’ in reproaching the judicial system of it. Rykwert, 1978, p. 380; by Wittkower as, ‘They despise 5. Epilogue my novelty, I ‘[…] it is a strange thing that the their timidity’ in mad Piranesi [il Pazzo Piranesi] dares Wittkower, 1938- to be an Architect; I shall only say that 39, p. 155n.81. Also see Piranesi, ‘Parere it is not a profession for madmen’ (as su l’architettura’, in quoted in Pane, 1973, p. 42). These Figure 8. Plate VIII (The Staircase with Wilton-Ely, 2002, words are from Luigi Vanvitelli’s let- Trophies), Carceri d’Invenzione, 1760. pp. 78n.99, 153.

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from ours. The research to be done is immense and Piranesi’s oeuvre is com- plex. The failure of his major interpret- ers may be attributed to these factors and the very complex character of the eighteenth century. There is equally the necessity to work one’s way through the mediation of the Romantics’ per- ception which, as we have seen, twen- tieth-century critics tended to take for granted.

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Piranesi’s arguments in the Carceri