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CALIFORNIA STATE UNIVERSITY, NORTHRIDGE

GIOVANNI BATTISTA PIRANESI

AND THE ROMANTIC RUIN IN

FRENCH LITHOGRAPHY

A thesis submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in

Art History

Cynthia Lee Kimble

January 1984 The Thesis of Cynthia Lee Kimble is approved:

Birgitta Lindros Wohl, Ph.D.

Kenon Breaze~le, Ph.D.

California State University, Northridge

ii I would like to extend my gratitude to the members of my committee, especially to Louise Lewis for her enthusiasm and understanding, and to Dr. Birgitta Wohl, for her friendship and guidance. I also want to express my appreciation to my family, for their loyal support and encouragement throughout the duration of this project.

Last, but not least, I would like to say a special "thank you" to my typist, Ann Witkower, for her expertise in preparing the final draft of this thesis.

iii TABLE OF CONTENTS

Page Acknowledgments ...... iii List of Plates •• . . . • • v Abstract. • • • • • •• xvii Introduction...... • • 1 Chapter 1: The Forerunners of the Romantic Ruin in Print • • • • • . . 4

Chapter 2: Piranesi and the Ruins of Rome. • 37

Chapter 3: Voyages pittoresques et romantiques dans l'ancienne France and Piranesi •••••• 91

Conclusion. • • • • • 0 • • • • • • • • • • • • .155

Bibliography. • 1 61

Appendices. • • • • • •••••• • 1 73 A Selected List of Piranesi's Works B Volumes of Voyages pittoresgues et romantigues dans l'ancienne France Plates...... • • • • • 1 76

iv LIST OF PLATES

Plate Page

1 • Fra Francesco Colonna. The Polyandrion, woodcut. Hypnerotomachia Polifili, 1499. Cooper Union Museum, New York. Source: Paul Zucker. Fascination of Decay: Ruins, Relic, Symbol, Ornament. Ridgewood, N.J.: Gregg Press, 1968, p. 14 • •••••••••••••• 176 2. Sebastiane Serlio. Title Page of Book III, woodcut. D'Architettura, Venice, 1540. Third Edition, 1551. Source: Paul Zucker. Fascination of Decay: Ruins, Relic, Symbol, Ornament. Ridgewood, N.J.: Gregg Press, 1968, p. 16. • • . . • • • • • . • . 177

3. Etienne Dup~rac. Temple of Antoninus and Faustina, A.D. 141, etching. I Vestigi dell'Antichit~ di Roma, Rome (Rossi), 1575.

Source: A. Hyatt Mayor. Prints and People. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1971, pl. 369 •• 178

4. Claude Lorrain. Ruins of Ancient Rome With the Burial of Santa Serapia, detail. Prado, Madrid. Source: Margaret Scherer. Marvels of Ancient Rome. New York: Phaidon Press for the Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1955, pl. 18 •••••••.. 179 5. Salvator Rosa. Battle Scene, early 1650's. Louvre, Paris.

Source: Salvator Rosa. London: Hayward Gallery, 1973, pl. 15 ••••••• 180

v I '

6. Egidius (Gilles) Sadeler. Nymphaeum Aquae Julia, engraving. Vestigi della Antichita di Roma, Tivoli, Puzzuolo e Altri Lvochi, Prague, 1616. Cooper Union Museum, New York.

Source: Paul Zucker. Fascination of Decay: Ruins, Relic, Symbol, Ornament. Ridgewood, N.J.: Gregg Press, 1968, p. 30 ••••••••••••••• 181

7. Bartholomeus Breenburgh. A Roman Ruin, etching. 1620-27.

Source: A. Hyatt Mayor. Prints and People. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1971, pl. 370 •• 182

8. Benedetto Castiglione. The Artist's Genius, etching. 1648.

Source: Ann Percy. G.B. Castiglione: Master Draftsman of the Italian Baroque. Philadelphia: Philadelphia Museum of Art, p. 143 •••••••••••• 183

9. Ferdinanda Bibiena. Stage Design showing a scena per angelo, Architettura Civile, 1711.

Source: John Wilton-Ely. The Mind and Art of Giovanni Battista Piranesi. London: Thames and Hudson, 1978, p. 10 • •••••••••••••• 184

10. Giovanni Paolo Pannini. Landscape With Roman Ruins, 1735. Kaiser Friedrich Museum, Berlin.

Source: Margaret Scherer. Marvels of Ancient Rome. New York: Phaidon Press for the Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1955, pl. 18 • . • • • • • • • 185

11. Hubert Robert. Portico With the Statue of Marcus Aurelius. Louvre, Paris.

Source: Margaret Scherer. Marvels of Ancient Rome. New York: Phaidon Press for the Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1955, pl. 22 •••••••.• 186

vi 12. Antonio Canaletto. The Portico With the Lantern, etching. Vedute altre prese da i luoghi, altre ideate, c. 1744.

Source: The William A. Gumberts Collection of Canaletto Etchings. Santa Barbara: The Santa Barbara Museum of Art, 1979, p. 77 ••••.••• 187

13. Antonio Canaletto. Landscape With Ruined Monuments, etching. Vedute altre prese da i luoghi, altre ideate, c. 1744.

Source: The William A. Gumberts Collection of Canaletto Etchings. Santa Barbara: The Santa Barbara Museum of Art, 1979, p. 81 •••••••• 188 14. Antonio Canaletto. Title Plate, etching. Vedute altre prese da i luoghi, altre ideate, c. 1744. Source: The William A. Gumberts Collection of Canaletto Etchings. Santa Barbara: The Santa Barbara Museum of Art, 1979, p. 37. • • • .• 189

15. Giovanni Battista Tiepolo. Young Man Seated, Leaning Against an Urn, etching. Capricci, c. 1743. Source: George Knox. Etchings by the Tiepolos. Ottawa: National Gallery of Canada, 1976, p. 107 •.•••• 190

16. Giovanni Battista Tiepolo. Seated Man and Two Magician~, etching. Scherzi di Fantasia, c. 1744/5. .

Source: George Knox. Etchings by the Tiepolos. Ottawa: National Gallery of Canada, 1976, p. 138 •••••• 191 17. Giovanni Battista Tiepolo. Seated Magician With Menke Standin Youth and Ox, etching. Scherzi di Fantasia, c. 1744 5.

Source: Aldo Rizzi. Mostra del Tiepolo: disegnie acqueforti. Udine: Electa Editrice, 1971, p. 78 •.• 192

vii 18. Marco Ricci. Capriccio, etching. Experimenta, 1730.

Source: John Wilton-Ely. The Mind and Art of Giovanni Battista Piranesi. London: Thames and Hudson, 1978, p. 10 • •••••••••••••• 193 19. Giovanni Battista Piranesi. Frontispiece, etching. Prima Parte di Architetture e Prospettive, 1743.

Source: John Wilton-Ely. The Mind and Art of Giovanni Battista Piranesi. London: Thames and Hudson, 1978, p. 12 • •••••••••••••• 194 20. Giovanni Battista Piranesi. Plate from the Grotteschi, etching. c. 1745.

Source: John Wilton-Ely. The Mind and Art of Giovanni Battista Piranesi. London: Thames and Hudson, 1978, p. 20. • ...... 195 21. Giovanni Battista Piranesi. Facade of St. John Lateran, etching. Varie Vedute di Roma Antica e Moderna, c. 1745. Source: John Wilton-Ely. The Mind and Art of Giovanni Battista Piranesi. London: Thames and Hudson, 1978, p. 26 • •••••••••••••• 196 22. Giovanni Battista Piranesi. Circus of Caracalla, etching. Varie Vedute di Roma Antica e Moderna, c. 1745.

Source: John Wilton-Ely. The Mind and Art of Giovanni Battista Piranesi. London: Thames and Hudson, 1978, p. 28 ••••••••••••••• 197

23. Giovanni Battista Piranesi. Pyramid of Cestius, etching. Varie Vedute di Roma Antica e Moderna, c. 1745.

Source: John Wilton-Ely. The Mind and Art of Giovanni Battista Piranesi. London: Thames and Hudson, 1978, p. 28 • •••••••••••••• 198

viii 24. Giuseppe Vasi. Pyramid of Cestius, etching. Magnificenze di Roma Antica e Moderna, 1747.

Source: John Wilton-Ely. The Mind and Art of Giovanni Battista Piranesi. London: Thames and Hudson, 1978, p. 28 •••••••••• • 199 25. Giovanni Battista Piranesi. Arch of Constantine, etching. Antichit£ Romane de' Tempi della Repubblica e de' Primi Imperatori, 1748. (Later reprinted as Alcune Vedute di Archi Trionfali, c. 1765.)

Source: Jonathan Scott. Piranesi. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1975, p. 18 • •••••••••••••• 200

26. Giovanni Battista Piranesi. Arch of Janus, etching. Antichit~ Romane de' Tempi della Repubblica e de' Primi Imperatori, 1748. (Later reprinted as Alcune Vedute di Archi Trionfali, c. 1765.) Source: Jonathan Scott. Piranesi. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1975, p. 18 • •••••••••••••• 201

27. Giovanni Battista Piranesi. Frontispiece, etching. Le Antichit~ Romane, 1756. Source: John Wilton-Ely. The Mind and Art of Giovanni Battista Piranesi. London: Thames and Hudson, 1978, p. 49 • •••••••••••••• 202 28. Giovanni Battista Piranesi. Foundations of the Castel s. Angelo, etching. Le Antichita Romane, 1756. Source: John Wilton-Ely. The Mind and Art of Giovanni Battista Piranesi. London: Thames and Hudson, 1978, p. 58 . .•...... 203

29. Giovanni Battista Piranesi. Arch of Constantine and the Colosseum, etching. Vedute di Roma, c. 1748-1778. Source: Jonathan Scott. Piranesi. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1975, p. 248 • • • • • • . • • . • • • • 204

ix 30. Giovanni Battista Piranesi. Pyramid of Cestius, etching. Vedute di Roma, c. 1748- 1778.

Source: John Wilton-Ely. The Mind and Art of Giovanni Battista Piranesi. London: Thames and Hudson, 1978, p. 35 ••••••• • 205

31. Giovanni Battista Piranesi. Arch of Titus, etching. Vedute di Roma, c. 1748-1778.

Source: Jonathan Scott. Piranesi. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1975, p. 264 . • • • • • • • • • • • • • 206

32. Giovanni Battista Piranesi. Pyramid of Cestius, etching. Vedute di Roma, c. 1748-1778.

Source: John Wilton-Ely. The Mind and Art of Giovanni Battista Piranesi. London: Thames and Hudson, 1978, p. 35...... • • 207

33. Giovanni Battista Piranesi. Colosseum, etching. Vedute di Roma, c. 1748-1778.

Source: Hans Volkmann. Giovanni Battista Piranesi: Architekund Graphiker. Berlin: Verlag, 1965, pl. 22 ••• 208

34. Giovanni Battista Piranesi. Tomb of Cecilia Metella, etching. Vedute di Roma, c. 1748- 1778.

Source: Arthur M. Hind. Giovanni Battista Piranesi: A Critical Study With A List of His Published Works and Detailed Catalogues of the Prisons and the Views of Rome. London: The Cotswold Gallery, 1922, pl. XXXVII •••••••••••• 209

X 35. Giovanni Battista Piranesi. Interior of the Central Hall, Baths of Caracalla, etching. Vedute di Roma, c. 1748-1778.

36. Giovanni Battista Piranesi. Temple of the Sibyl, Tivoli, etching. Vedute di Roma, c. 1748-1778.

Source: Jonathan Scott. Piranesi. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1975, p. 176 •••••••••••••• 211

37. Giovanni Battista Piranesi. Temple of the Sibyl, Tivoli, etching. Vedute di Roma, c. 1748-1778.

38. Giovanni Battista Piranesi. The Canopus, Hadrian's Villa, etching. Vedute di Roma, c. 1748-1778.

xi 39. Giovanni Battista Piranesi. Interior of the Baths, Hadrian's Villa, etching. Vedute di Roma, c. 1748-1778.

40. Eugene Ciceri. Grand Rue Vieille a' Nantes, lithograph. Voyages pittoresques (Bretagne, c. 1845).

Source: Henry L. Seaver, "The Golden Book of Landscape Lithography," Print Collector's Quarterly, V (1915), p. 447 •••••••••••••• 215

41. Adrien Dauzats. Faqade de Notre-Dame Cathedrale de Rheims, lithograph. Voyages pittoresques (Champagne, 1857).

Source: Michael Twyman. Lithography, 1800- 1850. London: Oxford University Press, 1970, pl. 143 • • • 216

42. Paul Huet. Tour du Mont-Perrou vue des bords de l'Allier, lithograph. Voyages pittoresgues (Auvergne, 1833).

Source: Michael Twyman. Lithography, 1800- 1850. London: Oxford University Press, 1970, pl. 145 ••••••• 217

/ 43. Eugene Isabey. Abside de l'Eglise de Saint- Nectaire, lithograph. Voyages pittoresgues (Auvergne, 1833).

Source: Atherton Curtis. Catalogue de l'oeuvre lithographid de Eugene Isabey. Paris: Paul Proute, 1939, pl. 36 • • • • • • • • • • • • • • 21 8

xii Q '

/ 44. Eugene Isabey. Eglise de Saint-Nectaire, lithograph. Voyages pittoresques (Auvergne, 1833) •

Source: Atherton Curtis. Catalogue de l'oeuvre lithographi~ de Eugene Isabey. Paris: Paul Proute, 1939, pl. 35 • 219

45. Eugene Isabey. Ruines du Chateau et du Village de Saint-Nectaire, lithograph. Voyages pittoresques (Auvergne, 1833).

Source: Atherton Curtis. Catalogue de l'oeuvre lithographi~de Eugene Isabey. Paris: Paul Proute, 1939, pl. 37 • ...... 220 46. Eugene Isabey. Ruines du Ch&teau du Bouzols, lithograph. Voyages pittoresques (Auvergne, 1833).

Source: Atherton Curtis. Catalogue de l'oeuvre lithographi~ de Eugene Isabey. Paris: Paul Proute, 1939, pl= 40 = 221 47. Eugene Isabey. Croix sur la route de Clermont a Royat, lithograph. Voyages pittoresgues (Auvergne, 1833).

Source: Atherton Curtis. Catalogue de l'oeuvre lithographi~ de Eugene Isabey. Paris: Paul Proute, 1939, pl. 32 • 222

48. Eugene Isabey. Croix du villages des Bains au Mont-Dor, lithograph. Voyages pittoresgues (Auvergne, 1833).

Source: Atherton Curtis. Catalogue de l'oeuvre lithographi~ de Eugene Isabey. Paris: Paul Proute, 1939, pl. 34 • 223

xiii 49. Eugene Isabey. ChateauA de Larderole, lithograph. Voyages pittoresques (Auvergne, 1833). Source: Atherton Curtis. Catalogue de l'oeuvre lithographi~de Eugene Isabey. Paris: Paul Proute, 1939, pl. 45 • ...... 224 50. Eugene Isabey. Donjon de Polignac, lithograph. Voyages pittoresques (Auvergne, 1833).

Source: Atherton Curtis. Catalogue de l'oeuvre lithographid de Eugene Isabey. Paris: Paul Proute, 1939, pl. 47 • 225

51. Eugene Isabey. Donjon du Ch~teau de Polignac, lithograph. Voyages pittoresques (Auvergne, 1833).

Source: Atherton Curtis. Catalogue de l'oeuvre lithographie de Eugene Isabey. Paris: Paul Proute, 1939, pl. 42 • 226

52. Eugene Isabey. Ch~teau de Pont-Gibaud, lithograph. Voyages pittoresques (Auvergne, 1833). Source: Michael Twyman. Lithography, 1800-1850. London: Oxford University Press, 1970, pl. 147 .• 227 , 53. Eugene Isabey. Eglise Saint Jean, Thiers, lithograph. Voyages pittoresques (Auvergne, 1833). Source: Michael Twyman. Lithography, 1800-1850. London: Oxford University Press, 1970, pl. 149 ••. 228

54. Louis Haghe. Ruines de l'Abbaye de Saint Martin du Canigou, lithograph, Voyages pittoresques (Languedoc, 1835).

Source: Michael Twyman. Lithography, 1800-1850. London: Oxford University Press, 1970, pl. 150 •. 229

xiv 55. J.D. Harding. Chateau d'Oliferne, lithograph. Voyages pittoresques (Franche comte, 1825 >. Source: Michael Twyman. Lithography, 1800-1850. London: Oxford University Press, 1970, pl. 151 •• 230 56. Newton Fielding. Ruines du Chateau de Richecourt, lithograph. Vo7ages pittoresques (Franche Comte, 1825).

Source: Michael Twyman. Lithography, 1800-1850. London: Oxford University Press, 1970, pl. 154 •• 231

57. RigPard Parkes Bonington. Fagade de l'Eglise de Brou, lithograph. Voyages pittoresques (Franche Comte, 1825).

Source: Atherton Curtis. Catalogue de !'oeuvre lithographieet grave de R.P. Bonington. Paris: Paul Proute, 1939, pl. 23 •••••.• 232

58. Richard Parkes Bonington. Croix de Moulin les-Planches, lithograph. Voyages pittoresgues (Franche Comte", 1825).

Source: Atherton Curtis. Catalogue de !'oeuvre lithographie et grave de R.P. Bonington. Paris: Paul Proute, 1939, pl. 26 • • • • • 233 59. Richard Parkes Bonington. Vue generale des Ruines du Ch~teau de'Arlay, lithograph. Voyages pittoresques (Franche Comte, 1825).

Source: Atherton Curtis. Catalogue de !'oeuvre lithographie et grave de R.P. Bonington. Paris: Paul Proute, 1939, pl. 27 • • • • • 234

60. Richard Parkes Bonington. Rue de Gros Horloge, Rauen, lithograph. Voyages pittoresgues (Ancienne Normandie, 1825).

Source: Atherton Curtis. Catalogue de !'oeuvre lithographie et grave de R.P. Bonington. Paris: Paul Proute, 1939, pl. 16 ••••••• 235

XV 61. Richard Parkes Bonington. Tour du Gros Horloge, Evreux, lithograph. Voyages pittoresques (Ancienne Normandie, 1825). Source: Michael Twyman. Lithography, 1800-1850. London: Oxford University Press, 1970, pl. 155 •• 236 62. Giovanni Battista Piranesi. Piazza Navona, etching. Le Magnificenze di Roma, 1751. Source: Arthur M. Hind. Giovanni Battista Piranesi: A Critical Study With A List of His Published Works and Detailed Catalogues of the Prisons and the Views of Rome. London: The Cotswold Gallery, 1922, pl. X. 237

xvi ABSTRACT

GIOVANNI BATTISTA PIRANESI

AND THE ROMANTIC RUIN IN FRENCH LITHOGRAPHY

Cynthia Lee Kimble

Master of Arts in Art History

The romantic preoccupation with the ruin in the

graphic arts can be traced back to its tentative

beginnings at the end of the fifteenth century. In spite

of the sixteenth century's emphasis on Renaissance

perspective and exactitude, the growing interest in the

ruin as a romantic entity continued to develop. With the

advent of the Baroque period and its emotional qualities,

the depiction of remnants from antiquity gained even

greater popularity in the field of prints. The eighteenth

century witnessed what can be termed a mania for the ruined state of ancient buildings and their romantic associations. The enthusiasm for travel among the learned and wealthy British gentry spawned the institution of the

xvii European Grand Tour, with Rome as its ultimate goal. The

Venetian printmaker Giovanni Battista Piranesi etched his magnificent views of Roman monuments for these travelers, endowing them with the emotional connotations he must have felt while viewing them.

Piranesi's interest in depicting the romantic qualities inherent in the ruin may have been influential for a particular group of nineteenth century French and

English lithographers. These artists, under the patronage of the entrepreneur Baron Isadore Taylor, contributed to the monumental publication Voyages pittoresques et romantigues dans l'ancienne France, depicting the remnants of medieval France as Piranesi had etched the ruins of classical Rome a century before. In the prints of the artist Richard Parkes Bonington and certain other contributors to this work can best be seen the debt to

Piranesi, as these nineteenth century lithographers made their own contribution to the romantic ruin in print.

xviii INTRODUCTION

Society has always been fascinated with the visible

remains of past civilizations. For the last several

centuries, it has sought to convey their majesty and

elusive beauty in writing, and especially, through the visual arts. Through the tangible remnants of lost worlds, society is able to recapture, at least in part,

that feeling of timelessness and that bittersweet nostalgia which comes from reflection upon a time that can

never come again. Painters and poets alike have sought to

capture this spirit inherent in the ruin, and, through

their art, to preserve it for all time for the generations yet to come.

It is my purpose here, however, to deal with one

special branch of the visual arts, that of the print, and to show how, through this medium, the ruin evolved from

its early depiction in the fifteenth century as little more than an architectural tool, to an entity capable of evoking in the beholder the deepest and most profound of emotions, the emergence of the ruin as a romantic idea in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The credit for this belongs especially to the graphic work of one artist,

1 2 (l •

Giovanni Battista Piranesi. In him, the glorious ruins of

Roman antiquity found their most eloquent spokesman. No artist before this eighteenth century Venetian ever etched the Eternal City and its great monuments with such devotion and belief in their infinite superiority as he. ·

The graphic contribution to the development of the romantic ruin did not end with Piranesi and the eighteenth century, however, but continued on into the nineteenth.

Following the impressive patterns established by the great

Venetian master and his views of Rome were a group of

French lithographers led by an enterprising man named

Baron Isadore Taylor. What Piranesi and his classical

Roman views did for the medium of etching, Baron Taylor and the artists of his monumental work, Voyages pittoresgues et romantigues dans l'ancienne France, did for the development of French lithography and through it, the preservation on paper of the medieval ruins of France.

Though the differences between Piranesi and the artists of the Voyages pittoresgues at times seem stronger than the similarities, there is still a common spirit which binds them together. Though separated by time and cultural milieu, a connecting link may be discerned between Piranesi and certain of the artists who contributed their talents to this landmark in French topographical lithography. This link is perhaps most evident in the work of the English lithographer Richard 3

Parkes Bonington. Certain of Bonington's works bear a striking resemblanc~ to the etchings of Piranesi, as we will later discover. CHAPTER ONE

The interest in ruins for their own sake seems not to have been in evidence before the early Renaissance. At that time, certain individuals began to take a new look at the remnants of ancient monuments and to become preoc- 1 cupied with them as objects in and of themselves. This new preoccupation with ruins manifests itself in one of the earliest Italian books of the period, the

Hypnerotomachia Polifili by the Dominican monk Francesco

Colonna, written in 1467 and published in 1499 by the famous Venetian printer Aldus Manutius. The first published book on architecture to be illustrated, this series depicts the theme of Love, sometimes quite sugges- tively interwoven into architectural scenes. In this strange tale, the hero Poliphilus and his love Folia are shown moving in trancelike states through an ancient ruined temple called the Polyandrion (Plate 1). In this

1 For a general survey of society's preoccupation with ruins from the fifteenth century to the present, see Paul Zucker, Fascination of Decay: ruins, relic, symbol, ornament (Ridgewood, New Jersey: Gregg Press, 1968). Zucker's selected bibliography, pp. 261-263, is helpful in referring the reader to a wide selection of books which offer in depth studies on particular aspects of the topic of ruins.

4 5

architectural composition can be sensed the beginnings of a desire to express a mood through the juxtaposition of various ruins from ancient civilizations and the use of architecture for new expressive purposes. The artist makes no attempt to depict a particular place. He has used his imagination to create a fictional environment in which his characters act out their drama, as they wander through scenes filled with the broken remnants of antiquity. One can sense in this work a feeling of pleasing melancholy, a longing for the glory of the classical past, which makes Colonna's Hypnerotomachia

Polifili one of the earliest forerunners of the romantic 2 ruin.

The sixteenth century witnessed a steadily increasing interest in the depiction of the romantic qualities inherent in the ruin. Many of the foremost Renaissance artists like Vignola and Serlio followed the example of their fifteenth century predecessors Alberti and Filarete in executing exact architectural drawings, yet it was obvious that a subtle change was taking place in the concept of the ruin itself. The primary goal of these

2 For a discussion of the Hypnerotomachia Polifili and the romantic qualities which it manifests, see Anthony Blunt, Artistic Theory in Italy: 1450-1600 (Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1956), pp. 39-44, and A. Hyatt Mayor, Prints and People: A Social History of Printed Pictures (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1971 ), pls. 223-224. Also see Maria Casella, Francesco Colonna, biografia e opere (Padua: Antenore, 1959). 6

artists was still to use the ruin as a tool to organize

and clarify the magnificent remains of a glorious ancient

past, in the most exact detail possible, yet in certain of

these works, the title pages or chapter headings began to

reflect a bit of the artist•s imagination. The attention

to detail was not as exact, as if that were now of

secondary importance. Instead, ruins were depicted

imaginatively, to please the eye of the beholder. The

broken pieces of ancient buildings were incorporated in

such a way to show highly inventive combinations of

arches, pedestals, columns, obelisks and fragments of

architraves. Because these early depictions of

imaginative ruins were not perfectly accurate in their

rendering of archaeological detail, they began to appeal

to the viewer aesthetically, to stimulate his senses and

to create a mood in a way that the exact archaeological

renderings of earlier Renaissance artists were incapable 3 of doing.

In Sebastiana Serlio 1 s treatise entitled

3 For more information on architectural treatises of the sixteenth century and their varying approaches to the depiction of classical antiquity, see Peter Murray, The Architecture of the Italian Renaissance (New York: Schocken Books, 1966) and Rudolf Wittkower, Architectural Principles in the Age of Humanism (New York: Random House, 1965). For the architectural theories of Leone Battista Alberti, see his Ten Books on Architecture, ed. J. Rykwert (London: Tiranti, 1955) and for those of Antonio Filarete, his Treatise on Architecture, trans. by J.R. Spencer, two volumes (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1965). 7

D'Architettura, written in 1540, he exemplifies this new direction taken in the graphic depiction of ruins. His

Book III, which places special emphasis on the rendering of Roman antiquities, includes drawings so measurably exact in architectural detail that they could be used as a precedent for future architects. But in contrast to these is Serlio's title page for Book III (Plate 2), which contains a woodcut showing an imaginary ruined arcade. A broken obelisk is visible in the distance through the arches and remnants of a once glorious civilization lying in profuse disarray in the foreground. Everything is overgrown with vegetation, as nature slowly but surely begins to impose herself on the entire scene. Even though this woodcut depicts an only slightly embellished, almost realistic group of classical ruins, it is still indicative of what would later develop in the use of the ruin to 4 evoke a strong emotional response.

Another sixteenth century artist who showed an interest in the ruin itself was the French architect, painter and engraver Etienne Dup~rac. His series, etched in 1575 in Rome, entitled I Vestigi dell' Antichita di

Roma, is the first set of prints depicting ancient buildings in groups. In a representative example from that series, Temple of Antoninus and Faustina (Plate 3),

4 See A.E. Santanello, Sebastiane Serlio and the Book of Architecture (New York: Benjamin Blom, Inc., 1970). 8

/ Duperac expresses his concern for graphic effects as well as a desire to achieve archaeological correctness in his rendering of the subject. This early manifestation of the expressive possibilities inherent in the ruin may be seen in the leafy vegetation which sprouts from the ancient remains and in the liberty of execution in which it is etched. Because his more immediate approach to the subject matter makes his ruin etchings appear much freer and more spontaneous than those of other sixteenth century

/ artists, Duperac has been recognized by some scholars as a 5 forerunner of Piranesi.

With the advent of the seventeenth century and the beginning of the Baroque era, the already growing interest in ruins saw a tremendous increase in their depiction.

With its emphasis on dramatic movement and emotional subject matter, the Baroque temperament was perfectly suited to a deeper interest in, and greater understanding of, the ancient, time-ravaged ruin as a work of art and as a means of creating an emotional response in the viewer.

These qualities were reflected in both painting and the graphic arts of the period. Some of the most prominent

5 Dup~rac is cited as a precursor of Piranesi in Zucker, p. 128 and in the catalogue Les Frangais A Rome: Residents et Voyageurs dans la Ville Eternelle de la Renaissance aux debuts du Romanticisme (Hotel De Rohan 87, Rue Vieille-Du-Temple, Febrier-Avril 1961), p. 53~ See the introduction in Rudolf Wittkower, Etienne Duperac: Designi de le ruine di Roma e come anticamente erono (Milan: Arti Grafiche Amilcare Pizzi, 1963). 9

painters of the age used the ruin as a vehicle for the creation of a romantic mood in their work.

With the exception of one short trip to his native city of Lorraine, the French painter Claude Gellee, called

Claude Lorrain, spent his entire working career in Italy, choosing as his subject matter the countryside around

Rome. The ruin motif was important for him as a means of achieving a greater feeling of romantic nostalgia in his work. He infused his idyllic visions of ruin-filled landscapes with a golden, hazy light, creating a feeling 6 of peace and serene longing for a vanished world.

The mood of many of Claude's paintings is fanciful.

In these, his study of light and atmosphere in the environs of Rome is not rendered in naturalistic views, but in scenes that are imaginary. The ruined temples in his paintings serve as background motifs to his religious, historical or mythological subject matter and provide an increased feeling of romantic atmosphere.

Because of Claude's penchant for imaginary landscapes, few of his works display any topographical exactitude. According to Marcel Rothlisberger:

6 For a background on the life and work of Claude Lorrain, see Marcel Rothlisberger, Claude Lorrain: The Paintings (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1961 ). 10

Unlike the sketches from nature and some of the studio drawings, the pictures only begin to remind one of the Roman Campagna in the more heroic style of the 1640's, when idealized allusions to the Roman scene can be remarked again and again.?

One such view is The Ruins of Ancient Rome With the

Burial of Santa Serapia (Plate 4). In the detail from

that painting illustrated here, the ruined monuments serve

as the setting for this somber scene from antiquity. Only

the Colosseum appears by any means exact; the rest of the monuments merely add to the overall feeling of melancholy.

The artist has used the ruin to set the stage as an

appropriate backdrop for the story he has to tell.

Another seventeenth century painter who enriched his

landscapes with fantastic ruins was Salvator Rosa. Born

in Naples in 1615, he became interested in painting at an

early age and studied with several minor Neapolitan masters. During this period he executed many landscapes,

as well as low-life genre scenes and battle pictures. He

left Naples for Rome in 1635 with a subsequent visit to

the Eternal City in 1639. In 1640, he went to Florence, where his career seems to have begun in earnest, for during this period he executed some of his most important paintings. In 1649, he returned once again to Rome to enter the field of Roman Baroque art and remained there until his death in 1673.

Although a concern with figure painting dominated

7 Rothlisberger, p. 16. 1 1 ~1 '

Rosa's mature work, he continued to paint magnificant

landscapes throughout his career in Rome, often

complaining that he did so because of the popular taste

for them. But, in spite of this, his landscapes are among

his most impressive and interesting works, vividly painted

with a subtle, rich color and filled with a harsh, raking

light that alternately highlights and creates deep

shadows. They are filled with an excitement and drama

that can only be termed romantic, a quality which made

Rosa's paintings very popular in England during the

eighteenth century.

Unlike the idyllic scenes of Claude, nature in Rosa's work is not a benign force co-existing harmoniously with humanity, but rugged and wild, with dark grottoes, rocky precipices, broken trees and ominous skies. Sometimes the romantic landscapes of Rosa would also include the remains of an ancient temple or other remnant from antiquity, such as in his Battle Scene (Plate 5). Piranesi is known to have owned at least one painting by Rosa and was quite possibly influenced by him, particularly in the eighteenth century Ventian's views of the wild and dramatic landscape 8 around Tivoli.

8 In the catalog of Piranesi's effects, quoted by G. Norazzoni in G.B. Piranesi Notizie biographiche (undated, but published in Milan in 1921 ), there was listed a painting by Salvator Rosa. References to paintings by Salvator Rosa occur in a complete inventory of Piranesi's collection and effects at his death, published in the Italian reprint of Il Campo Marzio dell' Antica Roma, of 12

However, the graphic arts in the seventeenth century were not to be outdone by painting in their contribution

to the development of the romantic ruin. An early example from the Baroque period, one of a set of fifty-two copper engravings by Egidius (Gilles) Sadeler, entitled Nymphaeum

\ Aquae Julia (Plate 6), from Vestigi della Antichita di

Roma, Tivoli, Pozzuolo e Altri Lvochi, published in Prague in 1616, shows how much things had changed from the sixteenth to the seventeenth century in the artist's approach to the ruin. Perhaps the most obvious difference is the emphasis now being given to creating the illusion of three-dimensional space, an important attribute of

Baroque art. In Sadeler's engraving of the Nymphaeum, the apse in the center is the focal point, framed on either side by two arches. The strong contrast of light and dark, another popular characteristic of the seventeenth century, works to give volume and depth to the apse in that the substructure as of vital necessity to the depiction of a ruin did not occur until the seventeenth century, when it was considered to be an important part of

1762, ed. F. Borse (Florence: 1972), pp. 15ff. For more information on the work of Rosa, see the catalog by Richard W. Wallace, Salvator Rosa in America (Wellesley, Mass.: Wellesley College Museum, 1979), and Elizabeth Manwaring, Italian Landscape in Eighteenth Century England: A Study Chiefly of the Influence of Claude Lorrain and Salvator Rosa on English Taste, 1700-1800 (New York: Russell and Russell, 1965). 13

9 its entire concept.

The Dutch artist Bartholomeus Breenburgh was another

seventeenth century printmaker to be fascinated by the

ancient ruin as subject matter and was one of a particular 10 group of Dutch artists referred to as the Italianates.

These artists lived and worked in Italy for varying

periods of time and allowed the influence of Rome's

classical surroundings to pervade their work, in mood as

well as in subject matter.

Breenburgh left Holland for Rome about 1619 and

became one of the founders of the society of northern

artists in the Eternal City, returning to his native

Holland sometime beteen 1629-30. He is known to have

etched about fifty-two prints, almost all of which can be designated as pure landscapes. Most of his etchings are

9 See Egidius (Gilles) Sadeler, Vestigi della Antichit~ di Roma, Tivoli, Pozzuolo et Altri Lvochi ••• (Prague: 1616) and Zucker, pp. 30-31. References to the Sadeler family are also given in Arthur M. Hind, A History of Engraving and Etching (New York: Dover Publications, Inc., 1963). The concept of three-dimensionality in the depiction of a ruin and the importance of its substructure can be traced to the innovations which occurred in the area of stage design. This will be examined more fully in the section dealing with the scenographer Ferdinanda Bibiena. For a fuller treatment of this subject, see Donald Oenslager, Stage Design: Four Centuries of Scenic Invention (New York: The Viking Press, 1975), pp. 42-110. 10 For more information on Breenburgh and other seven teenth century Dutch painters who worked in Italy, see Irene de Groot, Landscape Etchings by the Dutch Masters of the Seventeenth Century (Maarssen: Gary Schwartz, 1979) and Wolfgang Stechow, Dutch Landscape Painting of the Seventeenth Century (London: Phaidon, 1966). 14

views of ruins and other sights in and around the environs of Rome, executed after his return to Holland. In his etching, entitled simply A Roman Ruin (Plate 7), the strong use of light and dark and the growth of vegetation which permeates the ruin serve to create a mysterious, rather melancholy air.

True to his northern origins, Breenburgh's contribu tion to the further development of the romantic ruin is the depiction of its humble, pathetic nature. Instead of monumental entities in all their ancient glory, the class ical ruins of Rome are depicted by the Dutch artist as the pathetic remnants of a vanished civilization. Many of the crumbling remains in his prints seem to blend into the landscape of which they are a part and his works are really landscapes with ruins, rather than a portrait of a particular monument. Breenburgh seems to have been more interested in bringing out the picturesque qualities of a scene, instead of dwelling on the archaeological aspect of ruins. Certain of Piranesi's Views of Rome in the follow ing century also display this element of pathos which cha racterizes the prints of Breenburgh, as we will later see.

One seventeenth century etcher who made use of the ruin motif in his compositions and who was influential in its further development in the following century was the

Italian printmaker Benedetto Castiglione. In

Castiglione's work, ruins are an important prop in 15

creating a feeling of nostalgia and melancholy sadness.

Everywhere there is a hint of mystery and visual reminders

of the passage of time are apparent in the broken urns and

columns, skulls and dense growth of vegetation. These

characteristics are displayed to good advantage in

Castiglione's etching called The Artist's Genius (Plate

8). Castiglione and his visual vocabulary of transience

and decay were to have a decisive impact on the graphic

work of the printmaker Giovanni Battista Tiepolo and his

imaginative series of etchings, and Tiepolo, in turn,

appears to have exerted a considerable influence on the 1 1 graphic style of Piranesi.

If any age could lay claim to the title "The Age of

Ruins," that distinction would most certainly go to the

eighteenth century. During this period occurred what may

only be termeq a mania for the ruined state of ancient buildings and all of the emotional feelings that they were

capable of arousing.

The outstanding vogue for travel among the learned, wealthy classes of the eighteenth century did much to increase this seemingly insatiable thirst for picturesque views, especially those including ruins. It became the fashion, among the English gentry in particular, to make

1 1 For a background on Castiglione and his great influence on the Tiepolo family, see H. Diane Russell, Rare Etchings of G.B. and G.D. Tiepolo (New York: Macmillan, 1972). 16

excursions to the picturesque areas of Great Britain:

Wales, Scotland and the Lake District. As they did so, they carne across the crumbling remains of civilizations long since vanished. For many Englishmen, this was their first encounter with Britain's antique past, an experience definitely to be savored and remembered through the medium of paint, watercolor and, especially, prints. The huge castles of Caernarvon and Conway, the melancholy sadness evoked by the ruined abbeys of Fountains and Tintern, and the crumbling massiveness of Hadrian's Wall served to show the English traveler his archaeological heritage and to make him feel proud at having his roots in a country 12 ancient enough to extend back to the time of the Druids.

Many of these travelers arranged their tours for the express purpose of visiting these ancient sites, often removing pieces of them in order to construct sham ruins in their own gardens. In their search for a romantic, nostalgic past, British tourists eagerly bought the books of prints illustrating the places they had visited; many

12 For the popularity of travel in Great Britain, see J.H. Plumb, The Pursuit of Happiness: A View of Life in Georgian England (New Haven: Yale Center for British Art, 1977); Ralph Adams Cram, The Ruined Abbeys of Great Britain (Boston: Marshall Jones Co., 1927); Frederick Herbert Crossley, The English Abbey (London: B.T. Batsford Ltd., 1962); William Howitt, Ruined Abbeys and Castles of Great Britain (London: A.W. Bennett, 1862); M.R. James and A.H. Thompson, Abbeys (London: The Great Western Railway, 1926); Rosamond Bayne-Powell, Travelers in Eighteenth Century England (London: J. Murray, 1951 ); Richard Le Galliene, Travels in England (New York: J. Lane, 1900); and Coaching Days of England (London: Elek, 1966). 17 ' '

could even be purchased on the site of the ruin itself.

Because of this great love for ruins and picturesque views, there was a tremendous upsurge in Great Britain of the publication of illustrated travel books from the year 13 1780 on into the nineteenth century.

For even the well-to-do British middle class, however, travel was a luxury and was limited to a short trip, perhaps once a year to a local resort. But for the aristocracy, the lure of more distant lands was quite overpowering. It was this desire for visits to more

13 For more information on eighteenth century English gardens, see Marie Luise Gothein, A History of Garden Art (New York: Hacker Art Books, 1966) and Barbara M. Jones, Follies and Grottoes (London: Constable, 1974). The literature related to illustrated travel books in Great Britain of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries is extensive. For a small, but representative selection, I am citing the following: J.R. Abbey, Scenery of Great Britain and Ireland in Aquatint and Lithography 1770-1860 (London: Curwen, 1952); J.R. Abbey, Travel in Aquatint and Lithography, 1770-1800, two volumes (London: Curwen, 1956-7); H. Hammelmann, Book Illustrators in Eighteenth Century England (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1975); Andrew Bigelow, Leaves From a Journal; or Sketches of Rambles in Some Parts of North Britain (London: A. Strahan for T.N. Longman and o. Rees, etc., 1802); William Gilpin, Observations Relative Chiefly to Picturesque Beauty, Made in the Year 1776, on Several Parts of Great Britain, Particularly the Highlands of Scotland (London: R. Blamire, 1792); John Clerk, Esq., Etchings, Chiefly of Views of Scotland (Edinburgh: Printed for the Ballatyne Club, 1855); James S. Storer, Views in North Britain Illustrative of the Works of Robert Burns (London: J. Stockdale, 1811); John Britain and Edward W. Brayley, The Beauties of England and Wales (London: T. Maiden, for Vernor and Hood, etc., 1801-16); and William Hutchison, An Excursion to the Lakes in Westmoreland and Cumberland; With a Tour Through Part of the Northern Counties in the Years 1773 and 1774 (London: J. Wilkie and W. Charnley, 1776). 18 ,, .

exotic locales that spawned an institution which became 14 known as the Grand Tour.

The Grand Tour, which covered the most important

cities and sights of Europe, was considered an essential part of every wealthy young gentleman's education. By the

1760's, the number of young British men accompanied by their entourages had swelled to such a size that, according to J.H. Plumb:

The structure of modern travel gradually came into existence--printed guidebooks containing maps, road conditions, money and conversion tables, phrase books in every language, coach-hire systems, lists of recommended hotels, couriers, foreign exchange facilities and specialized guides to beauty spots. 15

If a young man were wealthy enough, he would employ his own artist to accompany him on his tour, often a watercolorist, or else engage a local artist upon his arrival. The young traveler who could not afford his own personal artist had the option of remembering his tour through the numerous racks of cheap prints for sale. They might be either plain or colored, and afforded an inexpensive way to relive a visit to famous cities,

14 For in-depth studies on the institution known as the Grand Tour and its role among the British gentry of the eighteenth century, see Plumb, pp. 10-12; William Mead, The Grand Tour in the Eighteenth Century (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1914); Christopher Hibbert, The Grand Tour (New York: Putnam, 1969); Geoffrey Trease, The Grand Tour (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1967~ Paul F. Kirby, The Grand Tour in Italy: 1700-1800 (New York: S.F. Vanni, 1952); and Francis Haskell, The Age of the Grand Tour (New York: Crown Publishers, 1967). 15 P 1 umb , p • 11 • 19

monuments of historical interest or places with picturesque views. Straight topographical views were extremely popular, but just as much in demand were the capricci, whimsical architectural compositions comprising recognizable monuments juxtaposed in fantastic groups in order to achieve an aesthetic effect and the vedute ideate, imaginary scenes reflecting the general character 16 of a particular place.

A young Englishman often began his tour at Calais, eventually continuing on to Paris. His ultimate goal, however, was Italy, and the picturesque cities of Venice,

Florence and Naples. One city in particular, though, was the focal point for the entire tour and that city was

Rome. The Eternal City and its ruined monuments held an irresistible appeal for the young aristocrat bent on the pursuit of culture, for Rome symbolized the very essence of all that was noble and edifying in the classical world.

Though Venice was the undisputed leader of topographical views, the lure of Rome, with her crowded network of narrow streets, intermixed with the wider avenues and impressive piazzas of the Baroque period, stirred the imagination of artist and traveler as no other city had done before. In common with Venice, though on a much

16 For the popularity of prints as travel souvenirs in the eighteenth century, see Plumb, pp. 19-21 and Trease, p. 107. Also refer to the books already cited which deal with travels in Great Britain and the Grand Tour. 20

larger scale, Rome possessed certain theatrical qualities

which particularly lent themselves to creative visual

interpretation. Axial vistas were terminated by ancient

structures and interspersed with magnificent fountains or

conglomerations of ruins. The entire city must have

appeared to the traveler as a fascinating blend of the old

and the new, with colossal ancient structures often

juxtaposed alongside more modest buildings.

The magnificent rediscovery of the cities buried by

the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius in 79 A.D., first Herculaneum

in 1738 and then Pompeii ten years later, aroused both

scholarly interest and popular enthusiasm for the romantic

past and heralded the beginnings of scientific archaeology

in Rome, in addition to adding more fuel to the already

widespread mania for ruins. Architects and designers,

chief among them the Scotsman Robert Adam, a close friend

of Piranesi, stimulated by the example of classical motifs, changed the course of British interior design and

laid the foundation for a whole new style in architecture.

Upon their return home, young Englishmen, fresh from

the edifying and cultural environment experienced on the

Grand Tour, could further their interest in things

classical in the company of other young aristocrats through membership in the Society of Dilettanti. The

Society, founded in 1732, became an important factor in furthering the cause of archaeology in the western world. 21

This society was dedicated to the study of Greek antiquity and in the later years of the eighteenth century was responsible for several important expeditions for the purpose of exploring the ancient monuments of Greece and

Asia Minor. These expeditions were concerned with more than just the study of movable sculpture and architectural fragments. Their goal was the systematic investigation of the monuments in situ.

Two of the most important emissaries of the Society of Dilettanti were the English architects James Stuart and

Nicolas Revett, who visited Athens in 1751 and 1752.

Their illustrated volumes of the Antiquities of Athens and later the Antiquities of Ionia by Revett, Richard Chandler and William Pars, which appeared in 1769, were the major achievements of the Society. These works served to bring the classical monuments of Greece to the attention of the western world, popularized the Greek Revival style in architecture and furthered the study of archaeology in 17 Greece.

17 For more information on the Society of Dilettanti, refer to Terence Spencer, Fair Greece, Sad Relic: Literary Philhellenism from Shakespeare to Byron (New York: Octagon Books, 1973). For the publications of the Society, seeR. Chandler, N. Revett and W. Pars, Antiquities of Ionia (London: The Society of Dilettanti, 1769-1915); and James Stuart and Nicholas Revett, The Antiquities of Athens (London: The Society of Dilettanti, 1762-1830). For items of interest, such as the goals of the Society, procedures and names of members, see Historical Notices of the Society of Dilettanti (London: J.B. Nichols and Sons, 1855). 22

In the preceding paragraphs, we have explored the cultural background against which the romantic ruin as depicted in the print grew and flourished, to meet the ever-increasing demands of the tourist public. Now we will turn to a discussion of those artists, the eighteenth century predecessors and contemporaries of that supreme interpreter of the Roman scene, Giovanni Battista

Piranesi, who did much to prepare the way for his work, and in turn, for the probable influence that he would later exert on the romantic ruin in nineteenth century

French lithography.

Two of the most popular ruin painters of the time,

Giovanni Paolo Pannini and Hubert Robert, were probably influential for Piranesi. From the works of Pannini,

Piranesi may have derived the monumental quality with which he endowed the classical Roman buildings in his etchings. The French painter Hubert Robert was a friend and contemporary of the Venetian etcher. Their relation ship may have been mutually beneficial, since the work of both artists exhibit romantic tendencies in their atmospheric views of ruins.

Besides Giovanni Pannini and Hubert Robert, the work of three other artists may be singled out as having a particular importance for Piranesi. They are the sceno grapher Ferdinando Bibiena and the graphic artists Antonio

Canal, called Canaletto, and that unique master of the 23

print, Giovanni Battista Tiepolo.

Piranesi appears to have been greatly influenced by

Tiepolo and may even have worked in his studio for a time.

Whether he did or not, he seems to have been impressed by both the style and subject matter of Tiepolo's work. In the etchings of both artists can be found the themes of mortality and the inescapable passage of time, symbolized by crumbling ruins and images of death. The underlying elements of mystery and fantasy are present in the prints of both Piranesi and Tiepolo. From the older artist, too,

Piranesi may have gained a greater expressive power and an enhanced quality of luminescence in his work.

The city of Venice, with its history of spectacle, was the ideal place for the innovative ideas which took place in the area of scenography. With her numerous theaters and opera houses, Venice was especially receptive to the world of the stage and offered to artists and designers an unlimited range of opportunities for scenographic experimentation.

Piranesi himself was trained in his early years in the field of set design, and it is thought that perhaps sometime during this period he may have worked with some of the Valeriani family of set designers. Although he may never have worked with any of the members of the Bibiena family, he almost certainly would have studied, and been influenced by, the work of their most talented member 0 • 24

Ferdinando, entitled Architettura Civile, which was 18 written in 1711.

According to Paul Zucker, there was a dramatic difference in the presentation of the ruin before and after 19 Ferdinando Bibiena. Through his work Varie Opere di

Prospettiva and other of his publications, Bibiena was responsible for the introduction of angular perspective, scena per angelo, to the stage (Plate 9). This was a totally revolutionary concept, whereby it was no longer necessary for the stage designs to be organized symmetri- cally in front of an audience. With the idea of three- dimensionality as a possibility, the audience no longer had the feeling of facing a flat stage setting or framed

18 According to an early account by G.L. Bianconi, ''Elogio storico del Cavaliere Giambattista Piranesi cele bre antiquario, ed incisore di Roma," Antologia Romana, Numbers 3, 4-6, February-March, 1779 (reprinted in idem. Opere II (Milan, 1802), 127-40), Piranesi studied under the Valeriani in Rome. They were certainly working in the city in 1738 when they are recorded as living in Strada Paolina, now the Via del Babuino, Studi Romani (April June, 1972), 228ff. According to J.G. Legrand in his MS. biography, Notice sur la vie et les ouvrages de J.B. Piranesi ••• Rediges sur les notes et les pieces communi guees parses fils ••• (Paris: Bib. Nat. MSS. nouv. acq. fr. 5968), a transcription of which appears in Nouvelles de l'estampe, No. 5 (1969), 195, Piranesi studied not only under the Valeriani brothers in Venice and Bologna, but under Ferdinando Bibiena himself. For the work of Bibiena and his family, see A. Hyatt Mayor, The Bibiena Family (New York: H.B. Bittner, 1945) and W. Jeudwine, Stage Designs {London: R.I.B.A. Drawings series, 1968). Piranesi's connections with stage design are also examined in Peter Murray, Piranesi and the Grandeur of Ancient Rome {London: Thames and Hudson, 1971 ), pp. 7-8 and pp. 22ff. 19 Zucker, p. 103. 25

picture. Instead, the spectators could be drawn into the

action on stage. The traditional central viewpoint was no

longer used and new vistas could be opened up through the

use of various diagonal axes. The innovations in stage design perspective can be traced to the sixteenth century

and the ground-breaking work of the architect Andrea 20 Palladia.

20 This interest and experimentation in perspective goes back to the Renaissance and, in particular, to the sixteenth century Italian architect Andrea Palladio (1508- 80), whose architectural theories and designs generated a widespread interest in the eighteenth century. He beauti fied his native city of Vicenza by designing many public and private buildings which he conceived in a new, more strongly archaeological version of the Renaissance style. He absorbed the lessons of the architects Vitruvius and Alberti and wrote several important treatises himself. Most important for our study is Palladia's interest in the development of perspective as related to the art of the stage, an interest which is exemplified in his design of the Olympian Theater in Vicenza, executed after Palladia's death by the architect Scamozzi, between 1580-84. The building is an attempt to recreate the shape and appear ance of a Roman theater and was intended for the produc tion of classical drama. The stage is provided with fixed scenery, modelled after the scenae frons of the ancient Roman theater, but Palladia's arrangement of columns, statues, tabernacles and reliefs, decorating two stories and an attic, follows no exact model. The three central openings lead, in quite an unclassical manner, into radia ting streets, which give the effect of terminating only at a vast distance from the stage. The illusion of perspec tive derives completely from the rising pavement and the receding height of the buildings lining these avenues. The observer who arrives at the stage discovers that these attractive Renaissance palaces are, in reality, only a few feet in depth and that when he walks up the street, the street rises to meet him and the roofs of the buildings descend. The example set by Palladio in the sixteenth century must surely have been influential for the devel opment of the scena per angelo by Ferdinanda Bibiena in the eighteenth century. For more information on Palladio, see J. Thomas Oosting, Andrea Palladia's Teatro Olimpico (Ann Arbor, Michigan: UMI Research Press, 1981 ); 26

With the advent of this monumental breakthrough in the art of the theater, other designers began to adopt the scena per angelo as well. This invention did more to revolutionize the field of scenography than any other concept to that time and its importance cannot be overstated.

As a direct result, the ruin evolved from its previous role of a mere prop into a three-dimensional environment that could encompass the whole stage setting.

Venice of the eighteenth century also witnessed the merging of the topographical view and the fantasy-filled world of the Baroque stage into the creation of a new genre, the capriccio, which contributed much to the depiction of the romantic ruin in painting and, especially, in the graphic arts.

The capriccio was a type of landscape with ruins arranged fantastically or capriciously, to please the whim of the artist and to appeal to the aesthetic taste of the viewer. Although actual monuments were often depicted, their juxtaposition was imaginary, creating a blend between the "real" and the "ideal." The emphasis here was not on accurate representation of the ruin, but rather its use as a vehicle for the creation of a mood or feeling in its beholder. The primary goal of the ruin in the capriccio was to evoke an aesthetic response, which can

James S. Ackerman, Palladio (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1966); and Rudolf Wittkower, Palladio and Palladianism (New York: G. Braziller, 1974). 27

be viewed as a further step in the direction of the ruin

as a romantic entity.

A number of artists in the eighteenth century excelled in the capriccio, creating new emotional experiences through ruins fantastically arranged. Hubert

Robert and Giovanni Paolo Pannini were two who were probably influential for Piranesi, though in different ways.

Pannini, who could be called the greatest ruin painter of the time, concentrated on the impossible juxtaposition of famous monuments, as can be seen in a work such as his Landscape With Roman Ruins (Plate 10). The idea here is to express the grandeur and monumentality of the ancient structures of classical Rome. The ruined buildings were rendered accurately enough; only their 21 relationship to each other was imaginary.

The French painter Hubert Robert, who had been a pupil of Pannini, came to Rome in 1754 and lived in the 22 Villa d'Este, then under excavation. He was strongly influenced by his teacher Pannini, but his compositions

21 For more information on Pannini and his development of the capriccio, see Martin Linsey, "Pannini: Interior of the Pantheon, Rome," The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art, Vol. 62, No. 9, 1975, 263- 269; Giulio Briganti, The View Painters of Europe (New York: Phaidon Publishers, 1970); and Murray, pp. 16-20. 22 Hubert Robert's life and work are treated in the catalogue Hubert Robert: Drawings and Watercolors (Washington: National Gallery of Art, 1978). 28

exude an entirely different feeling than those of his

master. He was a great admirer of Piranesi, as well as a

friend of the Venetian engraver, so that admiration was

undoubtedly reciprocated. Margaret Scherer describes him

as follows:

To the accuracy of detail and strong classical feeling absorbed from Pannini, Robert added something of the atmospheric quality of Claude Lorrain, a characteristic French delicacy and lightness, and an interest in the contrast of ancient ruins with contemporary ~ife that pre-figured the dawn of Romanticism. 2

These attributes are well illustrated in his painting

entitled Porticoe With the Statue of Marcus Aurelius

(Plate 11). In opposition to Pannini, the compositions of

Hubert Robert evoke a feeling of melancholy sadness, as if

the artist were brooding over the lost world of the ancients. This romantic approach to the ruin was also exhibited in the Roman etchings of Piranesi, and, though

sometimes in different ways, in the compositions of the nineteenth century French lithographers.

The two most important graphic artists of the eighteenth century to use the capriccio in their work were the Venetians Antonio Canal, called Canaletto, and

Giovanni Battista Tiepolo. The graphic work of the latter artist, especially, appears to have had a decisive influence on the monumental ruins of Rome as etched by

23 Margaret Scherer, Marvels of Ancient Rome (New York: The Phaidon Press for the Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1955), p. 15. 29

Piranesi.

The Venetian artist Canaletto was one of the

outstanding painters of city views in the eighteenth

century. His sparkling, luminous renderings of his native

Venice were prized by British participants of the Grand

Tour and have left us with a lasting record of the visual 24 splendours of the city and her people during that time.

Less well known, though equally enchanting, is the series

of thirty-four etchings done by the artist, thirty-one

belonging to the volume entitled Vedute altre prese da i

luoghi, altre ideate, da Antonio Canal ••• (Views, some

after nature, some imaginary, by Antonio Canal ••• ). These

vedute were dedicated to the British Consul Joseph Smith, 25 and were probably published around the year 1744.

In several of these charming, intimate vedute ideate

Canaletto reveals his interest in, and enthusiasm for, the

depiction of ancient ruins. Burr Wallen, in his catalog

24 There are several books on the work of Canaletto and view painting in eighteenth century Venice. Among some of the most informative are W. Bareham, The Imaginary View Scenes of Antonio Canaletto (New York: The Institute of Fine Arts, New York University, 1977); William G. Constable, Canaletto (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1962); Decio Gioseffi, Canaletto and His Contemporaries (New York: Crown Publishers, 1960); Joseph G. Links, Canaletto and His Patrons (New York: New York University Press, 1977); and Antonio Paolucci, Canaletto: The Life and Work of the Artist (London: Thames and Hudson, 1971). 25 One of these etchings is dated 1741, but the dedication to Consul Smith would seem to indicate that the whole set was published in or after 1744, since Smith was appointed Consul in the summer of that year. 30

of Canaletto's etchings, says:

The veduta ideata is largely a descendant of the tradition of painting ancient ruins, a genre which already in the Renaissance had lent itself to free interpretation1 and fantasy recreations of the ancient world. 6·

Canaletto's interest in portraying ancient structures

stems from his early training as a stage designer, since

the ruin motif was such a popular one in the repertory of

Baroque and Rococo scenographic design.

One of the most outstanding etchings in the series,

The Porticoe With the Lantern (Plate 12), shows an

imaginary scene of ancient ruins intermingled with

eighteenth century Venetian houses seen through the vine

encrusted remains of an ancient Roman portico. This

intermingling of old and new was depicted by Piranesi in

his etchings many times. In this work, however, the ruins

seem almost secondary, only an addition to the more

central contemporary elements. This somewhat minor role which Canaletto allowed the ruin to play in some of his

etchings was in total opposition to the work of Piranesi.

While in Canaletto's etchings the ruin served at times only to add a picturesque touch to the scene, Piranesi never allowed any contemporary elements to interfere with his depiction of a particular monument. On the right of

Canaletto's etching stands a ruined temple and near

26 The William A. Gumberts Collection of Canaletto Etchings (Santa Barbara: The Santa Barbara Museum of Art, 1979), p. 26. (l • 31

to it, a decaying Roman triumphal arch. On the left,

between the houses is an impressive bishop's tomb. The

human element is represented in the form of figures

drawing water from a well, soldiers lounging under the

portico and travelers climbing the hill on the right. The

inclusion of the rather ominous figure of a blackbird on

the bracket below one of the archways and the old lantern

hanging from the central arch serve to give the etching an

elusive air of mystery. The contrasts of light and dark

and the variation of the etched line also work to create a

definite atmosphere.

In another etching entitled Landscape With Ruined

Monuments (Plate 13), Canaletto again pays his respects to

the eighteenth century's passion for ruined antiquity. He

presents us with a scene of a large, decayed pillar in the

foreground and Roman triumphal arch, complete with bas

reliefs of battle scenes and winged victories, now turned

into a picturesque wall fountain. On the left is a

pyramid reminiscent of that of Cestius in Rome, and

further back, on the right, are contemporary buildings.

Both the motif of the pyramid and the triuimphal arch were

popular subjects for the scenographer in the eighteenth

century and were depicted many times by Piranesi in the

Vedute di Roma. Some of Canaletto's earliest paintings

depict both of these motifs in imaginary scenes, together with other broken remnants of antiquity, strewn in 32

profusion throughout the composition.

Canaletto's renewed interest in the portrayal of antique ruins in his etchings midway in his career suggests the possibility that he may have made a second trip to Rome after he first visited the Eternal City in

1719. This supposed second trip may have occurred at the beginning of the 1740's, a possibility that is given further corroboration by the fact that there is in existence a series of paintings of Roman subjects by the 27 artist dated 1742.

Like his contemporary Piranesi, Canaletto always peoples his scenes with small figures engaged in some task. In this particular view, he has depicted them in an activity very reminiscent of the time. In the left hand

27 According to Michael Levey, Canaletto Paintings in the Collection of H.M. The Queen (London: Phaidon Press, 1964), p. 16: "All [the five views of Rome] are prominently signed and dated 1742, and they constitute what evidence there is for supposing that Canaletto made a second journey to Rome in about 1740." Burr Wallen, in the above mentioned catalog from Santa Barbara, p. 27, says that because several of this series of paintings with Roman subjects were in the collection of Joseph Smith in the eighteenth century, it is believed that Smith may have commissioned Canaletto to paint the series of antique views at about the same time as the etchings. A fine example from this series, A View of the Arch of Constantine With the Colosseum in the Background, is now in the J. Paul Getty Museum, Malibu. Wallen believes that since many of these paintings of Roman monuments are prominently signed and dated by Canaletto, it would seem to indicate that they were not just painted, but actually seen by Canaletto again on this second journey to Rome, and not done, as some have thought, from drawings done during his early Roman days or from published collections of prints of Roman ruins. 33

corner of the print, several men are shown digging for

antiquities, which serves to visually illustrate the

eighteenth century's passion for archaeological

excavations.

The title plate for Canaletto's series of etchings

(Plate 14) harkens back to the days of the Italian

architect Serlio, in the use of a ruin as a background for

the title inscription. This same format was also used by

Piranesi to introduce certain of his publications of Roman ruins. In Canaletto's print, the dedication, to his

friend and patron, the British Consul Joseph Smith, is etched across a ruined structure that looks something like a decaying theater proscenium. The ancient structure is depicted in all its vine-covered glory and works well in setting the stage for the etchings which follow. On the other side of this wall can be seen many of the stock architectural motifs that Canaletto would use in his other etchings: the tall column with the statue atop, the apex of a pyramid, a dome of a church with a Baroque lantern and, on the left, a Venetian house with a classical portal crowned by an open terrace, so typical of that found in the eighteenth century.

About 1743, a series of etchings was published in

Venice which was to achieve considerable fame and would establish the artist as one of the geniuses of the print.

They were called the Capricci and the artist was Giovanni 34

28 Battista Tiepolo.

The Capricci, together with Tiepolo's other series of etchings entitled Scherzi di Fantasia, have posed many questions to art historians regarding their iconographic content. In the plates of both series, small groups of men and women huddle together as if involved in some secret conference, the nature of which eludes the viewer.

An atmosphere of mystery and foreboding seems to surround these curious figures, a feeling further enhanced by the surroundings in which they interact. Symbols of death and decay are everywhere present, beginning in the Capricci and reaching their maximum expressive power in the

Scherzi. The owl, the serpent, the skull and, everywhere, the enigmatic ruin abound, creating that exquisite feeling of mysterious melancholy, which springs from an indefinable source.

In the ten plates from the Capricci and in the twenty-two from the Scherzi, Tiepolo incorporates the ruin in his compositions to add to the sense of mystery and magic which prevails as an integral part throughout each

28 For a background on the life and work of Tiepolo, see Hans W. Hegemann, Giovanni Battista Tiepolo (Berlin: Rembrandt-Verlag, 1940); Valentino Crivellato, Tiepolo (Bergamo: Institute italiano d'arti grafiche, 1960); and Francesco Cessi, Tiepolo: The Life and Work of the Artist (London: Thames and Hudson, 1971). The dating of Tiepolo's etchings is still subject to controversy, see Russell, Rare Etchings of G.B. and G.D. Tiepolo, and G. Knox, "G.B. Tiepolo: The Dating of the Scherzi di Fantasia and the Capricci," Burlington Magazine, CXIV (1972), 837-42. 35

print. The themes of death and mortality run like a connecting thread through the etchings of both series and are reinforced by the presence of the crumbling ruin as a part of the landscape against which the mysterious figures act out their melancholy drama.

Tiepolo's use of the ruin to create a mood is very evident in his Young Man Seated, Leaning Against An Urn from his series of Capricci. In Plate 15, the young man who gazes out directly at us leans his arm across an ancient funerary urn and the obelisk to the left, a constantly recurring motif, serves to further enhance the atmosphere of melancholy, mystery and reflection.

In the Scherzi di Fantasia, Tiepolo's second series of etchings, the atmospheric ruin again plays a prominent role. In the plate Seated Man and Two Magicians (Plate

16), a large fragment of ancient sculpture, possibly part of a large frieze depicting horses marching, is partially unearthed in the foreground. In another print from the

Scherzi (Plate 17), the ancient frieze slab reoccurs again, reinforcing, along with other ancient motifs in

Tiepolo's etchings, the passage of time and the transiency of human endeavors.

The etchings of Tiepolo's Capricci and Scherzi di

Fantasia are indebted to the innovations and graphic styles of the earlier artists Salvator Rosa and Benedetto

Castiglione. Besides their visual vocabulary of decaying 36

ruins and symbols of death, with their themes of mortality and the passage of time, the element of fantasy and capri ciousness in Tiepolo's prints probably stimulated the

Venetian Giovanni Battista Piranesi towards a more liberated approach in his own work. This strain of fantasy enabled Piranesi to break away from the purely reproductive, topographical views of ruins executed by his predecessors and helped him to discover his own personal style of expression, neither Roman nor Venetian, but especially suited to his own nature and the further development of the romantic ruin in print. CHAPTER TWO

Giovanni Battista Piranesi "has a good claim to be reckoned the first great artist of Romanticism." This observation, expressed by Kenneth Clark in his book The

Romantic Rebellion, recognizes Piranesi as a chief exponent of that artistic movement which began in the eighteenth century and attained its maturity in the nine- 1 teenth. In Piranesi's inventive hand, the ruins of Rome in print were transformed and given a new interpretation.

It was the work of this extraordinary artist which would leave an indelible impression of the monumental ruins of ancient Rome on the minds of generations of Europeans and would stimulate their imaginations whenever they thought of the Eternal City.

In Piranesi's etchings, the shattered magnificence of ancient Rome was transformed into an intense and personal evocation of antiquity that became an integral component of the Romantic fmagination and one that still influences us today.

1 Kenneth Clark, The Romantic Rebellion (London: Harper, 1973), p. 46. 2 Jonathan Scott, Piranesi (London: Academy Editions, 1975), endpaper.

37 38

Piranesi's insightful portrayal of the emotional

qualities inherent in ruins moved many in his time and his

legacy was passed on to the artists of the nineteenth

century. For instance, many of the contributors to the great lithographic work Voyages pittoresques et romantigues dans l'ancienne France were quite possibly

influenced by the work of Piranesi and their achievements

in the medium of lithography stand as a fitting tribute to the man who could well be considered the greatest

'proponent of the ruin in print.

Within the environment of the early years of

Piranesi's development, the seeds of a new movement were being sown, the revolutionary forms and ideas which would herald the dawn of the modern era--the movement known as 3 Neoclassicism. Piranesi's life and work are inextri- cably intertwined with the important formative years of this movement, a period of intellectual upheaval reflecting the Age of Enlightenment with its radical questioning of previously accepted knowledge in all fields of endeavor. In this often confusing environment, filled with conflicts as new thoughts and ideas emerged from the old, the philosophy and artistic expression of Piranesi aid in our understanding of the Neoclassical movement as a

3 For an in-depth study of Neoclassicism, see Hugh Honour, Neoclassicism (Middlesex, England: Penguin Books, 1975); the catalogue The Age of Neoclassicism (London: Burlington House, 1972); and Mario Praz, On Neoclassicism (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1969). 39

phase of Romanticism.

The formulation of Piranesi's graphic style and the

direction his art would take may be said to be derived

from his contact with two Italian cities - Venice, city of

his birth and heir to a great artistic tradition, and

Rome, his adopted homeland and ultimate inspiration.

These dual origins are revealed in Piranesi's Venetian

sense of creative originality and ability to conceive a

subject imaginatively, together with an intense dedication

to the monuments of ancient Rome, inspired by contact with

the heroic antiquities of the Eternal City.

Giovanni Battista Piranesi was born October 4, 1720

at Mogliano, near Mestre. A Venetian by birth, he spent his first twenty years in that beautiful, luminous city, years critical to the later formation of his artistic

style. The passion for architecture was instilled from

the beginning. The son of a stonemason, he was apprenticed at an early age, first to his uncle Matteo

Lucchesi, an important architect in the Magistrate delle

Acque, an organization responsible for the maintenance of defences and hydraulic systems of the lagoons and rivers of Venice. He then entered an apprenticeship under

Lucchesi's senior colleague in the Magistrate, an architect named Giovanni Scalfarotto. Scalfarotto was known for his sensitive handling of restoration projects in Venice and a member of his circle, his nephew Tommaso 40

Temanza, was deeply interested in the ruins of classical 4 antiquity.

Another aspect of Venetian culture which was to have

a strong impact on Piranesi's visionary interpretation of

ruins was his early training in stage design. The

fascinating world of the stage in eighteenth century

Venice offered an unlimited scope for the talented

designer and the techniques discovered in this medium were

invaluable to Piranesi's future development as a graphic

artist. The influence of the most popular scenographers

of his day, particularly that of Ferdinando Bibiena and

his invention of the scena per angolo, contributed to

Piranesi's unique view of the ruins of Rome (see previous

chapter).

The city of Venice in the eighteenth century provided

an ever-changing spectacle of light and color and that

characteristic, combined with the urban nature of the city

and the quality of self-scrutiny long apparent in her art,

made Venice the ideal place for the further development of

the topographical view or veduta, whose origins extend

4 For a discussion of Piranesi's early architectural training and the work of Lucchesi and Scalfarotto, see D. Lewis, Bolletino dei Musei Civici Veneziani, ii (1967), 17-48; c. Furlan, Arte Veneta, xxv (1971 ), 292ff.; the exhibition catalogue by M. Brusatin, Illuminismo e Architettura del '700 Veneto (Castelfranco Veneto: 1969); and Wittkower, 252ff. For a discussion of Temanza, see Brusatin, 61-64. 41

5 back to the fifteenth century. This particular genre had

become popular at the beginning of the eighteenth century

with foreign artists like the Dutchman Gaspar van Wittel,

known to the Italians by the name of Vanvitelli, and the 6 German Joseph Heintz. Under their influence, a school of

topographical painters emerged in Venice to meet the ever-

increasing demands of the participants of the Grand Tour

for picturesque views. The artist Luca Carlevaris was

especially influential for Piranesi, since he was the

first to make use of the etching as an inexpensive means of producing views, as opposed to their more elaborate 7 painted versions. This tradition of topographical views 5 - _A bac~sround on the artistic nature of Venice in the eighteenth century is given in Michael Levey, Painting in XVIII Century Venice (London: Phaidon Press, 1959). For a thorough discussion of the development of the genre of vedute, see Briganti, The View Painters of Europe. The author covers a variety of informative topics, including the meaning of the term veduta, the relationship between view painting and perspective painting and the origins of view painting, among others. Although this source deals primarily with painting, it is still very useful as a background to_th,is study. For a study of Venetian views in the graphic arts, see the exhibition catalogue by Paul J~ Karlstrom, Views of Venice in the Graphic Arts From the Late Fifteenth Century Through the Eighteenth Century (Los Angeles: The Grunewald Graphic Arts Foundation, 1969). For a history of vedute depicting the city of Rome, see Margaret Scherer, Marvels of Ancient Rome. 6 For the work of Gaspar van Wittel, see Giulio Briganti, Gaspar van Wittel e l'origine della veduta settecentesca (Rome: Ugo Bozzi editore, 1966). For Joseph Heintz, see Briganti, The View Painters of Europe, pp. 99- 100. 7 As early as 1703, Luca Carlevaris, Canaletto's predecessor as chief view-painter for visiting tourists, had produced a series of over one hundred etchings of 42

saw its fruition in the brilliant work of the vedutista

Canaletto from the 1720's on. Venice of the eighteenth

century enjoyed the important position as a major center

for the production of engravings and fine books and

witnessed the development of the engraved view, especially

in Visentini's suite, published in the year 1735, of 8 Canaletto's views of the Grand Canal.

It was in Venice, as well, that the fantastic world

of stage design and the genre of the veduta merged to

create yet another genre important for Piranesi's

development, that of the capriccio. This particular type

of view stressed the mysterious melancholy of ruins evoked

through an imaginary setting and was influential for

Piranesi's career because of its qualities of fantasy and

its exploitation of the deeply emotional properties inherent in the ruin itself. The strange dream-like woodcuts of the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili (Plate 1 ), done

scenes of the Canals. His book, Le Fabriche, e Vedute di Venetia maintained its popularity and went through several editions during the century. For more information on Carlevaris, see Briganti, The View Painters of Europe, pp. 100-107; Fabio Mauroner, Luca Carlevarijs (Padua: "Le Tre Venezie," 1945); and Aldo Rizzi, Luca Carlevarijs (Venice: Alfieri, 1967). 8 In 1735, Canaletto got Antonio Visentini, an architect and artist as well as an etcher, to engrave the views of the Grand Canal which he had painted for Joseph Smith, the British collector. Although Canaletto may have hoped that the work would serve as a good advertisement for his much more lucrative canvases, it was obviously a commercial venture in its own right--the prints were meant to sell. 43

in the closing years of the fifteenth century, had sown the seeds for this type of view and it was to reach its maturity in the work of another artist not previously discussed, Marco Ricci. This theme was especially pronounced in Ricci's work, published after his death in

1730, entitled Experimenta and represented here by an etching called simply Capriccio (Plate 18), a theme which would be further expanded in the coming years by Canaletto 9 and his etchings of vedute ideate.

Piranesi took all of these influences from his early years in Venice with him when he made his first trip to

Rome in the year 1740, at the age of 20. He went as draughtsman under the auspices of Marco Foscarini,

Venetian ambassador at the court of Pope Benedict XIV.

A map of the Eternal City, executed by Giambattista

Nelli, gives us a very good picture of the layout and extent of the city in the eighteenth century when Piranesi first visited there (see Scott, pp. 20-21). The influence of Nelli and his work were of importance to Piranesi in gaining greater knowledge of Rome, for some years later, in 1748, he contributed two vignettes as ornamentation for

Nelli's large map. Piranesi was also to copy this map exactly in later years, when he produced his own map of the Eternal City in Le Antichit~ Romane and when he 9 For the work of Marco Ricci, see the exhibition catalogue by Giuseppe M. Pilo, Marco Ricci (Venice: Alfieri, 1963). 9 ' 44

published an expanded plan of Rome's major monuments 10 around 1774.

The Rome of Piranesi's day was much smaller in

comparison to what it had been during the time of Imperial

grandeur. The population, which had been in excess of one

million inhabitants under the Emperor Augustus, had

dwindled to approximately 150,000. This decline in the

population was attributable to the fact that, except for

church employees and the tourist trade, there was

basically no other employment available in the city.

Roman society was stagnant and backward. Power was

,wielded by the Pope and his circle and the old families of

the Roman nobility had lost their importance as leaders of

society. In this state of affairs, it was the visiting

tourist who gave a much needed vibrancy to the scene and who was responsible for contributing a boost to the 1 1 economy of Rome, through his lavish spending.

The face of Rome when Piranesi first set eyes on it

10 Giambattista Nelli and his son Carlo published a large-scale map of Rome as well as a smaller version, see ,Amate P. Frutaz, Le Piante di Roma, i (Rome: Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, 1962), 236 and iii, 419. Piranesi's early biographer Legrand says that Piranesi gained his intimate knowledge of the topography of Rome through accompanying Nolli when he was surveying the city. An unsigned etching of views of the Tiber bridges illustrating Nelli's map of the river is also attributed to Piranesi, see L. Donati, Maso Finiguerra, iv (1939), 121-3. 1 1 For a background on Roman life in the eighteenth century, see M. Vaussard, Daily Life in Eighteenth Century 45

was a fascinating one, a particularly uneven distribution

of urban and rustic elements within the city walls. The

visitor to the Eternal City was greeted with a combination

of Renaissance and Baroque splendours, the melancholy

dilapidation of Imperial ruins and agricultural areas of

orchards and vineyards dotted with the suburban pleasure

villas of the nobility.

The layout of certain areas of the city was

impressive, with its combination of narrow streets crossed

by wide processional routes. During the Baroque period,

Rome had experienced new and dramatic changes under a program of monumental city planning. The Baroque builders were well aware of the visual impact of space and this concept, together with the Baroque flair for theatricality and the element of surprise, combined to create in the city several visually dramatic settings.

According to Nelli's map, if visitors to Rome entered the city from the north by Porta del Popolo, they were greeted with the theatrical view of the piazza from which radiated the three streets between the domed churches on either side of the Corso. On the left, the Via del

Babuino led to the tourists' haunt around the Piazza di

Spagna, known as the English Ghetto, and to the right,

Italy (London: Allen and Unwin, 1962); Maurice Andrieux, Rome (New York: Funk and Wagnalls, 1968), pp. 359-378; and Stewart Perowne, Rome: From Its Foundations to the Present (New York: Coward, McCann & Geoghegan, Inc., 1972), p. 200. 46

the Via della Ripetta led to the Tiber River. The direction pointed the way to the old Campus Martius, the most populated area of Rome, which basically retained its medieval form. There were several magnificent palaces, such as the Palazzo Borghese and the Palazzo Spada and numerous old churches, many of them rebuilt behind the impressive Baroque facades which dominated the narrow streets and piazze. Opposite the Tiber Island, the streets continued around the base of the Capitol to the

Piazza Venezia, at the far end of the Corso. The Capitol itself represented a scene virtually unchanged since the days of the Renaissance. The seat of the civil governor and the Capitoline museum looked out over the piazza designed by Michelangelo and centered around the imposing equestrian statue of Emperor Marcus Aurelius.

If visitors to Rome took the Via del Babuino from the

Piazza del Popolo to the Piazza di Spagna, they would already reach the outskirts of the city. In that direction, there was only the Strada Felice, now the Via

Sistina, where Piranesi would later have his lodgings, leading from the Piazza di Spagna to the Piazza Barberini.

Towards the north and east there were vineyards and villa gardens. The Pope's residence on the Quirinal was near to the outskirts of the urban fabric, for beyond that, towards the Porta Pia, development was limited. The large basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore represented the extremity 47

of the built-up area in the east and was directly

connected with its obelisk and avenue to the obelisk on

top of the Spanish Steps. Many areas loomed in

desolation, punctuated only by the suburban villas of the

wealthy Italian families and the aqueducts which in

ancient times supplied water from the hills for Roman

baths and fountains.

The Tiber River was not embanked and could only be

crossed in four places, and records of disastrous flooding

are many. Two bridges, one traversing the Tiber Island,

led to Trastevere, the area at the foot of the Janiculan

Hill, the cockney area of the city where the real Romans

of Rome lived within the circuit of the city walls. This area was connected to the Vatican by a single street and

there was another old quarter, between St. Peter's and the

Castel S. Angelo, known as the Borge Vaticano. This was

the extent of the city of Rome in the eighteenth century.

Beyond the walls there were only a few villas, then the desolation of the Campagna, and beyond Albano and 12 Tivoli.

12 The description of Rome in the eighteenth century of Piranesi was taken from Jonathan Scott's book, for which he relies on the map of Giambattista Nelli as a guide. The writings of eighteenth century travelers who embarked on the European Grand Tour are often very infor mative, as well as entertaining, in their descriptions of the Eternal City. For a short list of literary works by Grand Tourists, see Briganti, The View Painters of Europe, who also quotes extensively from these works. Scott also lists several eighteenth century sources for descriptions of Rome, as does Francis Haskell in The Age of the Grand 48

The concern with the proper identification of Rome's ancient monuments can be traced back to the Renaissance and the pioneering work of the humanist scholar Flavio 13 Biondo. In the 1740's, when Piranesi first visited the

Tour. Descriptions of the physical appearance of the Eternal City in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries are also found in Andrieux, pp. 319-358 and Perowne, pp. 186-201, as well as in most of the works dealing with the life of Piranesi. 13 During the Middle Ages, the popularity of pilgrimages to Rome led to the development of what can be called a tourist trade. As early as the mid-twelfth century, a guidebook of Roman monuments was produced for the instruction of pilgrims, and from this the modern guidebook developed. This early guidebook lasted for three hundred years before being superseded by more archaeologically accurate accounts. This was the Mirabilia urbis Romae, a mixture of ancient history, legend and topographical information. The accurate documenting of Roman remains had its beginnings with humanist scholars in the Renaissance, especially with the work of Flavio Biondo. Appalled at the destruction of Roman monuments which continued to take place, Biondo resolved to record them in his Roma instaurata, written during 1444-46. Despite certain inaccuracies, no one before Biondo had attempted such a comprehensive and thorough survey of ancient Rome or tried to explain so much. Biondo's work also distinguished itself in his ability to grasp what was essential and to perceive new avenues and unforeseen potentialities in whatever subject he dealt with. His work made possible a reasonable idea of ancient Rome, not just from a topographical standpoint, but also as far as its growth and the functions of its buildings were concerned. Biondo gathered information not only from ruins themselves, but also from Latin classics and the writings of Plutarch. He examined catalogues of Roman regions compiled in the time of Constantine and studied the works of Christian and medieval writers. He examined ancient building materials, searching for inscriptions, and checked church archives. With Biondo, archaeology took a great step forward and it was only with the sixteenth century and the publication of G.B. Marliani's handbook, Topographia urbis Romae of 1544, that his work was finally superseded. At the same time, engravings of ruins began to appear, some of dubious accuracy but still more important than any written 49

city, the knowledge and appreciation of Roman remains was

such that, although far from being in its infancy, much

progress was yet to be made in that area. The age-old

concentration of the city center to the Campus Martius

left, e.g., the site of the Imperial forum deserted. This

once-flourishing.area was now known as the Campo Vaccine,

or cow pasture, after the cattle market which was estab-

lished there. In Piranesi's time, the ruins were covered

with flowers and vegetation, which no one seemed concerned

enough to dig away. Many of the other monuments were also

left in a state of disrepair and some were even used to

perform functions which were demeaning in light of their

once-noble associations. The Circus Maximus was left to

description, by publishers such as Etienne Duperac, previously discussed and Antoine Lafrere. These could be bound in guidebooks at the customer's request. Lafrere also produced his Speculum Romanae Magnificentiae, which probably helped to spread a knowledge of Roman topography among both pilgrims and students. Following this came Palladio's two small guides, published in 1554. These little pocket guides went through some thirty editions in the three hundred years between 1554 and the middle of the eighteenth century, bringing us to the time of Piranesi and the Grand Tourists. I have taken the information on Flavio Biondo from Roberto Weiss, The Renaissance Discovery of Classical Antiquity (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1969), pp. 68-69, with additional information from the introduction to Peter Murray, Five Early Guides to Rome ,and Florence (England: Gregg International Publishers Limited, 1972). Other valuable sources for information on topographical guides to Rome are the doctoral disserta tion by Richard Gale Kenworthy, Renaissance Topographies of Ancient Rome (Los Angeles: University of California, 1978); Carroll Westfall, In This Most Perfect Paradise (University Park: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 1974); and the catalogue of antiquarian guides to Rome by Ludwig Schudt, Le Guide di Roma (Vienna: Benno Filser, 1930). 50

become an undrained swamp, the portico of Octavia was used as a fish market and the Baths of Caracalla was transformed into a storehouse for corn. This was the Rome which Piranesi saw during his years in the Eternal City and which would be reflected in his etching series in the years ahead.

When Piranesi first arrived in Rome, he lived in the

Venetian embassy, the Palazzo Venezia, at the far end of the Corso and at the foot of the Capitoline Hill. Rome affected him immediately and he began to study and draw with enthusiasm the fragments of Rome's past, at that time only just emerging from centuries of neglect and use as a quarry for building materials.

His first employers in Rome may have been the

Valeriani brothers, ruin painters and set designers.

Wanting to learn the art of etching, he then approached the Sicilian Giuseppe Vasi, the leading exponent of engraved views for tourists in the Eternal City, who had come to Rome in 1736. At this stage, Vasi was probably already working on his series of etched views, Magnifi- cenze di Roma Antica e Moderna, published in ten volumes between the years 1747 and 1761 and comprising 250 14 plates of the most important sights of the city

14 The standard work on Vasi is A. Petrucci, Le Magnificenze di Roma di Giuseppe Vasi (Rome: 1949): For a study of the relationship between Vasi and Piranesi and their work, see H. Millon, "Vasi, Piranesi, Juvarra," Les actes du colloque Piranese et les Franqais: 1740-1790 51 il '

The etchings produced by Giuseppe Vasi were little more than mechanical, static renderings of the sites of

Rome (Plate 24). He represented adjacent structures as being nearly as important as the main subject, in identical focus. The textures of ground and sky were rendered unimaginatively and the entire plate was bitten with a style resembling that of intaglio engraving, in a series of even, parallel lines. It was this environment in which Piranesi found himself and it was not long before he had totally outdistanced his master Vasi in the field - of expressive topographical etching. In six months he had mastered everything that Vasi was able to teach him and af~er a disagreement with his teacher, he left Vasi's shop.

Piranesi's first production of these early Roman years was the Prima Parte di Architetture e Prospettive, published in 1743. This work, composed of twelve etchings of imaginary temples, palaces, ruins and a prison, together with a frontispiece, represented a synthesis of the artist's formative years in Venice and Rome before he left the Eternal City to return to his native Venice. In this early series can already be seen the imaginative power of Piranesi's vision and his use of the ruin to evoke a feeling of awe and nostalgia in the spectator.

The theme of the Prima Parte is one of heroic visions

(Academie/ de France 'a Rome: 1976). 52

inspired by the contemplation of ruined antiquity and this idea is well illustrated in the Frontispiece to that series (Plate 19). In this work, which appears to have been influenced by the fanciful ruin compositions of Marco

Ricci (Plate 18), the ruins themselves provided Piranesi with the concrete evidence on which he could base his flights of fantasy. The broken columns and crumbling entablatures which fill this composition, as well as the others of the Prima Parte, confront the viewer with a beginning sense of the mystery and grandeur Piranesi must have felt upon first beholding the actual ruins of Rome.

Already in these early ruin fantasies, the contrasts of light and dark are striking and foretell the enormous potential yet to be achieved in this area with the Vedute di Roma in the years to come.

Before Piranesi would return to the Eternal City again, several other influences would intervene to form and develop his conception of the ruins of Rome. On his way back to Venice in late 1743, or early the following year, he apparently undertook a journey to southern Italy, to the area of Naples and the recent discovery of the buried city of Herculaneum. The excitement generated there by the numerous ancient remains brought to light and the advances made in the area of excavation must have affected Piranesi in the direction of a yet more inspired approach towards antiquity. 53

For the first time, actual remnants of Roman domestic life recorded by Pliny were being unearthed among the ruins wrought by Vesuvius in 79 A.D. Herculaneum yielded an amazing array of antiquities, not merely paintings and sculpture, but furniture and objects of household use.

The excitement surrounding these discoveries was undoubtedly heightened by an air of secrecy regarding the actual finds, as well as the stringent restrictions placed by the Bourbon King of Naples, Charles III, on drawing and recording any of the material. Despite certain clandestine publications which appeared during the 1740 1 s and early 17so•s, the folio volumes entitled Antichit~ di

Ercolano esposte, which appeared from 1757 on, were the 15 first to present the extensive finds from Herculaneum.

These treasures were housed in the Royal Museum at

Portici, which Piranesi visited and where he made the acquaintance of the director of the museum, Camillo

Paderni. Paderni may have been influential for Piranesi

15 For the writings of Pliny, see Pliny the Elder, Natural History, trans. H. Rackham, 10 volumes (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1938-62). For a background on the history and excavations at Herculaneum and its neighboring city Pompeii, see Theodor Kraus, Pompeii and Herculaneum: The Living Cities of the Dead (New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 1975); Alfonso de Franciscis, The Buried Cities Pompeii and Herculaneum (New York: Crescent Books, 1978); Amedee Maiuri, Ercolano: I nuovi scavi, 1927-1958, two vols. (Rome: La Libreria dello Stato, 1958); Maiuri, Ercolano: Itinerari dei musei, gallerie e monumenti d 1 Italia (Rome: La Libreria dello Stato, 1970); and G. Cerulli Irelli, Ercolano (Naples: Di Mauro, 1969). 54

because, after seeing his work, he encouraged the Venetian

artist to devote himself to depicting the antiquities of 16 Rome.

During the second quarter of the eighteenth century,

while Piranesi was in Rome, the medium of etching as an

expressive tool became immensely popular in Venice, as a

result of a number of talented reproductive engravers and

publishers at work in the city. Since Piranesi's

departure for the Eternal City in 1740, the development of

the engraved view and the inventive capriccio had

undergone some striking changes, beginning with

Visentini's engravings of Canaletto's vedute, previously

mentioned. These were followed by twenty-one views of the

Grand Canal by the painter Marieschi, which broke new

ground in their richness of effect, compared to the rather 17 dull presentation of their predecessor Visentini. After

1741, the most important contribution came from Canaletto

himself, in his first collection of etchings entitled

Vedute altre prese da i luoghi, altre ideate, published in

the early years of the 1740's. These etchings possess a

freshness and vividness paralleled in views by any

16 Paderni, who was in charge of the excavations, had a poor reputation as an archaeologist among contemporary scholars, see Wolfgang Leppmann, Winckelmann (New York: ·Knopf Publishers, 1970), p. 169. 17 For more information on the view painter Michele Marieschi, see Briganti, The View Painters of Europe, pp. 303-304, and any of the sources previously cited dealing with the work of Canaletto. 55

previous artist, even though they were done using even lines, avoiding the use of cross-hatching and utilizing only two depths of black, obtained by double biting

(Plates 12, 13, 14).

While the lessons learned from Canaletto were absorbed by Piranesi to a certain extent, a much more important influence upon him can be discerned in the person of Giovanni Battista Tiepolo. Whether or not

Piranesi actually worked in this master's studio is open to conjecture, but he was certainly impressed by Tiepolo's two etching series of imaginative compositions, Capricci

(Plate 15) and Scherzi di Fantasia (Plates 16, 17). Under the influence of Tiepolo, the style of Piranesi's early topographical views undergoes a change. This change was already hinted at in certain of the Prima Parte, especially in the Frontispiece (Plate 19), but now the painterly, shimmering qualities of this print take on a vibrant fluency and elegance that was missing in

Piranesi's earlier work. At the same time, Piranesi seems to have acquired a new mastery over the rendering of light and shade, an asset probably attributable to the influence of Tiepolo. With the synthesis of these qualities,

Piranesi arrived at the formulation of a totally unique manner of expression in etching, and one particularly suited to his personal interpretation of the ruins of Rome in print. 56

After the thrill of experiencing Rome firsthand, it could easily be assumed that Piranesi could never have been happy remaining in Venice for very long and so he returned to his adopted city sometime around late 1744 or early in 1745, probably after an absence of only a little over a year. In spite of the shortness of his stay in

Venice, Piranesi seems to have absorbed many new lessons from his Venetian experience which would be reflected in his prints throughout the rest of his career.

The opportunity for a return to Rome came in the form of an offer from the print dealer Giuseppe Wagner.

Piranesi became his agent and set up his business on the

Via del Corso, opposite the headquarters of the French

Academy. He remained in this location until around March of 1761, when he moved to new quarters and established his own publishing business in Palazzo Tomati in the Strada

Felice, now Via Sistina, close to the Trinita de' Monti at the top of the Piazza di Spagna.

The influence of his recent stay in Venice, together with his renewed inspiration among the ruins of Rome, combined to produce a series of four places entitled the

Grotteschi, one of which is illustrated here (Plate 20).

The theme of these plates continues the one introduced in certain of those from the Prima Parte. In these, Piranesi combines the melancholy mystery of the decaying ruins of antiquity, derived from Marco Ricci, with the quality of 57

fantasy inherent in so much of the decorative art of

Venice. The influence of Tiepolo is everywhere to be felt here, from the newly acquired fluency of expression to the

Venetian quality of luminescence obtained by leaving large areas of the paper blank. Piranesi may have borrowed something else from Tiepolo, too, and that was a deeper intensity of feeling than had been previously exhibited in his prints, which is evidenced in his work as an underlying sense of mystery.

In this series is present the theme known as rinnovo, a special quality of rejuvenation peculiar to the Roman 18 people for so many centuries. Piranesi illustrates this theme visually in the four Grotteschi through the juxtaposition of living and dead forms, both human and inanimate. These plates confront us with the life forces of death and regeneration, of recreation amid the decaying ruins. In the Grotteschi, this theme has its earliest

18 The theme of rinnovo, the special capacity of the Italic races for cultural rejuvenation, received fresh vitality early in the eighteenth century through the historical studies of the Neapolitan philosopher Vico. Vico's theories were first published in Latin in 1720-22 and then in Italian under the title Scienza Nuova in 1725. A rewritten version was published in 1730 and revised again in a third edition in 1744 after Vico's death. Piranesi may have also known Vico's publication De antiquissima Italorum sapienta of 1710, in which Vico demonstrated the survival of certain Etruscan words in Latin. For a discussion of the possible influence Vico exerted on Piranesi, see the catalogue Giovanni Battista e Francesco Piranesi (Rome: Calcografia Nazionale, 1967- 68), pp. 8-10 and Calvesi and Monferini's edition of Henri Focillon, Giovanni Battista Piranesi (Bologna: Alfa, 1967), pp. viiiff. 58 @ '

beginnings and one can witness its development and

importance to Piranesi in his later work.

Although Piranesi diverted himself on his return to

Rome with the Grotteschi and another set of imaginative

etchings, the Carceri, they were not very saleable. He wanted to earn a living from etching and so he would have

to sell his own, since the commissions he earned from distributing Wagner's prints would not provide an adequate

income. He turned, therefore, to etching little views of

Rome, which he produced at the rate of one a day, 19 according to his early biographer Legrand. He then sold them to his publisher for a small sum apiece. These prints were about four and a half by seven inches in size and were folded in half to be inserted as illustrations

into bulky pocket guidebooks to Rome. Piranesi's views, together with those of Paolo Anesi and three young artists from the French Academy, Francois Duflos, Jean Laurent Le

Geay and Charles Bellicard were published without any text

19 The principal source for Piranesi's life is the biography by J.G. Legrand, previously cited in Chapter 1, Note 18. The manuscript in the Bibliotheque Nationale in Paris, about forty-five pages long, is inaccurate on certain points, but contains a great deal of information based on conversations with Piranesi's children about a quarter of a century after their father's death and with Legrand's father-in-law, C.L. Clerisseau, who was one of Piranesi's artist friends in Rome. The manuscript is reprinted both in Giuseppe Morazzoni's G.B. Piranesi Notizie biographiche (Milan: Alfiei, 1921), which also quotes from other contemporary sources, such as parish registers, and in the previously mentioned Nouvelles de l'estampe, 5 (1969), p. 191ff. 59

under the title Varie Vedute di Roma Antica e Moderna by

Fausto Amidei, a Roman bookseller whose shop was located 20 in the Corso. Some ninety of these prints made their first appearance in 1745, with approximately forty-seven bearing Piranesi's signature, and selections from them continued to be printed in guidebooks into the nineteenth century, until the plates could no longer be used and mechanical, unsigned copies were substituted. This type of guidebook, with its views of Roman landmarks, could have had an influence upon the nineteenth century views of medieval France found in the Voyages pittoresques. The romantic idea of publishing picturesque views incorporating remnants of past civilizations continued on into the following century, even though the emphasis on classical monuments would be replaced by a new awareness and appreciation for the Gothic ruins of the Middle Ages.

It is interesting to observe the change which comes over Piranesi when he began to etch the ruins of Rome as opposed to its seventeenth century edifices. The publisher Amidei probably did not give his artists much freedom of choice regarding the particular views they

20 For more information on the work of LeGeay, see J. Harris, "LeGeay, Piranesi and International Neoclassicism, 1740-50," Essays presented to Rudolf Wittkower, i (New York: Phaidon Press, 1967), p. 189ff. and the catalogue of the exhibition, The Age of Neoclassicism (London: The Arts Council of Great Britain, 1972), p. 585. For a discussion of Piranesi's early vedute in connection with these artists, see Peter Murray, Piranesi and the Grandeur of Ancient Rome, pp. 31ff. 60

etched. His main objective was to provide the views which

he thought would most likely appeal to the tourists. As a

result of this, he started Piranesi on various views of

Renaissance and Baroque palaces.

At this point, Piranesi's style varied immensely.

The very early etchings of palaces and churches were

rather conventional efforts in the manner of his master

Vasi. Some were probably little more than hasty

executions done expressly for the purpose of making enough

money to subsist on. The majority of these early views

are carefully done, however, with Piranesi making a

concerted effort to be exact and precise. He used this

rather precise rendering, which he had learned under the

tutelage of Vasi, when he etched Rome's modern buildings,

as in his view of the Fa9ade of St. John Lateran (Plate

21) from Varie Vedute, but he used a more expressive

approach when depicting the weedy crumbling of Roman

ruins, as in the two views from Varie Vedute, the Circus

of Caracalla (Plate 22) and the Pyramid of Cestius (Plate 21 23).

21 This circus on the Via Appia, as well as its adjacent structures, were for years mistakenly attributed to Caracalla, and were finally given to their rightful owner, the Emperor Maxentius, by Antonio Nibby in 1825. In the course of excavations, which he conducted, Nibby read Maxentius' name in an inscription found in the area of the carceres. At the same time, he unearthed fragments of two additional inscriptions in the vicinity of the arch at the opposite end of the circus. For a more thorough discussion of this attribution, see Alfred Frazer, "The Iconography of the Emperor Maxentius' Buildings in Via 61

For when his publisher gave him the freedom to etch

the ruined buildings of Rome, his style underwent a trans-

formation. The ruins seemed too monumental to be

contained within the plate frame and the little figures with which he peopled his views beca.me the imaginative hunched characters which fill his most romantic later work, instead of the more ordinary looking inhabitants of his earlier scenes. His skies were no longer rendered in mechanical streaking with precise parallel clouds, but now were etched in atmospheric free hatching. The sprouting vegetation, which lends so much to his later views, appears and the plates are infused with a vitality often la-c:King in the scenes of Renaissance and Baroque monuments.

This dramatic change is apparent when one compares the early view of st. John Lateran (Plate 21) with a later one, the Circus of Caracalla (Plate 22). In the latter,

Piranesi combines a new range of tonal contrasts absent in his-earlier work and a greater emphasis on monumental form. A large part of the ancient stadium, in a state of complete ruin, is depicted close to the picture plane, its weight and mass suggested through heavy shadows and illumined surfaces. The illusion of space is enhanced by

Appia," The Art Bulletin, Vol. XLVIII (1966), 385-392 and the exhibition catalogue La Residenza Imperiale di Massenzio, Villa, Circa e Mausolea (Roma: Fratelli Brothers, 1980). 62

the absence of the conventional plate margin and Piranesi

adds a touch of wistful nostalgia in the leafy foliage

which covers the foreground arch, uniting it to its natural setting.

Another plate from this series, the RYramid of

Cestius (Plate 23), illustrates Piranesi's powers of

observation combined with his budding genius for creative

originality. This monument, in particular, seems to have

held a certain fascination for Piranesi, for he returned

to depict it again in later vedute. If we compare

Giuseppe Vasi's version of the same subject (Plate 24)

with Piranesi's, it becomes quite apparent that the

student has outdistanced his former master. Vasi's

version seems dull and unimpressive. The pyramid,

designated as the main subject of the view, is anything

but that. Vasi has placed it off to one side; giving as

much attention to neighboring structures as he does to the

pyramid. In fact, the Porta Ostiensis of the Aurelian

Wall, now called the Porta San Paolo, which forms the

center of the composition, claims more of our attention 22 than the monument itself.

In marked contrast, Piranesi leaves no doubt as to

22 The modern name of Porta San Paolo, which derives from the Basilica of S. Paolo fuori le Mura, is mentioned as early as the sixth century A.D., in the writings of Procopius (Bellum Gothicum II, 4,3; III, 36). See Ernest Nash, Pictorial Dictionary of Ancient Rome (New York: Praeger, 1 968). 63 i' .

the main subject of his etching. He has placed the pyramid directly in the center of the composition and enlarged its size in relation to surrounding objects, a technique often employed by the artist to give greater emphasis to the monumental nature of his subject. He even goes so far as to bring his subject so close to the picture plane that the apex of the pyramid is actually cut off. The play of light across the two visible surfaces contributes to the illusion of mass and volume of the funerary monument. Every detail in this print reinforces the stern dignity of the pyramid, from the two solitary

Doric columns to the delicate leafy tree at the right. In his later views of the Pyramid of Cestius, which we will return to, the structure itself takes on a new identity, until Piranesi transforms it into its ultimate dramatic statement in his final view of it from the Vedute di Roma.

In the year 1748, Piranesi published a series of twenty-eight small views, constituting another advance in his development of the ruin as a romantic entity. These views, first published as the Antichith Romane de' Tempi della Repubblica e de' Primi Imperatori, were later reissued in 1765 under the more popular title Alcune

Vedute di Archi Trionfali, to distinguish them from

Piranesi's treatise of 1756, called Le Antichit~ Romane.

These plates were divided into groups, depicting ruins both within and outside the city of Rome. In the series, 64

the artist demonstrates complete mastery of his craft and

exhibits many of the techniques of composition to be found

in his later work, culminating in the dramatic ruin views

of the Vedute di Roma, beginning in the 1750's.

The first selection of etchings presents us with

views of the monumental arches of Rome. In the view of

the Arch of Constantine (Plate 25), Piranesi's imaginative

presentation and heroic interpretation work to impart to

the monument a sense of indestructible grandeur that can

only be termed romantic. A sense of majesty and timeless

ness seems to pervade the arch, which stands encircled by

an arch of the nearby Colosseum. The Colosseum arch

provides a perfect window through which the viewer

observes the Arch of Constantine. From the Colosseum arch

hang thick clumps of foliage and a wealth of decaying masonry. What little light there is works to enhance the darkness of the monument and its somber encircling frame,

creating an elusive air of mystery.

In the plates from the Archi Trionfali, Piranesi

utilizes a device that can definitely be considered

romantic in its approach: di sotto in su, or the worm's eye view. In order to emphasize the height of the arches,

Piranesi sometimes burrowed below the level of the street to where the original level of the monument had been, resulting in his actually peering up into the underside of the arches. Nowhere is this technique better illustrated 65

than in the view of the Arch of Janus from the Archi

Trionfali (Plate 26). Piranesi has given us a worm's eye view of the majestic four-sided arch, as if viewed from a nearby excavation. The monumental quality of the arch is deliberately enhanced by the fact that its uppermost part has been cut off, as i.f it is too large to fit the composition. The massive scale of the structure is rendered more convincing by its closeness to the picture plane, a favorite device of Piranesi's used to increase the monumentality of the structure by making it appear as if any minute it will burst through the confines of the frame. The light which floods the Arch of Janus denotes it as the main subject of the etching, while the heavily etched, smaller ruin to the left acts as a perfect foil for its massive neighbor. Both structures are enhanced by

Piranesi's liberal use of decorative foliage and the crumbling fragments in the foreground give the finishing touch to the nostalgic interpretation.

In the preface to his Le Antichitk Romane, Piranesi set forth his philosophy and the ultimate goal which he hoped to achieve through his etchings:

When I first saw the remains of the ancient buildings of Rome lying as they do in cultivated fields or gardens and wasting away under the ravages of time, or being destroyed by greedy owners who sell them as materials for modern buildings, I determined to preserve them for ever by means of my engravings.23

23 This translation from Le Antichith Romane, I, 66

The desire to record and preserve for future generations the classical ruins of Roman antiquity was inherent in

Piranesi's work from the beginning. This desire itself, tinged with nostalgia for a vanished world, was filled with romantic connotations that would continue on into the nineteenth century. In a similar spirit would the artists of the Voyages pittoresques undertake the monumental task of preserving on paper through the young medium of lithography the medieval Gothic monuments of France.

Piranesi's publication of Le Antichit~ Romane, in May of 1756, constituted a decisive breakthrough in the field of Roman archaeology, a fact of which the artist himself was fully aware. These volumes, with their technical, scientific approach, were designed to include a far broader audience than any other previous antiquarian publication. This time, Piranesi's aim was not only to describe the external features of a structure. In an effort to be as thorough in his approach as possible, he supplemented views of the physical features of monuments with plans, sections and internal views, as well as an inquiry into the type of materials used and the construe-

(1756), "Prefazione agli studiosi delle antichita Romane," is from John Wilton-Ely, The Mind and Art of Giovanni Battista Piranesi (London: Thames and Hudson, 1978), p. 35. Wilton-Ely also quotes the passage in the Italian, on p. 129, Note 17. Slightly varying translations may also be found in Scott, p. 117 and in A. Hyatt Mayor, Giovanni Battista Piranesi (New York: H. Bittner and Company, 1952), p. 8. 67

tional techniques employed.

An artist with less imagination than Piranesi might have made the Antichit~ a dry, scholarly publication, but an inventive mind such as his grasped the possibilities for creative interpretation even in a publication of this type. Certain of the plates may be said to constitute yet a further development in the evolution of a romantic sentiment expressed by the ruin.

The Frontispiece for the Antichit~ (Plate 27) exhibits once again Piranesi's formidable powers of imagination. The remnants of an antique past are scattered in profuse disarray, evoking the essence of the lost world of the ancients and tinged with a wistful nostalgia. The preface itself, etched on an ancient slab of masonry, is encrusted with a dense growth of vegetation. The use of light, while not at Piranesi's most expressive, nonetheless works to create an atmos phere as it plays over the various surfaces and illumines here and there a fragment of toppled architrave or a piece of the ancient Marble Plan of Rome.

Another plate from the Antichita, depicting the

Foundations of the Castel S. Angelo (Plate 28), exemplifies Piranesi's desire to present the ruins of Rome as imposing, larger-than-life entities. Once again, the artist utilizes the technique of over emphasizing the sheer mass of the ancient edifice by enlarging its size as 68

if at any moment it will burst through the confines of the

plate frame. The monument's gigantic proportions also

appear to be the result of Piranesi's use of the worm's

eye view technique to further increase the monumentality

of his subjec·t. The entire plate is filled with the

remains of cyclopean masonry in a state of decay,

populated by a few minute figures so tiny as to be almost

unnoticeable, which again serve to emphasize the huge

proportions of the edifice. The skeletal forms of the

decaying foundations are revealed in all their majestic

strength. In this particular plate, Piranesi even

includes a projecting slab of masonry in the lower fore-

ground. Appearing to be falling off the edge of the

plate, this clever use of trompe l'oeil acts as a

theatrical device to invite the viewer's participation in

the scene.

It was probably not long before the year 1748 that

Piranesi began to etch the first plates of his most famous

series of Roman views, the one hundred and thirty-three 24 large etchings of the Vedute di Roma. These were to

extend over the next thirty years of his life and would

document in a remarkable way his stylistic development and

24 The large Vedute are numbered up to 135, but the first two plates consist of the title page and a capriccio of antiquities, so there are only 133 views. The dating of these plates is dealt with in Scott, pp. 304-305 and by A. Robison, "Giovanni Battista Piranesi: Prolegomena to the Princeton Collection," Princeton University Library Chronicle, XXXI, 3 (1970). Q ' 69

growing intellectual concerns, as well as his increasing devotion towards the depiction of the romantic ruin in print.

Although Piranesi dated none of the Vedute di Roma plates himself, they have all been dated and catalogued through the efforts of later scholars, so that in this series of views it is possible to trace the career of

Piranesi as an etcher of tourist vedute. The original intention of this series was to provide a tourist public with picturesque and cheap souvenirs of the main sights of seventeenth century Rome executed in a large format.

Piranesi etched very few medieval or Renaissance monuments, with the most recent sights represented by the

Trevi Fountain and the Piazza di Spagna. The first set of plates, numbering between thirty and thirty-four, were issued around the year 1751, under the title Le Magnifi- 25 cenze di Roma. This series is composed of sights of modern or seventeenth century Rome and of the most popular subjects for tourists, such as the great basilicas,

St. Peter's, Piazza del Popolo and Piazza Navona.

However, with the second phase of etchings from the Vedute di Roma, beginning about 1754, Piranesi's overriding

25 While the earliest fixed date for the Vedute di Roma is 1751, when some thirty-four plates were published by Giovanni Bouchard in Le Magnificenze di Roma, it appears that at least nineteen of them were available in a definable set a good deal earlier, perhaps before 1748, the traditional date given by Francesco Piranesi, see A. Robison, pp. 165ff. 70

interest in, and concern for, the ruined monuments of antiquity becomes of increasing importance. The next thirty plates, which have been dated between 1754 and

1760, depict twenty-eight monuments from antiquity, as compared with only two views of modern Rome.

Through Piranesi's portrayal of the ruined monuments of Rome in this magnificent series of prints, one can witness his development of the expressive qualities of line and tone in the etching process. This capacity for greater expressive power in etching gave Piranesi a new descriptive tool to use in his work as an antiquarian.

His rather static, mechanical approach in the early Vedute di Roma was sufficient enough to depict the modern buildings of Rome, but when it came to etching the crumbling ruins of a monumental past, something more was needed. This aspect became of increasing concern to

Piranesi by the 1750's, and through his experimental approach to the rendering of light and shade and varying viewpoints, he began to achieve a style infused with heightened drama and emotional intensity, through repeated biting of the etching plates and the use of a darker black ink. Something of this new direction was already evidenced in the earlier small plates of the Archi

Trionfali (Plates 25, 26), but only through a gradual process of trial and experimentation could the surface of the large plates of the Vedute di Roma be invested with 71

that incomparable ability to portray and describe.

The progress that Piranesi had achieved in this new direction by the early 1750's can be seen in his view of the Arch of Constantine and the Colosseum (Plate 29), from the Vedute di Roma. Instead of depicting the ruined amphitheatre from its conventional viewpoint, the angle from which it appears to be intact as seen from the

Esquiline Hill, he chose the more novel view, seen from the higher ground of the Palatine. In this manner, his interest in the skeletal structure and broken remains of the ancient edifice is readily displayed, as he gives us a glimpse of the stadium exposed to view in a series of sections created from the destructive forces of human and natural-~lement~~

Piranesi's interpretation of the Arch of Constantine itself had undergone several distinctive changes since his early rendering of it from the Archi Trionfali, first published in 1748 (Plate 25). The rather hazy, ephemeral image in the earlier plate is here exchanged for a more solid, weighty version. Careful attention is now paid to surface ornamentation and to depicting the structure in its exact location in relation to adjacent buildings.

Every detail in the plate is thoroughly scrutinized by

Piranesi's etching needle, even down to the little group of figures involved in deep conversation on the ancient foundations in the foreground, the structural composition 72

of which is picked out in minute detail. The decorative foliage which covers the Constantine monument in the Archi

Trionfali series is now depicted in a more realistic vein, as the substantial vegetation which Piranesi would actually encounter in his meticulous examination of the antiquities of Rome.

The part played by human beings in Piranesi's views is one of great importance and adds to the total atmosphere of the scene. Eighteenth century Rome was, as mentioned before, a city of extreme contrasts. While in the Eternal City it was indeed possible to witness scenes of daily life in the streets and squares involving colorful pomp and pageantry, nobility and distinguished foreign visitors, at the same time flocks grazed in the

Campo Vaccine and shops were erected against the remains of antiquity. The people which held the greatest fascination for Piranesi as subject matter were not lords and ladies, but the inhabitants of the poorer sections of the city in all their ragged glory, a type of figure which was also important in the work of the seventeenth century 26 artists Callot and Rembrandt. Inspiration came to

26 For a background on the work of the artist Jacques Callot, see Howard Daniel, Callot's Etchings (New York: Dover Publications, Inc., 1974); Daniel Ternois, L'Art de Jacques Callot (Paris: F. De Nobele, 1962); and the exhibition catalogue Jacques Callot: 1592-1635 (Providence: Rhode Island School of Design, Brown University Department of Art, 1970). For the graphic work of Rembrandt, see K.G. Boon, Rembrandt: The Complete Etchings (New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., n.d.). 73

Piranesi from the most sordid beggars living in the

Trastevere section of Rome across the Tiber River, who

were depicted in his etchings dressed in long, tattered

cape-like garments. Piranesi peopled his ruin scenes with

those affected with hunched backs, broken arms and

crippled legs. They sometimes support themselves on

sticks or crutches and are often shown pointing at some

unseen object with thin, bony fingers. Piranesi makes his

figures even more pitiable by reducing them to the tiny

stature of dwarfs, in order to cause his architectural

structures to appear even larger than they actually are.

It is as if Piranesi's love of the ruined state of ancient

buildings spilled over into his conception of humanity and

caused him to recognize and document the effects of the

ravages of time on animate as well as inanimate objects,

another instance of that concept of rinnovo, the cycle of growth and decay which assumed such importance in

Piranesi's work.

As Piranesi became more and more interested in Rome's archaeological remnants, his depiction of individual monuments became of great importance. Certain ancient buildings seem to have held a peculiar fascination for him, for he returned to them at various times throughout his career, as he did with the Arch of Constantine previously mentioned. When one compares these plates of similar subject matter, the realization that in Piranesi's 74

hand the romantic potential of Roman ruins was being gradually developed becomes increasingly apparent.

The Pyramid of Cestius was another such monument which seemed to fascinate Piranesi. Beginning with his early rendering in the Varie Vedute (Plate 23), he was to etch this particular subject from antiquity several times within a time span of fifteen years. The pyramid is depicted in two plates from the Vedute di Roma, an early version and a later one. The first, shown here in its 27 third state (Plate 30), was etched sometime before 1760.

Piranesi has once again allowed his imagination to exert itself and the result is one of heightened atmospheric effects. The wild vegetation sparsely covering the sides of the pyramid and the framing gnarled trees serve to increase the drama of the scene. The foreground is strongly etched and is balanced by the paler sky overhead.

27 In the first state of Piranesi's early view of the pyramid, from the Magnificenze di Roma (see Wilton-Ely, section on Vedute di Roma, pl. 13), he adopts a similar viewpoint to that used in the small plates of the Varie Vedute (Plate 23), although the angle of the pyramid's apex is less acute. Generous space is given to depicting the wildness of the natural setting, as well as the buildings connected with the nearby Porta s. Paolo. Sometime before 1760, Piranesi re-etched this plate radically (Plate 30), bringing the image of the pyramid closer to that of the Varie Vedute plate by raising its apex and altering its angle. Much of the monument's surface is now cleared of foliage in the revised state, producing a cleaner profile and allowing the inscriptions to be visible. Changes also appear in the fortifications of the Porta and the blank area close to the right-hand margin of the plate is rendered in greater detail. The dramatically etched foreground is also balanced in the revised plate by a more intense reworking of the sky. 75

The play of light and dark intensifies at the center of

the composition, creating deep shadows and a resulting air of mystery. Piranesi's final view of the funerary

structure becomes an even more dramatic statement of the romantic ruin, as we will later see.

In the five years which followed the publication of

Le Antichit~ Romane, Piranesi continued his archaeological studies, particularly in connection with the ruins of the

Campus Martius and the ancient Roman aqueducts. During this period, he executed about twenty more of the large

Vedute, completing the series of the seven pilgrimage basilicas and adding several of the important palaces, as well as some bolder, darker views of antiquities, such as the Arch of Titus and the Colosseum, which we will discuss. It was during this period, however, that

Piranesi's energies were diverted in the direction of extolling the virtues of Roman civilization over those of

Greece. Towards the middle of the 1750's, his entry into the Greco-Roman controversy turned his devotion to depicting the ruins of Rome into a passionate defense.

In the year 1751, with the support of the Society of

Dilettanti, the architects Stuart and Revett set off for a three year tour of Greece, returning with the first accurately measured drawings of the buildings of Athens, though the first volume of their Antiquities of Athens did 76

28 not appear until 1762 and the second until 1789. This

delay enabled Julien David LeRoy, a former scholar of the

French Academy in Rome, to visit Athens in 1754 and to

publish in 1758 an inaccurate but illustrated account of

Greek ruins entitled Les Ruines des plus beaux monuments 29 de la Grece. LeRoy followed his patron, the connoisseur and scholar Comte de Caylus, the first of whose seven volumes of Recueil d'antiquiti:s ~gyptiennes, etrusgues, grecgues, romaines et gauloises had appeared in Paris in 30 1752. Each of these publications asserted and attempted to demonstrate the primacy of Greek art over that of Rome.

In 1755, another article appeared, entitled a Dialogue on

Taste, published anonymously under the title of The

Investigator, but later found to be by Piranesi's friend,

28 For more information on the work of Stuart and Revett, refer to the sources mentioned in Chapter 1, Note 17. Also see L. Lewis (Lawrence), "Stuart and Revett: Their Literary and Architectural Careers," Journal of the Warburg Institute, II (1938-39), p. 128ff. 29 The plates in LeRoy's work, of far greater artistic caliber than previous records, even though somewhat inaccurate in detail, supported the assertion that architecture was a Greek invention from which all Roman buildings derived as defective copies. He claimed that Roman architecture derived from the Etruscan, which, in turn, was derived from the Doric. See Scott, p. 150 and the sources cited in Chapter 1 ·, Note 1 7. For Piranesi' s comment regarding LeRoy's work, see Note 32. 30 See Anne-Claude-Philippe de Toubieres, Comte de Caylus, Recueil d'antiguit6s egyptiennes, etrusgues, grecgues, romaines et gauloises: Eloge historigue, 7 volumes (Paris: 1752-67). 77

31 the Scottish architect Allan Ramsay.

These works caused a total astonishment among the

learned classes of Europe. Europeans were very familiar

with Roman architecture, but the monuments of Greece were

relatively unknown to them, owing to the difficulty of

travel to that country. Not only Piranesi's uncle Matteo

Lucchesi, but all of his contemporaries believed that

Roman culture had derived from the Etruscans, whom they

assumed to have been an older and more intelligent race

than the Greeks. They, furthermore, believed that after

the Romans conquered Greece, the Greeks had absorbed an

inferior variation of Roman achievements for their own

culture.

Piranesi probably knew the heresies of Caylus through

his friends at the French Academy and he apparently had

read the Recueil, although he only quotes favorable

passages from it in his own work. However, it may have

31 For a summary of the content of Ramsay's pamphlet, see Scott, p. 151. Piranesi was apparently good friends with the Scottish painter, for he honored him with an imaginary tomb on the Appian Way in the dedicatory plate of the second volume of the Antichit~ Romane, as he also had done with the Scottish architect Robert Adam. Piranesi's biographer Legrand mentions that Ramsay also accompanied Piranesi on sketching expeditions. Ramsay himself refers to Piranesi's reaction to his Dialogue on Taste in a letter, which will be discussed in Chapter 3, in relation to Piranesi's influence in nineteenth century England. For a background on the life and work of Allan Ramsay, see Alastair Smart, The Life and Art of Allan Ramsay (London: Routledge and Paul, 1952), which gives a full account of his Roman visits and friends. 78

been LeRoy's book which was the primary target for his publication in defense of Rome, Della Magnificenza di

Architettura de' Romani, his longest work, consisting of a hundred pages of text and forty illustrations, which was 32 finished early in 1760. He also took this opportunity to attack Ramsay's pamphlet as well. Piranesi had never traveled to Greece and since he owed his fame and fortune to Rome and its antiquities, he quickly came to the defense of his adopted city.

The pamphlet by Allan Ramsay caused only minimal sensation and LeRoy's work was acknowledged to be full of inaccuracies. However, the Della Magnificenza was aimed at another source, a more influential advocate of Greek superiority than any of the others.

In 1755, the year before Piranesi's Le Antichit~

Romane appeared, a little-known German scholar by the name of Johann Joachim Winckelmann had published an essay in

Dresden on the imitation of Greek works, entitled Gedanken uber die Nachahmung der griechischen Werke in der Malerei

32 Piranesi's debut in the Greco-Roman controversy with Della Magnificenza and the nature of his subsequent publications are discussed in Rudolf Wittkower, "Piranesi's Parere su l'Architettura," Journal of the Warburg Institute, II (1938-1939), 147ff. Piranesi mentions LeRoy's work in a letter to the Scottish architect Robert Mylne, on November 11, 1760: "My work On the Magnificence of Architecture of the Romans has been finished some time since ••• The Antiquities of Greece, brought to light by Mr. LeRoy ••• contributed to its enlargement." Quoted in C. Gotch, "The Missing Years of Robert Mylne," Architectural Review, CXXX (1951), 182. 79

33 und Bildhauerkunst. This single work was to have a far greater effect on the European conception of Greek antiquity than the works of Caylus, and the folios of

LeRoy, Stuart and Revett combined. Through his brilliant imagination, which he applied to the modest remains of

Greek gems, coins and the Roman copies of Greek sculpture and painting, he was able to provide the European mind with a new conception of the classical past. The year

1755 also saw the arrival of Winckelmann in Rome, where he later attained the position of librarian to the noted collector Cardinal Albani in 1759, and by the decade's end, had succeeded in placing the Greco-Roman controversy on a new level.

Regardless of the great divergence in attitude which placed Piranesi and Winckelmann at the forefronts of their opposing sides, their respective approaches to the study of antiquity bear a great resemblance to each other. Both utilized their keen imaginations to the fullest, stretching them beyond the evidence immediately at hand and the methods of scholarship as then established, in order to arrive at an entirely new conception of antiquity which, ironically, would prove complementary. While

Winckelmann exploited his literary gift for poetic imagery

33 For the work of Winckelmann, see Karl Justi, Winckelmann und seine Zeitgenossen (Leipzig: Koehler and Amelang, 1943); Henry c. Hatfield, Winckelmann and His German Critics (New York: King's Crown Press, 1943); and Wolfgang Leppmann, Winckelmann. 80

in extolling the virtues of Greek art, Piranesi resorted to the rich visual potential inherent in the architectural fantasy and the capriccio, resulting in the great sense of monumentality and heroic stature which he gave to his etchings of Roman ruins. .. After the publication of Le Antichita Romane,

Piranesi devoted himself to the completion of some of his finest plates in the Vedute di Roma. This succeeding group, published by Bouchard and Gravier in the late

1750's, is especially outstanding for their tremendous tonal variations, attained through repeated biting of the plates and for their fine printing in a darker black ink than he had used in any of the preceding Vedute. They serve to dramatically illustrate Piranesi's heroic vision of the ruins of the Eternal City in a way unparalleled by any artist before or since.

With the end of the 1750's, Piranesi's depiction of the imagery of decay in the Vedute di Roma attains a level of intensity not seen since certain of the small plates of the Archi Trionfali (Plates 25, 26). The Arch of Titus

(Plate 31) exemplifies this direction taken by Piranesi and is one of the artist's most evocative renderings of the romantic ruin. All of the decorative expression of the Archi Trionfali has here disappeared, however, and in its place we witness a range of contrasting tonalities and heavily hatched foreground. The ancient arch appears to 8~

be under violent attack from the savagery of nature and the wild forms of the twisted trees on the right assume almost as much importance as the main subject. This plate presents us with a study in deterioration and we are made to feel empathy for this once noble monument from antiquity which the agents of time still seek to destroy.

In this print, decaying stonework, crumbling brick, broken marble and weathered timber are all depicted through the sharp eye of Piranesi. Further pathos is portrayed through the mundane daily activities of the minute human beings, who are rendered even smaller by the exaggerated size of the arch, as they perform their tasks around a powder mill next to the once-proud bas-relief of an

Imperial triumph. In this etching, the relentless attacks of nature and the indifference of society has taken its toll on the arch and its degradation is complete. The quality of pathos, of once glorious ruins humbled by time, is inherent in many of Piranesi's etchings and would reoccur in the nineteenth century in the romantic lithographs of medieval French ruins executed by the artists of the Voyages pittoresgues.

As we saw earlier, the Pyramid of Cestius was a motif that Piranesi depicted on several occasions. It also is used to express this more pathos-filled attitude in the final view of it from the Vedute di Roma (Plate 32). In this etching, Piranesi creates his ultimate dramatic 82

statement of the funerary structure, developing to its maximum potential the compositional elements first tentatively introduced in his earliest view of the pyramid from Varie Vedute. He projects the apex of the monument until it is touching the upper plate margin and chooses an extremely low viewpoint so as to develop a contrast between the paleness of the sky on the left and the jagged, vine-covered remnants of the Aurelian Wall on the right. The stark angle at which the tomb is depicted, together with the twisted trees that appear to attack the ancient material of its surface, combine to render the pitiful handful of humans which populate the scene as little more than insignificant scratchings. The idea of placing the plate's caption on a giant scroll illusionis tically within the frame, a device which Piranesi used often in the later Vedute, works with the pyramid to further minimalize human identity by reducing the little figure gesturing up at the scroll.

Piranesi's desire to portray the monumentality and heroic quality inherent in the remains of Roman civiliza tion is forcefully depicted again in his etching of the

Colosseum (Plate 33) from the Vedute di Roma. The sheer massiveness of the edifice, brought close to the picture plane, as if it can scarcely be contained within it, overwhelms the viewer by its immensity. The giant structure appears even more so, as the observer is brought 0 ' 83

face to face with its rugged, ruined exterior, gradually receding into the distance on either side as it continues its encircling wall. The generous use of hanging vegeta tion, visible through the ancient archway, adds to the melancholy atmosphere of the Colosseum and imparts to it that romantic association which continued to grow even stronger in Piranesi's later views from the Vedute.

Another of the Vedute to display this monumental, imposing presence is the cylindrical Tomb of Cecilia

Metella (Plate 34), executed several plates after the

Colosseum. The massive tomb, constructed about 40 B.C. on the Via Appia, is transformed from a mere ruin from antiquity into an image of arresting beauty. Piranesi again brings the huge edifice close up to the picture plane, a technique often employed in the later Vedute, and dramatically silhouettes it against the contrasting paleness of the sky. The broken masonry and crumbling stonework are meticulously detailed and illuminated by the strong use of chiaroscuro. Piranesi's use of light and dark work to give added grandeur and volume to the ruined monument and intensify the feeling of nostalgia and sadness upon reflection of a vanished civilization. The artist's love of vigorously etched foliage and creeping vines add to the air of mystery enveloping the scene. The tiny figures of men and animals serve to remind us of the frailty of human existence, yet an existence capable of 84

creating a lasting tribute to human endeavor.

Some few plates later into the Vedute di Roma,

Piranesi's intense interest in the weedy ruins of

antiquity resulted in his view of the Interior of the

Central Hall of the Baths of Caracalla (Plate 35), which

his etching needle recorded about the year 1765. Against

the lightly rendered sky, the crumbling remains of this

once great structure stand like lonely sentinels, their

blackened forms giving the effect of having survived some

devastating fire. The feeling of desolation and decay is

heightened by Piranesi's dramatic chiaroscuro. The

element of pathos is clearly apparent and forms the

subject matter in this print. Piranesi's juxtaposition of

an ancient monument with vestiges of modern society in

order to emphasize the ravaged condition of the ruin is

not needed here, and the viewer can but gaze in dismay at

the destruction time has wrought on this remnant from

Rome's proud past.

During the decade of the 1760's, Piranesi's widening

interest in the exploration of Roman engineering led him,

under the patronage of Pope Clement XIII Rezzonico, into

some of the remoter areas of the Roman Campagna. On his

expeditions to gather material for his publications, he was to come into contact with some of the wilder and more

sublime settings of antiquity. One area was to attract him especially, that of Tivoli and the ruins of Hadrian's 85

Villa nearby. This area would provide the artist with

subject matter for some of his finest plates during this

time and some of the most romantically conceived views in

all the Vedute di Roma (Plates 36-39).

As we have seen, the relationship between nature and

monument formed an integral and ever-changing part of

Piranesi's etchings, beginning with his earliest views of

Roman monuments. In his early etchings from the Prima

Parte, such as the Frontispiece (Plate 19), published in

1743, nature is intermingled with overturned columns and

toppled urns in profuse disarray, giving a pleasant,

though often mysterious, feeling of a by-gone era. In a view such as the Circus of Caracalla from Varie Vedute

(Plate 22), published in 1745, Piranesi uses a delicate,

leafy foliage, which covers the monument, to convey a rather wistful nostalgia through the passage of time and

to unite the ancient remnant to its natural setting. In the plate from the Grotteschi (Plate 20), of 1745,

inspired by Tiepolo, the theme of rinnovo, of death and regeneration, is expressed through the juxtaposition of creeping vegetation and ancient remains. The role of nature versus monument, however, would assume its most powerful rhetoric in the etchings from the Vedute di Roma, particularly in works such as the Arch of Titus (Plate 31) and in Piranesi's final view of the Pyramid of Cestius

(Plate 32), executed during the period of the late 1750's. 86

In these works, the encroaching vegetation begins to

assume a new role, that of a powerful adversary, as

Piranesi moved towards an ever more romantic, emotion

filled vision of the ruin. This increasing battle between

the ancient ruin and the forces of nature which surround

it is nowhere better illustrated by Piranesi than in his views of Tivoli from the Vedute di Roma, dating from the

1760's. In these later etchings, nature takes on an even more forceful and assertive role than we have previously

seen, becoming almost as important a subject in the print as the monument itself.

This new role of nature is exemplified in Piranesi's magnificent etchings of the Temple of the Sibyl at Tivoli

(Plates 36, 37). In these works, the often destructive forces of encroaching vegetation, which alternately enhance and threaten, are pitted against a noble creation of human endeavor. The romance of a vanished era is conveyed in the remnants of a noble temple covered with the agents of its own potential destruction. In these views, Piranesi's graphic technique records the evolution of his previous linear style into one where pictorial values are rendered in tone, which makes itself especially felt in the romantic depiction of the foreground.

Emerging from these heavily shadowed spaces are the figures of humans and animals. They seem to be but extensions of the vine-covered ruins which surround them 87

and serve to direct the viewer's gaze to these ancient

remains through a calculated series of gesturing poses.

Just as Piranesi's conception of the ruin had

undergone dramatic changes since his early views of Rome,

so had the depiction of the human figure in his etchings

also experienced an evolution. By the middle of the

1750's, the treatment of the human figure in the Vedute di

Roma had begun to gradually change from its detailed and meticulously hatched rendering in the early views to a more broadly handled conception, achieved by a deeper biting of the etching needle. Yet another type of figure

asserts itself with increasing importance towards the end of the decade, making its first appearance in Piranesi's

final view of the Pyramid of Cestius from the Vedute. In the increasing conflict portrayed in Piranesi's views between the remnants of antiquity and the forces of nature, the human figure gradually loses its human qualities and is reduced to little more than a represen tation of a moving force, alive but lacking its own identity. In these views, mankind serves only to echo the tense rhythms of the twisted trees and broken ruins around him. From the early 1750's to the early 1760's, one can witness a change of interest from the depiction of particular incidents of human behavior to the rendering of the figure as a representation of life forces in general.

The nineteenth century artists of the Voyages pittoresques 88

also peopled their ruin landscapes with figures, but their

interpretation differed from that of Piranesi, as we will

see later.

During the later 1760's, Piranesi's attention was, as

mentioned above, drawn more and more to the extensive

remains of Hadrian's Villa at Tivoli. There are in

existence several preliminary drawings for plates which

were never etched, apparently connected with a projected

publication, and a large map of the area, published by

Piranesi's son Francesco in 1781, is undoubtedly based on 34 the earlier research of his father. Piranesi's

familiarity with the site extends at least as far back as

the 1750's, when he used to frequent the area on sketching

expeditions with the Scottish architect Robert Adam, the

French architect Clerisseau and the Scottish painter Allan

Ramsay. However, the publication of the ten plates from

the Vedute di Roma which depict Hadrian's Villa come from

the following two decades.

It would seem as if the union of decaying structures and intruding vegetation presented Piranesi with the perfect setting with which to satisfy his growing need for more romantic subject matter. The results of this interest in depicting the intertwining relationship

34 For Francesco Piranesi's map and a detailed account of his father's exploits at Hadrian's Villa, seeP. Gusman, La Villa Imperiale de Tibur (Paris: A. Fontemoing, 1904). 89

between ruined antiquity and the wild forms of nature in a

remote setting are well illustrated in Piranesi's veduta of the Canopus at Hadrian's Villa (Plate 38). Here, nature is seen at her wildest and most destructive, mercilessly attacking and consuming the remains of the giant, yawning edifice. The tiny figures conversing in the open area before the cavernous hall and the others in the foreground, the latter blending in so well with the vegetation that one can hardly discern their human forms, impart a sense of foreboding and otherworldliness to the strange scene.

Piranesi's view of the Interior of the Baths (Plate

39) at Hadrian's Villa emerges as one of the ultimate statements of the romantic ruin. The artist has presented us with a picture of structural decay in which the relentless growth of vegetation is just as important subject matter as the ancient structure itself. In this work, Piranesi has used a much broader handling of detail, evoked by light instead of line, in marked contrast with his more specific depiction of decomposition ten years earlier in his view of the Arch of Titus (Plate 31 ).

Destruction and decay are very real in this somber scene and Piranesi's little figures appear as if deep in awesome contemplation of the lost world of the ancients.

Piranesi's views of Rome had a tremendous impact on potential travelers to the Eternal City and provided the 90

stimulus for many who actually made the journey to the

city itself, bringing with them those glorious visions of

Rome which Piranesi's etchings had helped to create. Upon

their arrival and first encounter with the actual ruins,

many travelers expressed a keen disappointment when the

ruins failed to measure up to Piranesi's grandiose

conceptions. A less imaginative mind than Piranesi's

could, unfortunately, see only jumbles of masonry. This

fact is testimony enough to rank Piranesi as one of the

most outstanding proponents of the early stages of the

romantic movement. The image of the Eternal City that

Piranesi conveyed in his magnificent etchings of Roman

ruins created a sensation during his lifetime and

continues to inspire us today. The nineteenth-century

artists of the monumental French work, Voyages

pittoresgues et romantigues dans l'ancienne France, would

carry on this great tradition of ruin views, adapting the

impressive patterns established by Piranesi in the preceding century to their own purposes, and would, in turn, make their own contribution to the romantic ruin in print under the impact of then current trends of taste. CHAPTER THREE

At the beginning of the nineteenth century, the

depiction of the ruin with its romantic associations

reached its height in the visual arts. The waning of

Neoclassicism and the advent of its counter trend known as

Romanticism gave rise to a reappraisal of social,

political and artistic values and paved the way for an

outpouring of expression never before seen in the pictorial arts. The phenomenon of Romanticism was of

special significance for the graphic arts, for its devel opment coincided with that of the young medium of

lithography. The results achieved with the merging of these two entities were of great importance for the depiction of the romantic ruin in print. The French and

English lithographers of the monumental work Voyages pittoresques et romantigues dans l'ancienne Franc~ (1820-

1878), the conception of French entrepreneur and artistic patron Baron Isadore Taylor, contributed much towards this end. Like their predecessor Piranesi, who sought to convey the emotional qualities of the ruins of classical

Rome in many of his etchings, the goal of these nineteenth century artists was to depict the ruined Gothic monuments

91 92

of France through the expressive form of the lithograph.

The time and place had changed, but the objectives of

Piranesi and these lithographers remained similar in several respects, as we will see.

In France, during the later years of the eighteenth century and the early part of the nineteenth,

Neoclassicism and the virtues of stoicism and unflinching patriotism were much in vogue. Ancient Rome became a symbol of revolutionary protest. The qualities of heroism and self-sacrifice, simplicity and determined resolution were greatly admired. The literature and art of the ancients assumed a central place in the lives of the rising middle class of France. The political writers of the ancient Roman republic, Cicero and Seneca, were read by many people and the postures and gestures of the French orators were modelled on those of Roman statues.

With Napoleon's rise to power, the neoclassical movement attained an even greater popularity, for he also shared the popular enthusiasm for the ancient Roman way of life, modelling himself on Alexander the Great and Julius

Caesar. Napoleon's empire was international in scope, as was its Roman prototype, and its intellectual and artistic life became cross-cultural, extending beyond its national boundary lines. What Greece had once been to Rome artis tically, Italy was now to France. Napoleon imported

Italian artists to Paris, as well as bringing to Paris 93

such artistic treasures as the Apollo Belvedere, the paintings of Raphael and masterworks taken from the

Vatican and other Italian museums. As the ancient Romans had become civilized by confiscating the art of the ancient Greeks, so French art, Napoleon believed, would profit by the presence of original works as its source of inspiration.

During the neoclassical period in France, the art of ancient Rome was considered above all others as the most important model for artists to follow. It would not be until the early years of the nineteenth century and the advent of the romantic movement that French artists, together with their English colleagues, would come to realize and appreciate the importance of the ruined Gothic monuments indigenous to France and to express this admiration in the visual arts, particularly through the new medium of lithography.

In the early years of the nineteenth century, a reaction to all that was orderly and rational began slowly to gain momentum, resulting in a conscious revolt against the tenets advocated by Neoclassicism and its commitment to the Rome of antiquity. This new trend, in which thought and feeling would predominate over reason and 1 intellect, came to be known as Romanticism. Due to its

1 For a background on the nature and philosophic ideas of Romanticism, see Hugh Honour, Romanticism (New York: Harper and Row, 1979); Lillian Furst, Romanticism (London: 94

complex nature, it is easier to discuss certain manifes- tations integral to its character than to attempt a precise definition.

The writer and philosopher Jean Jacques Rousseau had already sounded the cry of back to nature in the late eighteenth century. He saw man as the noble savage, possessing a natural goodness which contact with the political and social institutions of civilization had sought to corrupt. He believed in shunning society and in communing with a nature which was as yet unspoiled by the 2 taint of civilization. This preoccupation with the wild, untamed aspects of nature, in which the ruined buildings of past civilizations figured prominently, would be of importance to the artists of the Voyages pittoresgues, though in a different way in which it had fascinated

Piranesi in the preceding century.

Many other writers and poets of the time were also concerned with expressing the obsession with feeling and the interaction between man and nature, reflecting the intricacy of this cultural and emotional web in a variety of ways. The novelist Chateaubriand exhibited this pre-

Methuen and Company, Ltd., 1976); the catalogue The Romantic Movement (London: Arts Council of Great Britain, 1959); Kenneth Clark, The Romantic Rebellion and the entry on "Romanticism," Encyclopedia of World Art, Volume XII (New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1966), pp. 558-579. 2 For a study of the theories and writings of Rousseau, see Irving Babbitt, Rousseau and Romanticism (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1947). 95

occupation in his work Atala, typifying the European romantic's fascination with primitive and faraway subject 3 matter. The British romantic poets Byron, Keats and

Shelley also expressed this sentiment in their work, exalting nature and emotions felt in remembrances of days 4 gone by. Byron's Childe Harold's Pilgrimage of 1812 and

Keats' Ode on a Grecian Urn, written between the years

1818-1819, emphasize this reverence for nature and the past and their emotional connotations, yet without the primitivist element inherent in a work such as Atala.

Another important facet of the romantic movement was its interest in, and appreciation for, the artistic styles of the past. While the art of the classical period, especially that of Rome, had been regarded by the neoclassicists as the ideal model to follow, the advent of the romantic movement initiated a revival of other previous styles, particularly a fascination for Gothic medievalism. On the literary side, this is represented by

Chateaubriand, who extolled the virtues of this style

3 For a background on the work of Chateaubriand and other romantic writers, see Philippe Van Tieghem, Le Romanticisme fran9ais (Paris: Presses Universitaires, 1957); George D. Painter, Chateaubriand: A Biography (London: Chatto and Windus, 1977); and Pierre Moreau, Chateaubriand (Paris: Hatier, 1956). 4 The literature on English romantic poets is extensive. For a good basic study, see Graham Hough, The Romantic Poets (London: Hutchinson's University Librar~ 1953) and Albert Gerard, English Romantic Poetry (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1968). 96

Le Gtnie du Christianisme, which appeared in 1802. In it, he sought to convey the beauty and inspiration inherent in

Christianity, and cited as examples the Gothic cathedrals 5 and chivalry. The Scottish novelist Sir Walter Scott also helped to popularize the medieval period in his long 6 series of historical works called the Waverly novels.

The first of these to deal with the Middle Ages was

Ivanhoe, published in 1819, and in that and subsequent volumes he stirred the popular imagination with his accounts of life in medieval times. This renewed interest in the Gothic period during the romantic era was an important factor in creating enthusiasm for the ruined medieval monuments of France, which French and English artists would illustrate in the Voyages pittoresques.

The concept of back to nature and the yearning for a revival of past civilizations combined to satisfy the desire for escapism, another important characteristic of

Romanticism. This psychology of escapism was crucial to the romantic temperament, for it involved the idea of turning one's back, at least mentally, on an increasingly

5 For a study of the revival of Gothic styles during the romantic movement, see Agnes Addison, Romanticism and the Gothic Revival (New York: Gordian Press, Inc., 1967). 6 For a background on the life and work of Walter Scott, see Philip Bradley, An Index to the Waverly Novels (Metuchen, New Jersey: Scarecrow Press, 1975); David Daiches, Sir Walter Scott and His World (New York: Viking Press, 1971); and David D. Devlin, The Author of Waverly: A Critical Study of Walter Scott (London: Macmillan, 1 971 ) • 97

industrialized and mechanized world, in order to return to

a simpler way of life. These ideas took visual form in

landscapes depicting ruined monuments from ancient and

medieval times, often peopled with ordinary figures

involved in ordinary tasks. This type of scene became

quite popular, satisfying the romantic desire for

picturesque views. The Voyages pittoresgues was a product

of this popular enthusiasm for ruin views, though in a

different way from the Roman scenes of Piranesi in the

eighteenth century, as we will see later.

The importance of the romantic ruin in the field of

painting can be seen in the work of the two most important

British landscapists of the first half of the nineteenth century, John Constable and J.M.W. Turner. These artists depicted ruined monuments as the main subject of their 7 compositions on several occasions. Constable, although

7 Constable's interest in the depiction of ruins is evidenced in several of his works, among them a drawing of the remains of Hadleigh Castle near Southend, which he executed in 1814, a painting of the same subject, done in 1829, a watercolor depicting The Mound of the City of Old Sarum, From the South (ancient Salisbury), done in 1834 and a view of Stonehenge, painted in 1836. Turner depicted ruins as a subject matter on numerous occasions, particularly on each of his five trips to Rome. Among the Roman monuments that he illustrated are the Arches of Titus and Constantine, painted in 1819 and the Southwest Side of the Colosseum, done in the same year. For a background on the life and work of Constable, see John Walker, John Constable (New York: Harry N. Abrams, Inc., 1978); Ian Fleming-Williams, Constable: Landscape, Water colors and Drawings (London: Tate Gallery, 1976); and Basil Taylor, Constable: Paintings, Drawings and Watercolors (London: Phaidon Press, 1973). For the work of Turner, see John Rothenstein and Martin Butlin, Turner 98

not considered primarily a romantic artist, painted

several views of ruins in his native England during the melancholy later years of his life. The Englishman

Turner, that supreme romantic visionary, made several trips to Italy during the course of his life, recording

its monuments in his atmospheric style.

The interest in the depiction of ruins became even more important for the printmakers of the romantic era, developing hand-in-hand with the new process of

lithography and its potential for reaching a wider audience. The German printer Alois Senefelder is generally credited with the invention of lithography in the year 1798. His discovery was not by accident, for he had already been experimenting, along with several others, in an effort to perfect and control a process for chemical printing on stone. The invention of lithography was a major one, as a further step in the development of commercial printing, as well as a new medium for the fine 8 arts.

(New York: George Braziller, Inc., 1964); Gerald Wilkinson, Turner Sketches 1802-20: Romantic Genius New York: Watson-Guptill, 1974); and Graham Reynolds, Turner (New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1969). 8 For a background on the history of lithography and the work of Senefelder, see Alois Senefelder, The Invention of Lithography (New York: The Fuchs and Lang Manufacturing Company, 1911 ); Alois Senefelder, A Complete Course of Lithography (New York: DaCapo Press, 1968); Hans F. Bauman, Artists' Lithographs: A World History From Senefelder to the Present Day (New York: Putnam, 1970); Wilhelm Weber, A History of Lithography (New York: 99

The process of lithography came into existence almost

simultaneously with the rise of the romantic movement.

Lithography offered to the artists of romantic temperament

a means of expression freer than other methods of print-

making and presenting much less resistance to the

spontaneous action of the draughtsman's hand. Litho-

graphic experimentation in its early stages paved the way

for endless possibilities of dramatic tonal contrasts,

delicate shading and deep blacks cut by fine white lines

scratched into the stone. For the expression of emotion,

the reverence for nature and the human sensibilities,

lithography thus proved the ideal medium. Because of its adaptability for widespread publication, lithography

spawned a burst of graphic output, both from advocates of the dying neoclassical movement as well as from those who now supported Romanticism.

It was primarily in England, after Senefelder had visited London during 1800-1801 and assisted in setting up a lithographic press there, that the early experimentation of lithography as an artistic medium developed. A portfolio of a dozen lithographs by English based artists, published under the title Specimens of Polyautography, appeared in London between the years 1801-1803 and served

McGraw-Hill, 1966); and Joseph Pennell, Lithography and Lithographers: Some Chapters in the History of Art (London: T.F. Unwin, 1898). 100

9 to introduce the new technique. But, aside from several isolated attempts to popularize lithography, it did not achieve widespread recognition in England until nearly twenty years after it had first been introduced. Its subsequent growth and spread, beginning at this time, was primarily due to the efforts of two men who both had had contact with Senefelder in Germany. Rudolf Ackermann, a well-known publisher of aquatint books which were so popular in England, was largely responsible for bringing the new medium to the notice of the English public, through the publication of Senefelder's treatise in 1819.

The other, Charles Hullmandel, was an artist, who turned his attention in the direction of improving methods of printing and instructing artists to draw on stone. He would later gain greater importance in the area of lithography as one of the most influential printers of the 10 Voyages pittoresques.

The establishment of a lithographic press by

Hullmandel heralded the real birth of English lithography.

9 The contributors to this early lithographic publication were the artists Stothard, Warwick, Delamotte, R. Corbould, R. Cooper, Hearne, Fuseli, Barry, Sir R.K. Porter, Barker and Benjamin West. For more information on this work, see Pennell, pp. 120-124 and Michael Twyman, Lithography 1800-1850: The Techniques of Drawing on Stone in England and France and Their Application in Works of Topography (London: Oxford University Press, 1970), pp. 27-29. 10 For a background on the work of both Ackermann and Hullmandel, see Pennell, pp. 132-136 and Twyman, pp. 39- 40. 101

Hullmandel's press was such a success that from 1818 on other presses were set up in London and the provinces and he was to direct the course of English lithography throughout most of the first half of the nineteenth century. Being an artist himself, he was mainly interested in using lithography for the publication of artists' prints, with a concentration on the fields of topography and landscape, two areas which attracted many

Englishmen of the time.

With the emergence of lithography from its experimental state in England towards the close of the second decade of the nineteenth century, the climate pru~ed right for the growth and development of topographi- call=ithography. There was already in existence a flourishing trade in topographical prints, especially in sets of handcolored aquatint views. This new process of aquatint had been initiated in the years 1775-77 and from that time until the dawn of lithography many such topo- 11 graphical works were published in England.

During this early time the influence of the romantic movement was making itself felt as a liberating force even in the field of topography. While the medium of aquatint was perfectly suited to topography, the precise depiction

1 1 For more information on the history and process of the aquatint, see B.F. Morrow, The Art of Aquatint (New York: Putnam, 1935) and Sarah T. Prideaux, Aquatint Engraving (London: Foyle, 1968). l02

of a particular locale, it was found that lithography was

more suited to romantic landscape. This new medium was

better able to achieve a more personal approach to the

subject matter and could demonstrate more effectively the

impermanent effects of nature in order to create an

emotional response in the viewer.

One of the most important reasons for this growing

interest in topography and landscape was an increasing

awareness of the beauty of the British countryside. A

love of nature, primitive and unspoiled, inspired by the

romantic writings of Rousseau, was partly responsible for

the upswing in the production of scenic views during this

time. Like their predecessors in the eighteenth century,

the nineteenth century British gentry possessed a love of

picturesque landscapes, often with ruins, which satisfied

their desire for nostalgia and escape from an industri

alized society. During the popularity of the aquatint,

artists turned for subject matter to the Welsh mountains

and the English Lake District. By 1820, however, these

areas had been sufficiently covered and with the advent of

lithographed topography in England and the growth of an efficient transport system, all areas of the country seem to have been of interest as subjects for depiction.

This enthusiasm for topography was further enhanced in 1815 by the surrender of Napoleon's army and the emergence of peaceful conditions on the continent for the 103 Q '

first time in many years, resulting in one of the great

periods of travel to all parts of Europe. Many times the

English traveler would take with him a sketchbook and pen

in order to bring back remembrances from his journey, in

much the same spirit as the Grand Tour participants of

Piranesi's day. Some travelers turned this practice into

a professional occupation, and as a result of this,

numerous illustrated travel books were published to cater

to those who wanted souvenirs of their journeys abroad.

The sudden revival of lithography in the year 1818, after

it had been dormant since the early years of the

nineteenth century, occurred at the same time as this era

of travel.

As a whole, English travelers showed no special

preference for views of any particular country. Their

interests were many and varied, and there occurred at the

same time a revival of medieval and classical studies, as well as a growing interest in the more exotic cultures of

the Middle East and the Orient. Many of the leading painters and topographers of the era turned to the depic

tion of classical and medieval sources in the spirit of

Romanticism, and it was this underlying romantic approach

to history which ultimately reconciled the seemingly contradictory interest in these revival styles. It was precisely the period from 1820-40 which witnessed the simultaneous enthusiasm for classical and medieval 104 (! '

architecture and the rise of the topographical lithograph.

The new romantic enthusiasm for picturesque travel

books, executed in the medium of lithography, served to display the talents of many gifted English printmakers of the period. Through the efforts of English printers such

as Charles Hullmandel and lithographic artists like James

Harding, Louis Haghe and Richard Parkes Bonington, the art of topographical lithography moved towards a Golden Age in

England. The art of French lithography was to benefit greatly by the accomplishments of these English artists, for many of them would join forces with their colleagues in helping to make the Voyages pittoresgues a landmark in

French topographical lithography, carrying on the graphic tradition of romantic ruins in a landscape advanced by

Piranesi in the century before.

Even though the art of lithography had its introduc tion in France at almost the same time as in England, the medium was much slower in gaining a foothold in that country, and very little was produced in France which could compare favorably with the early contributions of

English artists in the Specimens of Polyautography.

During its tentative beginnings, lithography appears to have been mainly used for printing music covers. Aside from this, little remains of lithographic work done in

France before 1815. It was not until Louis XVIII came to power in mid 1815, after the failure of Napoleon, that the 105

two presses were founded which were to herald the actual

birth of lithography in France, that of Lasteyrie in Paris

and that of Engelmann, first in Mulhouse and later also in 12 Paris.

Charles Lasteyrie's first press was founded in Paris

at the close of the year 1815. He began by printing

mainly commercial work, but later turned more and more to

the printing of book illustrations, caricatures and, more

importantly, the drawings of artists and amateurs. Many

leading artists made lithographs at his press in its early

years, among them Gros, Charlet, Carle and Horace Vernet,

J.B. Isabey and Bourgeois, who were later to contribute a

small number of plates to the first volumes of the Voyages

pittoresgues. Lasteyrie's primary contribution to litho-

graphy can be seen in his efforts to popularize the medium

among the members of Parisian society. He had the right

contacts in Paris and knew how to arouse interest in the

process oy -1-errd±ng-stones-eu.t--te-t-lle-ladies_of__s_o_c_iety_,___ _ who enjoyed seeing their art work multiplied and distributed among their friends. Lasteyrie's approach to

lithography, although not superficial, was that of the dilettante. He was mainly concerned with popularizing the medium, even to encouraging his most influential rival,

Godefroy Engelmann.

12 For a background on the work of Lasteyrie and Engelmann, see Twyman, pp. 50-51 and Pennell, pp. 40-56. l06

Engelmann set up his first press in Mulhouse, but

later went to Paris in 1816. Here he set up another

printing works and became very successful as a printer of

the lithographs of well-known artists. Receiving complete

encouragement from the Academie Royale des Beaux-Arts, he began to attract numerous artists to his press and soon

far outdistanced Lasteyrie in both size and reputation.

By 1820, he had the leading press in Europe, especially in

that area in which France was the undisputed leader, the production of artist's prints. Engelmann, more than anyone else, through his technical improvements, clear descriptions and skillful printing, was responsible for encouraging artists to draw on stone and the real growth and spread of lithography involving the artist dates from the establishment of his press in Paris. The role played by Engelmann was of great importance, for he was to become the leading printer of the Voyages pittoresques and, because of his improvements in printing, he was responsible for Baron Taylor's decision to use lithography for the illustrations of this monumental work.

The development of topographical lithography in

France can be traced along the same lines as that which took place in England and the first collections of picturesque travel views on both countries dates from the last years of the second decade of the nineteenth century.

Though the publications of French travel views were quite 107

likely inspired by the work of English artists active in

France and by English travel books with aquatint and

copper engraved plates, it is harder to determine which

country first assumed priority in regard to lithographed views.

One of the most important differences between the

lithographed views published in England and France was in the choice of subject matter. In England, during the period from 1820 to 1840, views at home and abroad were equally popular. After the year 1840 until about 1860, however, views of foreign lands became increasingly popular. In France, although scenes of exotic lands always enjoyed a certain amount of popularity, the greatest interest was centered mainly on picturesque views of France's own historic monuments, a trend probably attributable to the destruction of many of these sites during the revolution.

Even though the areas of topography and landscape were the most popular lithographic subjects during the first half of the nineteenth century in England, there was no English publication to compare in scale with the

Voyages pittoresques et romantigues dans l'ancienne 13 France, published in Paris between the years 1820-1878.

13 For a background on the Voyages pittoresgues, see Chapter 15 in Twyman, pp. 226-253; Pennell, pp. 53-58; and Henry L. Seaver, "The Golden Book of Landscape Lithography," Print Collector's Quarterly, 5 (1915) 444- 471. 108

Neither can any English lithographs from that country's

numerous publications compare in quality with the most

outstanding examples from this enormous French work.

There were many other collections of French lithographs which appeared during this time, but all of these are

overshadowed by the Voyages pittoresques as no single work

produced in England outshone its contemporaries. Its magnitude was such that it occupied the talents of artists

and several of the leading lithographers of the time for over half a century and deserves to rank as one of the most impressive ventures in publication ever produced.

The Voyages pittoresques was the conception of Baron

Isadore Taylor, who directed the publication throughout

its course. He was a man of many interests and his work as an artist and as a patron of artists comprised only one area of his endeavors. However, it is primarily as a sponsor of artists of the romantic movement that he is 14 best remembered. Taylor mirrored the taste of his day

in sharing the enthusiasm of romantic artists for the

Middle Ages, as Piranesi had reflected the fascination of his time with the ruins of classical Rome. However, in contrast to the Venetian artist, Taylor possessed a different scope of ambition and a larger idealistic outlook. His primary goal was to produce an accurate

14 For more information on the life and work of Baron Taylor, see Twyman, pp. 229-232 and Seaver, pp. 445-448. 109

record of the medieval monuments of France for future generations. Piranesi's desire was also to preserve the classical ruins of Rome on paper, but, at the same time, many of his etchings were produced for the tourists who visited the city and his choice of subjects was often dictated by the popularity of particular views.

Taylor had traveled widely and had published a number of books on his trips abroad. As an administrator, he held several eminent positions, eventually becoming

Inspector-General of the Fine Arts and Museums of France.

The idea for a monumental work dedicated to preserving the medieval ruins of France carne to him when he was a young man in 1810.

Even though he was to receive financial backing from the state, Taylor still had to look for a less expensive means of reproducing drawings than engraving on copper before he could get his monumental project underway. The choice of lithography was a rather bold one, for the young medium was still in its experimental stages. By the year

1818, it had barely proven itself in the area of single prints, let alone a work of such proportions as Baron

Taylor must have envisioned even then for the Voyages pittoresgues. But Taylor was a man possessed with foresight and as he described it:

I saw in this new art a means of realizing an idea which was to occupy the greater part of my life: I believed I could foresee that lithography was to be for the arts of drawing almost what typography had 0 ' 110

done for literature. I expected the development of Senefelder's discovery to enable artists to present to the public more finished works than the first attempts and in fact this development, accomplished by Engelmann in Pf5is in 1818, favored the carrying out of this work.

As it turned out, Baron Taylor•s selection of lithography for illustrating his project probably did more to insure the success of the new medium in France than any other single factor.

The text of the Voyages pittoresques, though rather neglected in later years, originally formed an important part of the publication. For this task, Taylor selected

Charles Nodier, one of the most important writers of the romantic period. Nodier was aided in his work by the architect Alphonse de Cailleux, who continued the work on his own after Nodier's death in 1844. In the preface to the Voyages pittoresgues, Charles Nodier set forth the philosophy of the entire venture, together with the goals which those involved sought to achieve through its publication:

We shall go through France, not as scholars, but as travelers curious for interesting sights and eager for noble associations. Shall I define the impulse, easier to feel than define, which limits our journey to the ruins of old France? Some melancholy disposi tion of thought, some involuntary predilection for the poetic customs and arts of our ancestors, a sense of indefinable community in decay and misfortune between these old structures and the generation which is passing •••. As the last travelers amid the ruins of old France, which will soon have ceased to be, we

15 Quoted in Seaver, p. 454, from Volume XVI on Dauphine, from the Voyages pittoresgues, 1854, pp. i-ii. 111

love to depict those remains alone the story and mystery of which would be lost for the coming generations.l6

When we compare the philosophic goals behind the

Voyages pittoresgues with those which Piranesi sought to achieve in his vedute, as set forth in the preface to the

Antichit~ Romane, certain similarities become apparent. The entire publication of the Voyages pittoresgues is tinged with the flavor of romantic nostalgia for the past, a feeling which was inherent in many of Piranesi's views of Rome. Both the eighteenth century Venetian etcher and his French counterparts in the nineteenth century were faced with the wanton destruction of monuments which they held fn high esteem. Both expressed an ardent desire to do all,:_-in their· power to preserve the beauty and dignity of these ruined edifices through the medium of the graphic arts, one through etching, the other by lithographic means. Just as Piranesi's choice of classical monuments for depiction was stimulated by the advancements taking place in archeology with the discovery of Herculaneum and

Pompeii, so the enthusiasm of a generation for the medieval tales of Walter Scott and Byron led the artists of the Voyages pittoresgues to depict the Gothic ruins of the Middle Ages. Both the etchings of Piranesi and the lithographs which comprise the volumes of the Voyages

16 Quoted in Seaver, p. 450, from Charles Nodier's preface to the first volume of the Voyages pittoresgues on Normandie, 1820. 112

pittoresques are connected with the aspect of travel.

At the same time, the differences between the two also become obvious. Many of Piranesi's views, both his early series and the later large views of the Vedute di

Roma were, as mentioned earlier, intended as tourist souvenirs and attained great popularity among travelers to

Rome. Often they could be bought singly, the customer selecting those scenes which held a particular appeal for him. Their purpose was largely commercial, since Piranesi was trying to make a living from them, in spite of the fact that he was also interested in preserving the ruins on paper. On the other hand, the views of medieval ruins from the Voyages pittoresgues were designed to appeal to a limited audience. The wear on the lithographic stones required that the edition size be limited and so the work was sold only by subscription, the volumes numbering from

600 at the beginning to only 300 for the later ones.

Among the subscribers were several members of European royalty, besides many French artists and libraries. Baron Taylor's purpose was not a commercial one in the same way that Piranesi's was and his goal in preserving the medieval monuments of France may be viewed as rather more idealistic than that of the eighteenth century Venetian.

Baron Taylor's objective was to support his artists in order to achieve his goals, unlike Piranesi, whose aim was to support himself through the selling of his prints. 113

This difference notwithstanding, the romantic preoccupation with illustrating the ruined monuments of both Italy and France in connection with travel was one of the most important links between the work of Piranesi and the nineteenth century French topographical lithographers.

It is more than likely that Baron Taylor and the

French and English artists of the Voyages pittoresques were familiar with, and may have been influenced by, the graphic work of Piranesi. Although there appears to be no direct evidence in support of this, it is possible to document, in several instances, the availability and popularity of Piranesi's etchings in France and England during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

Piranesi's involvement with French artists began in

1740, when he visited Rome for the first time and became acquainted with students of the French Academy there.

Upon his return to Rome in 1744, as agent for the print dealer Giuseppe Wagner, he continued his close association with these artists, setting up business in the Via del

Corso, opposite to Palazzo Mancini, the headquarters of the French Academy. Early in his career, as mentioned before, Piranesi produced a group of small views in company with students at the French Academy, among them

Jean Barbault, Laurent Le Geay and Francois Duflos. These were published in 1745, appearing under the title Varie 114

17 Vedute di Roma Antica e Moderna.

Two other French artists are known to have had close contact with Piranesi at some time during his years in

Rome, namely the painter of ruins Hubert Robert and the architect C.L. Clerisseau, both of whom helped to make his work well known in France. Although documented points of contact between Robert and Piranesi are rare, it is known that the French painter was associated with Piranesi during his stay in Rome between 1754 and 1765 and that, as one of the most prominent members of the French Academy,

Robert was well acquainted with the Venetian's work, at 18 times accompanying him on sketching expeditions.

The French link can be further substantiated by the fact that Charles Natoire, the director of the French

Academy, sent occasional shipments of Piranesi's graphic works back to Paris. On April 14, 1762, Piranesi's

Carceri were sent by courier to the French capital, while in June of 1762, Natoire asked Hubert Robert to obtain from Piranesi his series Il Campo Marzio, to be sent in place of Piranesi's Antichitk d'Albano, which the artist had not yet finished. It is also known that in some instances Robert actually based his own compositions on

17 For Piranesi's relationship with these French artists, see J. Harris, "LeGeay, Piranesi and International Neoclassicism: 1740-50," Essays Presented to Rudolf Wittkower, 189ff., and the catalogue of the London exhibition The Age of Neoclassicism, p. 585. 18 See Scott, p. 174 and Wilton-Ely, p. 124. 115

19 the work of Piranesi.

The architect Clerisseau accompanied Piranesi,

together with the Scottish architect Robert Adam and the painter Allan Ramsay, on various sketching trips. Robert

Adam reported these excursions in letters to his brother

James, and Clerisseau's name occurs often, in Adam's accounts of trips to Hadrian's Villa, the Imperial thermae and Via Appia. The French architect would also provide an

important source for information on the life of Piranesi, which his son-in-law Legrand would later incorporate in his biography of Piranesi, written in Paris in 1799, based 20 on family recollections.

The idea that French artists of the Voyages

Eittoresques, which began production in 1820, may have been influenced by the work of Piranesi is given further credibility by the fact that Piranesi's sons left Rome for

Paris around the year 1800 and there established the

Calcographie des Piranesi freres. This firm developed into a prosperous business, reissuing the bulk of

Piranesi's graphic works in a finely printed edition of

19 ~ee Corres2ondence des Directeurs II, Academie de France a Rome, Letter 5570, p. 418; Letter 5584, p. 425 (dated June 16, 1762) and Letter dated December 8, 1762, p. 449. For a discussion of Piranesi's influence on Hubert Robert, see the catalogue Hubert Robert: Drawings and Watercolors. 20 For Clerisseau's friendship with Robert Adam and Piranesi, see John Fleming, Robert Adam and His Circle in Edinburgh and Rome (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1962). 116

twenty-seven volumes in 1800-1807. It was for this work that the architect Legrand wrote his life of the Venetian artist. The Intermediate Paris Editions of Piranesi's work also appeared between the years 1807-1835. Just after the turn of the century, Pietro Piranesi returned to

Rome and at Francesco's death in 1810, the family business came to an end. The total collection of Piranesi's plates was acquired by the Parisian firm of Firmin-Didot, which continued to issue impressions until 1839, nineteen years after the first volume of the Voyages pittoresques 21 appeared.

The British contributors to Baron Taylor's work also could have been familiar with Piranesi's etchings of ruins. During the Venetian's years in Rome, several prominent English and Scottish artists and architects may be counted among his close companions and several of them were instrumental in sending his works back to Britain and in helping to increase his popularity there.

From the early 1750's, a succession of young British designers and artists began to replace the French in

Piranesi's attentions and his contact with them initiated a strong influence on the course of British architecture.

His move from previous headquarters across from Palazzo / 21 For more information on Piranesi's published works, including the French editions, see Arthur M. Hind, Piranesi: A Critical Study With A List of His Published Works and Detailed Catalogues of the Prisons and the Views of Rome (London: The Cotswold Gallery, 1922). 117 ~1 '

Mancini, residence of the French Academy, in March of 1761

to new premises close to the Trinita de' Monte at the top

of the Piazza di Spagna, facilitated this move away from 22 the world of the French Academy. This area, known as

the English Ghetto, was inhabited by many British artists

and architects studying in Rome, as well as by

distinguished literary figures, such as the poets Shelley

and Keats. Many visiting Grand Tourists, for whom

Piranesi's etchings were intended as souvenirs, also

frequented the area.

The Scottish architect Robert Adam, mentioned earlier

as a companion on sketching expeditions which included

Piranesi, Clerisseau and Adam's countryman Allan Ramsay,

wrote many letters to his brother James, in which he

chronicled in detail his relationship with Piranesi. It

is likely that, while Piranesi cultivated Adam's

friendship because he admired the Scotsman's knowledge of

antiquity, which far surpassed that of most of the other

British milordi then in Rome, he also saw in him a

possible source of future patronage as a purchaser and

disseminator of his works through Adam's contacts in Great

22 For Piranesi's influence on British architecture, see John Fleming, Robert Adam and His Circle in Edinburgh and Rome; Damie Stillman, "Robert Adam and Piranesi," Essays in the History of Architecture Presented to Rudolf Wittkower (London: Phaidon Press, 1967), pp. 197-206; and Robert Oresko, The Works in Architecture of Robert and James Adam (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1975). In 1803, the French Academy moved from Palazzo Mancini to its present location at Villa Medici. 118

23 Britain.

In July of 1755, Adam wrote to his brother that

Piranesi had offered to dedicate to him a plan of ancient

Rome on which he was working. Adam was delighted, because such a dedication from the famous Piranesi would serve as an excellent advertisement for him on his return to architectural practice in Scotland. "It will cost me some sous," he remarked, "in purchasing eighty or a hundred copies of it." But Adam was not to be outdone by Piranesi in favors and he proposed reselling them through his

London bookseller friend David Wilson. He would acquire the first ones to come off the press and would make sure that they reached England a month or two earlier than any others of the series. So David Wilson might, he thought,

"make something of it by adding a trifle of additional 24 price to each copy."

In May of 1756, Piranesi paid another tribute to Adam by including a very flattering reference to him in his publication Le Antichit'k Romane. "In one of the frontis- pieces," he wrote {the second frontispiece of Volume II),

"representing the Appian Way in all its ancient splendour

23 For Piranesi's relationship with Robert Adam, see the sources previously cited in Note 22. 24 This letter and others relating to the same subject are located at Register House, Edinburgh, Clerk of Penicuik Papers. See also Stillman, p. 198 and Fleming, p. 354. 119

mine, with our Elogiums, as if buried in these tombs."

Adam's name was the more prominent of the two, being placed on the left foreground of the print. He immediately ordered six copies of the four-volume set, one for himself and three to be forwarded to Scotland, the remaining two to be sold by David Wilson in London, in order to recoup Adam's expense. Along with these he sent two volumes of vedute. Adam first announced this plan to his London bankers Innes and Clerk, in a letter dated

May 8, 1756 and on July 16 of the same year, he informed 25 them that the volumes had been sent.

The Scottish painter Allan Ramsay, mentioned previously, was also responsible, though rather indirectly, for the arrival of certain of Piranesi's etchings in London. This occurred in connection with

Ramsay's anonymous pamphlet, entitled A Dialogue on Taste, which he published in the year 1755. Piranesi felt this to be a threat to his belief in the supremacy of Roman art over that of Greece and, as a result, issued his publication Della Magnificenza ed Architettura de'Romani as a rebuttal to Ramsay's work and others of a similar nature.

Upon his return to London from Rome, Ramsay wrote to Sir

Alexander Dick on January 31, 1762, "My Dialogue on Taste

25 Adam's letter to Innes and Clerk, London, dated May 8, 1756, is at the Royal Institute of British Architects and his correspondence of July 16, 1756 is in the Guildhall Library, London (M.S. 3070), p. 20). 120

has become remarkable by a large folio which it has given

rise to by Piranesi at Rome, and of which some copies are 26 already come to London by land."

The well-known Jacobite engraver Robert Strange, who

published old master prints in London, was also familiar

with the work of Piranesi. It is known that he actually

traded in Piranesi's etchings, which were supplied to him

from Rome by his brother-in-law Andrew Lumisden, the 27 secretary to the Young Pretender.

Furthermore, the Scottish engineer Robert Mylne, who

studied in Rome between 1755 and 1758, was affected by the

technical skill of Piranesi and his executed design for

Blackfriars Bridge, begun in 1760, owes strong debts to

the Venetian etcher. Mylne acted as Piranesi's London

agent, passing on any orders that he took in England. In

Piranesi's letter to Mylne of November 11, 1760, the

Venetian artist conveys his thanks to Mylne for procuring

some purchasers of his works. In other correspondence,

Mylne is referred to as "a scholar of Piranesi" by the

British painter John Parker, in a letter dated

i -I

26 See Mrs. M.A. Forbes, Curiosities of a Scots Charter Chest: 1600-1800 (Edinburgh: 1897) and Smart's biography of Ramsay, p. 91. Also see "Allan Ramsay and Robert Adam in Italy," Connoisseur, CXXXVII (1956), 79- 84. 27 See James Dennistoun, Memoirs of Sir Robert Strange ••• and of his brother-in-law Andrew Lumisden (1955) and Scott, pp. 240-315. 121

28 February 20, 1759.

This evidence clearly substantiates the availability

of Piranesi's graphic works in Paris and London during the

eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. There is every

reason to believe that both the French and English

lithographers of the Voyages pittoresgues actually saw,

and may have been influenced by, the ruin views of

Piranesi, through the graphic works which their countrymen

sent home during the eighteenth century and by the

publication of these works, at least in Paris, which

continued well into the nineteenth century.

Piranesi's etchings slowly lost popularity after the

1820's, when the taste for classical antiquity began to

wane in favor of the growing interest in the art of the

Middle Ages. By 1839, the Parisian loss of interest is

shown by the publisher Firmin-Didot selling all the 29 copperplates to Rome.

28 For Mylne's studies in Rome and his role as Piranesi's British agent, see Christopher Gotch, "The Missing Years of Robert Mylne," Architectural Review, CXXX (1951), 179ff., quoting in full Piranesi 1 s letter to Mylne of November 11, 1760, in which he requests "an exact copy" of the design for Blackfriars Bridge and thanks Mylne for procuring some purchasers of his works. In the Charlemont correspondence (Hist. M.S.S. Comm., 12th Report, Appendix Pt. X, Charlemont M.S.S., Volume I, p. 252), Mylne is referred to as "a scholar of Piranesi" by John Parker in a letter of February 20, 1759. 29 In 1839, the total collection of Piranesi's etchings was purchased from the Parisian firm of Firmin Didot on orders of Gregory XVI for the Calcografia Camerale (now the Calcografia Nazionale) and returned to Italy. 122

This shift in emphasis from the classical period to the medieval is important in understanding the transfor mation which took place between the graphic depiction of ruins by Piranesi and those illustrated by the artists of the Voyages pittoresques. In many instances, the differences are sometimes more striking than the similari ties. These differences are indications of a different pulse, stemming from a different time and milieu than the one in which Piranesi worked.

In the graphic work of the English lithographer

Richard Parkes Bonington, however, may be found a spirit very close to that inherent in the work of Piranesi. This connecting thread, though indirect, may be seen especially in his city views, which bear.a remarkable resemblance in execution and feeling to those of Piranesi, as we will later discover. Through the lithographs of Bonington and certain others of the Voyages pittoresques can be witnessed that subtle transformation by the French and

British lithographers of the nineteenth century of those impressive patterns established by Piranesi a century before.

In both scale and subject matter the Voyages pittoresques may be considered a product of Romanticism.

Baron Taylor's original concept was to illustrate all of

France by provinces, but only nine were ever represented, comprising only about one third of the entire country. 123

For certain provinces it was necessary to create three or

four volumes and the entire production numbers eighteen to 30 twenty-five volumes, depending on the source. Only the

lithographs from the first half of the publication have

plate numbers, but the entire production has been

variously estimated at between 2,700 and 3,000 prints.

The publication continued for sixty ~ears without

completion, due to the time and expense involved and the

fact that by 1878 the art of the Gothic period was no

longer in vogue and the art of the topographical

lithograph virtually dead.

The first printer to be involved with the Voyages

pittoresgues was Godefroy Engelmann, whose improvements in

lithographic printing had encouraged Baron Taylor's

decision to use lithography for the illustrations of his

massive project. Engelmann continued to do most of the

printing until 1834, but no lithographs printed by him

appear after volume IX. Even though he cannot be credited with the printing for the majority of the plates of the

Voyages pittoresgues, he is still regarded as its leading

30 Pennell, p. 56, records nineteen volumes, but appears to omit the last volume on Ancienne Normandie (Victoria and Albert Museum); Seaver, p. 446, refers to twenty-four volumes (Boston Public Library); Jean Adhemar, La lithographie en France au XIX siecle, to twenty-five volumes (Bibliotheque Nationale); Parsons, Print Collectors Quarterly, Volume III, 326, to eighteen volumes (Division of Prints of the Library of Congress); Atherton Curtis, Catalogue de l'oeuvre lithographie et gravi~ de R.P. Bonington (Paris: Paul Proute, 1939), to nineteen volumes. 0 ' ~24

printer, for setting a standard of fine printing in these early years which served as a model in creating confidence among French artists as the British publisher Hullmandel had in England. By the time of Engelmann's death in 1839, all of the best lithographs from the Voyages pittoresgues had been printed.

It was not until the third volume of the Voyages

/ pittoresgues, Franche Comte, that English printers contributed their talents to the work. Hullmandel, whose quality of printing was much admired in France, printed

127 plates and the firm of Day was responsible for some forty-nine. Considering how many plates were produced in all, this number may not appear of great significance, but the involvement of these English printers also happened to coincide with the best period of the Voyages pittoresques.

The lithographs printed by Hullmandel and Day were almost exclusively the work of English artists, which were printed in England and then sent to Paris for publication.

All together more than 150 artists lent their talents to the Voyages pittoresgues, a number which is one of the largest ever to contribute to one publication. Some of them can hardly be identified now and most have been all but forgotten. They can be divided into two broad categories: well-known artists who contributed only a few lithographs and those of mediocre talents, who contributed the largest number of plates, occasionally producing some 125

of exceptional merit.

Into the first category can be placed the two most important artists associated with the Voyages pittoresques, Ingres and Gericault, but their names are more impressive than the few prints they contributed.

There were also a small number of prints by artists who achieved fame for their work in fields outside lithography, such as Carle and Horace Vernet, Charlet, and

Jean-Baptiste Isabey. The majority of the participating artists were, however, primarily landscape and topographical draughtsmen and, as was the case in England, they were not those artists who are now considered the most important. Many of the leading landscape artists of the time did not contribute, though they were all working during the height of the Voyages pittoresques. Artists of the Barbizon school, like Corot, Diaz, Daubigny, Troyan,

Rousseau and Dupre are not found at all in Baron Taylor's work. The leading artists of this kind who did contribute several lithographs each to the production are Richard

Parkes Bonington and Eugene Isabey, and even though their work is considered among the best examples of the entire venture, their lithographs account for only a very small amount of the total. The majority of the lithographs were contributed by artists now barely remembered, but who at the time must have been considered quite important, as nearly all of them exhibited at the salons. 126

The greatest part of the work was undertaken by about a dozen artists, many of them continuing to work for Baron

Taylor throughout most of the publication. By far, the most consistent contributors were the French artists

Eugene Ciceri and Adrien Dauzats. Lithographs by Ciceri appear regularly in every volume after number X and

Dauzats, who made his first contribution to volume III, continued to supply lithographs to every subsequent volume until his death before the last volume was published.

Eugene Ciceri was the most important lithographer connected with the Voyages pittoresques during the second half of the publication. He can be ranked as one of the most prolific French topographical lithographers in this later period, producing plates for several other travel books besides that of Baron Taylor. Ciceri was a consummate craftsman and technically there was no other artist in the later volumes who could equal him in the soft and silvery tones of his lithographs. He is seen at his best in the volumes on the province of Bretagne; Grand

Rue Vieille ~ Nantes (Plate 40) is a good example of his style. The old narrow street, with its tall, dilapidated buildings, gives us a glimpse into the life of an old

French town. The aging structures appear to be in a state of disrepair, and while they may not fall into the category of an actual ruin, still give the impression of melancholy nostalgia associated with picturesque scenes of 127

this type. The old buildings, which tower overhead, seem

to be a result of the worm's eye view technique used by

Piranesi in certain of his early etchings, such as the

Arch of Constantine (Plate 25) and the Arch of Janus

(Plate 26) from the Archi Trionfali. This technique,

which serves to increase the monumental, imposing quality

of the structures, is further enhanced by the tiny figures which throng the busy street far below the soaring

rooftops. Ciceri has populated his scene with figures

engaged in a variety of daily activities, much like the

ones which enliven the early Roman views by Piranesi. The

French artist also utilizes chiaroscuro techniques to advantage, but his delicate rendering of light and shade

gives the effect of a pleasant, late afternoon scene,

instead of the often mysterious, dramatic effect conveyed by Piranesi.

Though Adrien Dauzats was the greatest contributor to the Voyages pittoresgues in terms of number of plates, he was less of a technician in lithography than Ciceri. He was a lesser-known romantic painter who specialized in architectural subjects and exhibited these for many years at the salons. In addition to these accomplishments can be added his skill as an architect and the fact that he designed some of the settings for paintings by the romantic artist Eugene Delacroix. He was widely traveled and was a contributor to the Voyages pittoresgues, with l28

which he was associated for forty years, beginning in

1828. A lithograph such as the Faqade de Notre Dame

Cathedrale de Rheims (Plate 41) is characteristic of his work, which exhibits a severity and precision very different in feeling from the softer handling of Eugene

Ciceri. However, in spite of the more precise rendering of his subject, Dauzats still manages to convey a sense of timelessness and melancholy in his depiction of the medieval structure. The cathedral appears as an immense, towering edifice, brought close to the picture plane and invested with that sense of grandeur found in Piranesi's views of classical ruins, such as the Colosseum (Plate

33). Like Piranesi, too, is the use of the human figure to reinforce that sense of immensity. The tiny ant-like figures are barely noticeable as they move about before the huge cathedral, leaving no doubt as to the print's main subject. Considering the number of contributing artists and the wide variety exhibited in the lithographs of the

Voyages pittoresques in terms of personal handling and style, it is remarkable to find such a high degree of uniformity among the prints. This is largely due to the similarity of the subjects depicted. The characteristics of rugged landscape, decaying masonry, overhanging eaves and Gothic architecture are shared by all of the contributors. 129

From the many French artists represented, however,

there are two which emerge with more distinction than

their contemporaries. They are Paul Huet, who

lithographed only two prints in the entire publication,

both dated 1831, and Eugene Isabey, who contributed

seventeen plates to the two volumes on the province of

Auvergne between the years 1830 and 1832. Both of these

artists were minor painters of the romantic period and

their work in the field of topographical lithography

helped to balance the anonymity of the majority of the

plates. Both Huet and Isabey can be considered artistic

descendants of the tradition of Piranesi in their ability

to create an over-all unity of mood through the dramatic

contrasts of light and dark. This was achieved in litho

graphy by a rejection of the routine method of shading

utilized by the average lithographer, in favor of a much more spontaneous means of building up tones through vigorous irregular hatchings and frequent use of the

scraper, almost as if in imitation of the fleeting effects

of light reflected from impasto paint. Huet and Isabey make no effort to hide this handling in their work;

instead, in the style of many of the romantic painters of the nineteenth century, they use it to express the movement and excitement of the scene, as we will see.

They were experimentalists in the field of lithography, just as Piranesi had explored the possibilities inherent 130

in the etching process in the century before.

This increased sense of drama and emotional power is evident in Paul Huet's lithograph Tour du Mont-Perrou, vue des bards de l'Allier (Plate 42) from one of the volumes on Auvergne. Huet and his fellow artist Isabey shared with their predecessor Piranesi a romantic love for depicting the dramatic side of nature and this character istic is well illustrated in this print. Huet has used light and dark to create a mood and to emphasize the isolation of the old tower on the hill, in contrast to the everyday life going on below. Even though seen at a distance from the newer buildings in the foreground, the viewer is left in no doubt that the old tower is the focal point of the composition. The eye is drawn immediately to the ruin on the hill, illuminated by an eery light while much of the foreground is left in darkness. This juxta position of old and new structures for aesthetic effect was also of importance to Piranesi, .as evidenced in his view of the Arch of Titus (Plate 31) from the Vedute di

Roma. The quality of pathos is present in this work by

Huet, just as it makes itself felt in many of the Roman views etched by Piranesi. In both, human beings go about their daily tasks, oblivious to the remnants of the once proud civilizations which surround them.

The artist Eugene Isabey ranks as a more important lithographer than his contemporary Huet and is considered 131 "'

one of the few really significant lithographers to 31 contribute to the Voyages pittoresgues. Born in 1803, the son of the great early artist-lithographer Jean-

Baptiste Isabey, Eugene Isabey produced a total of seventeen lithographs for the two volumes of Auvergne which are considered among the finest examples of romantic views in the whole of the Voyages pittoresgues.

Jean-Baptiste Isabey introduced his son to lithography in 1820, but the younger Isabey did not pursue this field intensively until the period of the late

1820's. From 1828 until 1835, Eugene Isabey concentrated his efforts almost entirely on lithography, producing about one hundred lithographs. During the 1830's, he produced prints for several different publications and was one of the first French lithographers to absorb the lessons to be learned from English landscape drawing and painting. He first exhibited his work in the Salon of

1824, and was no doubt familiar with the English painters represented there. In 1825, it is considered likely that he visited England himself in the company of Richard

Parkes Bonington and Eugene Delacroix. During the years

31 For a background on the life and work of Eugene Isabey, see Atherton Curtis, Catalogue de l'oeuvre lithographi~ d'Eugene Isabey (Paris: Paul Proute, 1939); the catalogue Eugene Isabey: Paintings, Watercolors, Drawings, Lithographs (Cambridge, Mass.: Fogg Art Museum, 1967); and Frank Weitenkampf, "The Lithographs of Eugene Isabey," Print Collector's Quarterly, V (1977), 295-315. 132

1826 to 1828, he made several trips to northern France, painting picturesque scenes of coastal villages in the same vein as his lithographs for Baron Taylor. Isabey's prints convey perfectly the strong romantic connotations which form an integral part of the nineteenth century's rediscovery of France and its history.

In three of Isabey's views of the Eglise de Saint-

Nectaire and its environs (Plates 43-45), from the first volume depicting the ruined monuments of the province of

Auvergne, the use of romantic elements is apparent. These lithographs are part of a large group of similar views illustrating picturesque old structures in a panoramic

~ landscape. In the first of these, Abside de l'Eglise de

Saint-Nectaire (Plate 43), one of the finest remnants of medieval Romanesque architecture in Auvergne is subordi- nated to the rocky landscape in which it is depicted.

Isabey utilizes to the fullest the dramatic qualities of this landscape, creating a harsh, jagged skyline and emphasizing the rugged character of the surrounding gorges and ravines. The storm-tossed sky is a recurrent feature of the prints of Isabey and adds to the dramatic quality of the scene. The church itself, with its spire pointing skywards, is situated in its rocky setting above most of / the modest dwellings which surround it. In Eglise de

Saint-Nectaire (Plate 44), Isabey has depicted the same church from a different viewpoint, perched on the hill in 133

its rugged setting. The sky overhead has an even more

ominous cast than in the former view and the loneliness of

the scene is broken only by a single horse and rider, who

enter the composition from the right. In a third view,

entitled Ruines du Chateau et du Village de Saint-Nectaire

(Plate 45), the simple buildings which surround the church

are depicted. The ruins stand stark and forlorn on the

left, while on the right are the humble village dwellings.

Isabey's prints stand out from many others in the

Voyages pittoresgues by means of their stark simplicity and cleaner linework. The simple quality of their

compositions, with very few frills, adds to their dramatic impact, rendered all the more powerful by means of their

understatement. These elements found in the prints of

Isabey differ vastly from those conveyed by Piranesi.

While Isabey expresses the romantic quality of his ruin landscapes through a deliberate understatement and a calculated simplicity, Piranesi, in direct contrast, uses deliberate overstatement and means of effect to increase the drama of his compositions.

If we compare Isabey's views of the Eglise de Saint

Nectaire (Plates 43-45) with certain of Piranesi's from the Vedute di Roma, such as the Arch of Titus (Plate 31) and the Tomb of Cecelia Metella (Plate 34), the differences between the two artists are easily observed.

One of the most noticeable is the degree of importance 134

which each has assessed to his respective monuments. In

Isabey's work, the rocky terrain assumes equal importance

with the structure represented, but in Piranesi's prints

the opposite is true. There is never any doubt as to the main subject of his composition. In these examples, he

even exaggerates the size of the monument by bringing it

close to the plate frame and cutting off part of the

structure as if it is too large to fit the frame.

Piranesi also diminishes the size of surrounding elements

to further enhance the impressiveness of his main subject, a device which rarely occurs in the work of Isabey.

Humans and animals take on a minute quality under

Piranesi's towering Arch of Titus or before the cylindrical bulk of the Tomb of Cecelia Metella, but in

/ Isabey's Eglise de Saint-Nectaire (Plate 44) the lone horseman seems merely a picturesque addition to the scene, no less important than the hilltop church or the rocky landscape through which he ri'des.

The role of nature also receives a different treatment in the work of these two artists. The starkness and simplicity of Isabey's rugged settings is alleviated rarely by a few clumps of trees, the majority of the landscape giving the appearance of desolation. In sharp contrast to this, Piranesi makes liberal use of leafy foliage to enhance the romantic atmosphere of his prints.

The abundance of vegetation in a work such as the Pyramid (.1 ' 135

of Cestius (Plate 32) works to soften the otherwise severe outline of the pyramid. In Piranesi's views from Tivoli

(Plates 36-39), nature does assume almost as much importance as the monument itself, though in a different way from the prints of Isabey. While Isabey's church and humble dwellings are placed within the landscape, co existing side by side, nature in Piranesi's etchings almost assumes the role of an adversary. Although the ruin retains its quality of dignity, the leafy growth is now a determined foe, encompassing the monument and seeking to destroy its very existence.

The prints of Isabey appear much more modern in a painterly sense than those of Piranesi. This can be seen when we compare Isabey's Ruines du Chateau de Bouzols

(Plate 46) with Piranesi's Interior of the Baths of

Caracalla {Plate 35). Isabey has presented the old medieval chateau in a state of complete ruin, its dilapidated walls silhouetted against the angry sky. The atmospheric elements of the scene are inescapable, with the familiar rocky landscape and ruined wayside cross, a popular feature of Isabey's prints, visible in the left foreground. The simple forms and the economy of line with which the ruin itself is rendered help to give Isabey's print that modern quality lacking in Piranesi's detailed etchings. While Isabey has used a few crisp, sharp lines to give the impression of a ruin, Piranesi has relied on 136

the use of greenery as a tool in order to create a mood

and effect. There is a sense of immediacy about

Piranesi's ruin, communicated through the close attention given to depicting the deterioration that time has wrought on the monument and by Piranesi's favorite device of presenting the ruin as if bursting from the frame. By contrast, Isabey's stark chateau is set a distance back in the composition, lonely and aloof in its hilltop setting.

The motif of the wayside cross occurs in several of

Isabey's prints. This is illustrated in his view of the

Ruines du Chgteau de Bouzols (Plate 46}, previously discussed, as well as in three other representative examples, Croix sur la Route de Clermont \a Royat (Plate

47), Croix du Village des Bains au Mont Dor (Plate 48) and

ChSteau de Larderole (Plate 49). These simple remnants from the Middle Ages are rendered by Isabey with a minimum of detail, their stark forms thrown into dramatic relief by the dark areas against which they stand. In Plate 47, the subject matter is the cross itself. Isabey has depicted its pale form silhouetted before a grove of dark trees, bringing it close to the viewer and endowing it with as much dignity as Piranesi gives to a Roman monument like the Pyramid of Cestius (Plate 32). Isabey's effective use of chiaroscuro in this work draws the observer's eye immediately to the cross, bathed in a harsh white light against the dark forest. Piranesi also made 137

use of a combination of strong lights and darks for effect

in his vedute, but in a different way than did Isabey.

While the French artist often uses almost total lights or

darks to isolate his subject and to throw it into strong

relief against the opposing background, Piranesi uses a

more even technique. In works such as the Tomb of Cecelia

Metella and the Interior of the Baths of Caracalla (Plates

34 and 35), strong lights and darks define the forms of

the ruins, playing over the ancient surfaces both to

reveal the extent of their destruction and to create a

sense of mystery.

In another view depicting a ruined wayside cross

(Plate 48), Isabey has included a village beside the stark

form of the cross. The cross itself and the heavy boulders which encompass the village are bathed in a harsh, white light, while the dark roofs of the peasant dwellings are defined against the alternating darks and lights of the surrounding hills. The scene is populated by two human figures, engaged in conversation at the right. In spite of their rather elementary forms, they appear as the substantial peasant folk which are typical of Isabey's prints. The French lithographer does not seem to have had the intense interest in depicting the wide variety of street life found in much of Piranesi's work.

Many of the Venetian etcher's figures appear as intriguing characters, possessing an expressiveness not found in 138

scenes by the nineteenth century French artist.

In Ch~teau de Larderole (Plate 49), the wayside cross on the right is used as a framing device, complementing the lowly dwellings on the left and the isolated form of the old chateauA perched between them on a distant hill.

The dramatic use of chiaroscuro is again present, the white cross silhouetted against an ominous cloud, with the dark ch~teau outlined against the paleness of the sky.

The figure of a peasant is visible at rest at the foot of the cross. In this work, the remains of a medieval past serve to add a picturesque touch to the landscape and form a part of the surroundings, no more important than the hilly countryside of which they are a part. Only the centering of the ch~teau in the composition gives a clue that it is the real subject of the print. This type of composition was not a popular one for Piranesi, who always emphasized the importance of the particular monument. His etchings almost assume the character of portraits of ruins, instead of merely incorporating them into the surrounding landscape.

In two views of the Donjon de Polignac and its environs in the province of Auvergne, the Donjon de

Polignac (Plate 50) and the Donjon du Ch~teau de Polignac

(Plate 51), Isabey comes closer to the spirit of Piranesi than we have yet seen. In the first of these, Donjon de

Polignac (Plate 50), Isabey presents us with a scene 139

rendered in dramatic lights and darks. Beneath the

familiar stormy sky stands the ruined dungeon, dark and

foreboding, in its rugged hilltop setting. Isabey's heavy

use of chiaroscuro techniques to increase the effect of mystery is well illustrated here. The solitary horse and

rider and the lone individual they encounter on the road

serve to further enhance the solitude. The entire scene has a rather nightmarish quality, created by the stark rendering of the dungeon and the effective use of chiaroscuro. The somber tone of the print is reminiscent of certain of Piranesi's views like the Interior of the Baths of Hadrian's Villa (Plate 39), which conveys the same feeling of mystery and foreboding.

In the view entitled Donjon du Ch~teau de Polignac

(Plate 51) Isabey takes us inside the courtyard of the ruined chateau, lying below the remains of the dungeon on the hill above. In this print the French artist has represented an ordinary view of daily life, without the ominous quality of the former scene. This plate, in contrast to many of those by Isabey, seeks to draw the viewer into the work by presenting the scene close to the plate frame in the manner of Piranesi. Even though the dungeon remains aloof and unapproachable above, the observer is invited to enter the grounds of the old chateau~ by means of its apparent accessibility. Isabey's use of light and dark is not as intense here as in the l40

previous view, which helps to eliminate the stark quality that is a recurring element of many of his prints.

In Isabey's ChateauA de Pont-Gibaud (Plate 52) the feeling of emotional intensity and conflicts of nature is typical of the romantic lithographer's approach to the relationship between ruins and nature. While the rendering of the sky in Piranesi's vedute is never allowed to compete with the monument, as it does in Isabey's work, the interaction between nature and monument was still of great importance to him. Nature is depicted as a forceful entity, imposing its will on both monument and landscape.

The dramatic use of light and dark is also present here, creating an air of intriguing mystery, just as it did in

Piranesi's views of Tivoli (Plates 38 and 39). The subject of these works is the relationship between ruins and nature, conceived in a romantic way, whether it is the ch~teau surrounded by Isabey's dramatic landscape or the ancient remains of Hadrian's Villa overgrown with vegetation as etched by Piranesi.

Isabey's lithograph from the Voyages pittoresques / entitled Eglise Saint Jean, Thiers (Plate 53) is considered one of the finest prints in the entire publication. In atmospheric charm and power it has few equals among its contemporaries in Baron Taylor's volumes. The old French church is seen perched in its rocky setting on the top of a hill, giving it a fortress-like appearance. 141

Aloof, yet not foreboding, it stands bathed in full

sunlight, throwing it into stark contrast with its darker

surroundings. The tiny specks of humanity which populate

the scene intensify the monumental quality of the

structures by their very minuteness, as they did in many

of Piranesi's etchings, but here any similarity with

prints by the Venetian artist ends. In contrast to the

theatrical elements of Piranesi's work, with its emphasis

on surface ornamentation and carefully delineated foliage,

Isabey's print seems quite plain. Unlike Piranesi's means

of effect, there is a calculated, artistic simplicity

which characterizes the work of the French artist, a trait

/ particularly evident in Eglise Saint Jean, Thiers. While

Piranesi emphasizes the monumental quality of his ruins

through a wealth of close-up detail, Isabey endows his

with an impressiveness achieved by means of the simplicity

of his compositions. It is this distinction which creates

the greatest diversity in the work of Isabey and Piranesi.

In France, during the first quarter of the nineteenth

century, there was developing an avid interest in English

landscape painting, and when several English painters

exhibited at the salons and even worked in France, it is

not hard to understand why many of them turned their

talents to the contribution of illustrations for the

Voyages pittoresgues. A total of fifteen lithographers who were either born in England or who worked principally 142 f) •

in that country produced prints for Baron Taylor's work and in the graphic arts there were strong ties between the two countries. However, this interchange between France and England appears to have been largely one-sided, with

England taking the lead, and there was no reciprocal gesture from France in the graphic arts at this time to compare with the English contributions to French publica tions.

In spite of the nationalistic connotations attached to a state-sponsored publication such as the Voyages pittoresgues, the state of topographical lithography in

France was such that it was necessary to depend in part on the talents of foreign artists to provide many of the illustrations. For this task, English lithographers were well-suited. Many of them, like Richard Parkes Bonington, were then residing in France and others, like Louis Haghe and J.D. Harding, were widely travelled and excelled in the type of romantic scenes which were needed for the publication. Over all, English lithographers contributed more than 200 plates to the Voyages pittoresgues, over half of which were produced by two artists, Haghe and

Harding.

Louis Haghe lithographed more plates than any other

English artist for the Voyages pittoresgues, producing almost eighty views, most of them from his own drawings.

Haghe's contributions to the French publication continued 143

throughout his career as a lithographer, until he gave up

the medium for watercolor painting in 1854. Some of his

best efforts in lithography are those which he produced

for Baron Taylor, especially the precise chalk drawings

found in the earlier volumes. A fine example of this type

of chalk lithograph is Haghe's depiction of the Ruines de

l'Abbaye de Saint Martin du Canigou (Plate 54) from one of

the volumes covering the provinces of Languedoc. In this work, the artist has produced a completely tonal scene, built up with carefully disguised hatching for the sky and middle distance and a looser technique for the foreground.

A feeling of pleasant melancholy pervades the scene, from the clearly delineated rendering of the ruined abbey on the hill, illuminated by strong sunlight, to the hazy atmosphere which envelops the distant hills on the left.

The small figures of shepherds and sheep add a touch of bucolic sentiment to the scene. The play of light falling across the face of the ruined abbey, leaving areas of the landscape in deep shadow, creates an air of romantic mystery and succeeds in increasing the monumental quality of the ruined edifice, giving much the same effect that

Piranesi achieved in a view such as the Arch of

Constantine and the Colosseum (Plate 29).

J.D. Harding's lithographs for the Voyages pittoresques extend over the same period as Haghe's.

However, the best ones, among the finest he ever produced, 144

/ belong to the early volume on Franche Comte. These prints

are rather small in size and are often drawn on coarse

stones. The best ones are some of the smallest plates

among all of Baron Taylor's contributors, but they exhibit

the impression of much larger prints through a careful

build-up of tones. The effect of the aquatint tradition

can be felt in the simple large masses which compose them,

revealing a truth to visual impressions characteristic of

his prints during this period. Harding's work at its best

can be seen in the Ch~teau d'Oliferne from Franche Comt~ (Plate 55). In this romantic setting, the dramatic nature

of the landscape all but overshadows the chateau in the

grove of trees at the left. The mysterious, moody quality

which pervades the scene, expressed in the jagged

mountains and the windswept sky, gives the print an

intriguing atmosphere.

Both Harding and his predecessor Piranesi used the

expressive forces of nature to increase the emotional

content of their prints. Unlike Piranesi, however, who

never allowed nature to take precedence over the monument

in importance, Harding's work gives one the feeling that

the forces of nature constitute the main subject, the medieval chateau serving merely to add a picturesque touch

to the scene. This becomes clear when we compare a work

such as Piranesi's Pyramid of Cestius (Plate 32) with

Harding's ch~teau. Piranesi gives the pyramid a prominent 145

position by placing it in the center of the composition and enlarging its size in relation to its surroundings.

The pyramid itself forms the main subject of the composition. In contrast, Harding places his ch~teau off to one side, at a distance far removed from the viewer, so that one almost has to search the landscape to find it.

The insignificant role which Harding assigns to the monument constitutes an important compositional difference between his print and that of Piranesi.

The artist Newton Fielding, who exhibited regularly at the Salons during the period of the 1820's, produced plates for the Voyages pittoresgues, one of which is the

Ruines du chateau de Richecourt (Plate 56) from the volume on Franche Comte./ Fielding's lithograph presents us with a picture imbued with more of the pleasant, picturesque aspects inherent in a ruin, rather than the mysterious foreboding of many of his colleagues and of Piranesi. A feeling of melancholy makes itself felt, however, in the cloudy sky and the leafy growth which sprouts from the ruined towers. Like Piranesi, Fielding conveys the passage of time in the juxtaposition of old and new, of remnants from the Middle Ages placed alongside modern structures.

By far the most outstanding English artist of the 32 Voyages pittoresgues is Richard Parkes Bonington. Born

32 For more information on the life and work of 146

near the city of Nottingham in 1801, he emigrated to

Calais in 1817 and then moved to Paris. There he received an education at the Ecole des Beaux Arts and met Isabey and Delacroix. He was greatly influenced by French painting. Except for two return trips to his native

England, in the years 1825 and 1827, Bonington spent the rest of his life in France until his death in 1828, exhibiting his work both in London and Paris. As a lithographer he fell heir to the tradition of English topography but absorbed little else from his native country in that area, for at the time of his departure for

France in 1817, the printer Hullmandel had not yet set up his press in England. All of Bonington's lithographs were originally published in France and his style of lithographic drawing, with its light touch and airy quality, belongs to his adopted country and not to England.

The lithographs produced by Bonington for various publications are fewer in number than those of Isabey and almost all of them were executed over a span of only five years, from 1824-1828. Bonington lithographed only fifteen plates for the Voyages pittoresgues: four lithographs plus a vignette for the early volume on

Bonington, see Atherton Curtis, Catalogue de l'oeuvre lithographie et grave de R.P. Bonington; Maurice Gobin, R.P. Bonington: 1802-1828 (Paris: Les Editions Braun and Cie, 1950); Carlos Peacock, Bonington (New York: Taplinger Publishing, 1980); and the catalogue Pierre Georgel, Bonington: Un romantigue anglais a Paris (Paris: Institut de France, Musee Jacquemart-Andre, 1966). 147

Ancienne Normandie and ten plates for the following volume / on Franche Comte.

In his lithographic work, Bonington exhibited neither the heavy emphasis on technical skills demonstrated by

Eugene Ciceri, nor the enthusiasm for experimentation in lithography which characterized the prints of Paul Huet and Eugene Isabey. His approach to the medium was completely conventional, keeping within the established guidelines for chalk lithography and building up his tonalities through a system of parallel hatchings.

Bonington never allowed lithographic technique to take precedence over the image, as so many lesser printmakers did. The technique employed was suited to the occasion and was only exploited to its fullest potential in his most impressive plates for the volumes on Ancienne

Normandie, where his tonalities were rendered in a subtle manner, from deepest blacks to silvery grays. The lithographic work of Bonington comes closer in spirit to the etchings of Piranesi than does that of any other artist who contributed to the Voyages pittoresques.

Comparison between his prints, particularly those from the volume on Ancienne Normandie, and those of the Venetian etcher reveals that Bonington's overall qualities are strikingly like those of Piranesi, as we will see through the following examples.

Bonington's lithographs for the volume on Franche 0 . 148

/ Comte are also impressive and, at times, may be favorably

compared to the ruin views of Piranesi. In his print , depicting the Fa9ade de l'Eglise de Brou, dated 1825

(Plate 57), Bonington brings the old church close to the plate frame, endowing its presence with an imposing quality found in a work such as Piranesi's Colosseum

(Plate 33) from the Vedute di Roma. Bonington, like

Piranesi, has presented us with a portrait of a monument, a portrait in which all else is subordinate to the main subject of the print. The close attention paid to surface ornamentation in the work of Piranesi is also evident in that of Bonington. The English lithographer demonstrates as much interest in meticulously detailing the windows and spires of the old church as Piranesi shows in his decaying, vine-encrusted facade of the Colosseum. The role of humanity in both prints is that of subordination to the monument. The little figures further increase the large proportions of the structures before which they interact by their very smallness in the works of both artists.

Two other romantic ruin views with Bonington

/ lithographed for Franche Comte are the Croix de Moulin-

/ / Les-Planches (Plate 58) and Vue Generale des Ruines du

Chateau d'Arlay (Plate 59), both dated 1827. In these lithographs, Bonington depicts the ruin at a distance from the viewer, in opposition to Piranesi. Although Bonington ,, ' 149

exhibits an interest in the depiction of vegetation just

as Piranesi does, their interests take different

directions. In Bonington's works, the ruins are set

within a landscape, which complements them but assumes no

less importance than the ruins themselves. On the other

hand, in a representative work by Piranesi, such as the

Arch of Titus (Plate 31), the foliage co-exists with, and

enhances the monument, but never detracts from its

presence. Another point of departure between the two

artists is their respective rendering of the sky.

Piranesi's skies appear generally calm and serene, letting

the eye be drawn only to the monument, the most important

subject of the print. Bonington's storm-tossed sky is a

study in itself, contributing to the moody quality of the

two lithographs in the same way as the angry skies in the work of his colleague Isabey. Another feature in common

in the works of Bonington and Piranesi is in the use of chiaroscuro techniques to enhance the atmospheric quality of their prints. The strong dark and light accents in

Bonington's lithographs and in Piranesi's Arch of Titus work to enhance the moodiness of the scenes and creates the romantic atmosphere which envelops the ruin.

In his finest views of city scenes from the volwne on

Ancienne Normandie, Bonington's style and spirit come closer to that of Piranesi than does the work of any other lithographer from the Voyages pittoresques. In the 150

lithograph, Rue du Gros-Horloge, Rouen (Plate 60),

Bonington emphasizes the pronounced recession of the old

buildings lining the street by accentuating the little

figures in the foreground with rich black ink and flicks

of the scraper. The foreground buildings are sharply

delineated, while the structures in the distance recede

into a hazy mist. The old clock tower forms the focal

point of the composition, as the eye immediately travels

to it down the length of the street and back again for a

closer look at the detailed life in the foreground. In

this picturesque scene, a worker pushes his cart,

housewives shop and converse and men rest themselves on a

bench, beside which a dog reclines. The ruin element in

this lithograph is not as strong as in others from the

Voyages pittoresgues, but the romantic appeal of the scene

is still felt in its wistful depiction of a vanished era.

If we compare Bonington's city scene to one by

Piranesi, such as the view of Piazza Navona from the

Magnificenze di Roma (Plate 62), the affinities between the work of these two artists are easily discernible. In

Piranesi's view of the Piazza Navona, the eye is drawn down the length of the massive Baroque facades, beginning close to the viewer on the right of the composition and receding at a sharp angle into the distance, with an even more pronounced recession of buildings visible on the left. The trio of fountains, which decorate the enclosed 151

space between the two rows of structures, serve to add an imposing touch to the scene, particularly the central one with its tall obelisk and elaborate sculpture. Piranesi's etching exhibits a wealth of detail, both in the impressive surface ornamentation which graces the Baroque facades and in the teeming street life which populates the

Piazza. The area abounds with humanity, resting, strolling or often engaged in animated conversation. In

Bonington's Rue du Gros-Horloge, Rouen and in the view of

Piazza Navona by Piranesi, the angle of view is very similar. Both depict an enclosed space with a sharp recession of structures, beginning close to the viewer and gradUally diminishing as they recede into the distance.

The tori~~ qualities of Bonington's lithograph bear a strong resemblance to those achieved by Piranesi in his etching. Both the foreground figures and the buildings close to the viewer in these works are sharply delineated in an inky black. As the eye travels down the length of the streets, the clarity lessens into a pale haze, giving a convincing impression of dimensionality to both works.

Both Bonington and Piranesi give great attention to depicting a richness of detail in their prints.

Bonington's carefully delineated facades which grace the old buildings of Rouen bear favorable comparison with the elaborate Baroque facades of Piranesi. Everything is closely observed, from the window frames and their awnings 152

down to the door posts in the prints of both artists.

Much attention is also given to depicting the myriad of

humanity which inhabits the scene and which forms almost

as important a part of both compositions as the structures

themselves.

Another view which compares favorably with Piranesi's

Piazza Navona is Bonington's lithograph entitled Tour du

Gros-Horloge, Evreux (Plate 61 ), considered one of his best in the Voyages pittoresques. The attention to detail

in this print is also remarkable, from the weathered buildings, their roofs in obvious need of repair, to the ornamentation adorning the majestic tower, down to the human interest element thronging the street below. The old ruined buildings and the medieval clock tower, its pale base silhouetted against a background of stormy clouds and its pinnacles darkly rendered against the lightest part of the sky, give the print a romantic appeal. Both Piranesi and Bonington endow their respective structures with a strong sense of monumenta lity. The old clock tower of Evreux in Bonington's lithograph possesses as much grandeur as the impressive

Baroque facade of St. Agnes, surmounted by its large dome, in Piranesi's view of Piazza Navona. Like the view of

Rouen, Bonington's scene of Evreux exhibits an angle of view similar to that of Piranesi's city scene. Beginning at the plate frame, the carefully delineated buildings 153

begin their gradual sweep into the distance, until their meticulous detail is lost to view. The tonality in both

plates is also strikingly similar. Both Bonington and Piranesi utilize the effects of chiaroscuro to advantage

in order to pick out and emphasize the important details

in their prints. Bonington makes use of strongly contrasting darks and lights in his lithographs to enhance the imposing quality of the clock tower, picking out the detailed upper portion in dark tones against the stark white area forming the lower part. The details of buildings are rendered in opposing shades as well, with a dark facade next to a light one for contrast, as they recede into obscurity. Piranesi also uses chiaroscuro to emphasize foreground details of humans and buildings, often in rich black tones, and to give the impression of recession as the dark tones slowly recede into a misty haze in the distance. Here again is found that richness of detail which Bonington exhibited in his view of Rouen and which Piranesi's Piazza Navona possesses in abundance.

Both artists give special attention to vividly delineating the wide variety of humanity which populates their respective scenes and which adds so much to the lively atmosphere of each print.

The lithographic work of Richard Parkes Bonington from the Voyages pittoresques best expresses the probable influence of Piranesi on the depiction of the romantic 154

ruin in French lithography. Although the work of

Bonington is indicative of its own time and place, a product of a cultural milieu removed from that of

Piranesi, the prints of this English lithographer, who adopted France as his homeland, exhibit the subtle transformation for French nineteenth century use of those impressive patterns established by Piranesi a century before. 0 .

CONCLUSION

The development of the ruin in print from its tentative beginnings as little more than an architectural tool, to its emergence as a romantic entity capable of evoking an emotional response in the viewer, was a visual transformation which spanned the length of several centuries.

In the late fifteenth century, the Hypnerotomachia

Polifili presents us with one of the earliest prints in which a ruin figures prominently in the composition, though few romantic connotations are in evidence.

The sixteenth century saw a steadily increasing interest in the depiction of the ruin in print.

Renaissance architects like Scamozzi, Vignola and Serlio used the ruin as an instructional tool, but even at this stage the beginnings of an interest in emotional content are discernible in certain works. The work of the French / printmaker Etienne Duperac was also influential in taking the ruin a step further in the direction of greater expressive power.

With the dawning of the seventeenth century, the already growing interest in the romantic qualities of the

155 0 • 156

ruin witnessed a tremendous upswing. The very nature of

the Baroque period itself, with its emphasis on dramatic conflicts of nature and emotional subject matter, provided the environment for the growth and development of the expressive properties inherent in the ruin in the field of painting, as well as the graphic arts. The ruin played an

important part in the works of such painters as the French

landscapist Claude Lorrain and the Italian Salvator Rosa, serving to set the stage for their atmospheric compositions. Not to be outdone, many printmakers active in the Baroque period conveyed emotional feelings through the ruin, among them Egidius Sadeler, the Dutch artist

Bartholomeus Breenburgh, and the Italian artist who would be influential for Tiepolo and, through him, Piranesi in the following century, Benedetto Castiglione.

The eighteenth century has been called "The Age of

Ruins," for it was during this time that enthusiasm for ruined buildings and their romantic associations reached such epic proportions as to be termed almost a mania.

Stimulated by the great interest in travel which occurred among the British upper classes during this period, the fascination for remnants of past civilizations became the vogue of the day.

An important facet of this interest in ruins was the publication of numerous illustrated travel books, which became increasingly popular as the enthusiasm grew. Not 157

content with viewing the ruined structures of Great

Britain alone, the English gentry created the institution

of the Grand Tour, covering the locations of France and,

especially, Italy, as part of a young gentleman's

education. Many of the more affluent travelers

commissioned their own artist to accompany them, enabling them to bring back view scenes as souvenirs of their travels. Those who could not afford this luxury resorted to the less expensive means of purchasing prints which could often be bought at the tourist site.

With the travelers in mind, the eighteenth century

Venetian etcher Giovanni Battista Piranesi found this the ideal milieu for the creation and dissemination of his romantic views of the classical ruins of Rome. Influenced by the stage designs of Ferdinando Bibiena and the atmos pheric compositions of the Venetians Canaletto and

Tiepolo, the emotional impact of the city of Rome was all the stimulus needed for Piranesi to create his many vedute illustrating the ruins of ancient Rome. No printmaker before or since Piranesi ever endowed the remains of classical Rome with the romantic power and emotional intensity with which he infused his etchings.

The contribution made by Piranesi to the depiction of the romantic ruin did not end with the eighteenth century, but was carried on into the nineteenth. The French and

British colleagues of the Venetian etcher helped to 158

popularize his etchings in France and England, by

purchasing and disseminating his works in those countries

during his lifetime. In addition, in the early years of

the nineteenth century, Piranesi's sons moved to Paris,

reissuing the bulk of their father's etchings through

their prosperous printmaking business in that city. There

is every reason to believe that, through these means,

Piranesi's etchings were widely known and appreciated

during the early years of the nineteenth century in France

and England, where they could have been seen by

lithographers contributing to the monumental publication

Voyages pittoresques et romantigues dans l'ancienne

France.

Certain similarities are evident in the philosophy

and artistic approach to the ruin as a romantic entity in

the work of Piranesi and these nineteenth century French

and English lithographers. Both the etchings of the

eighteenth century Venetian and the work of his nineteenth

century counterparts is tinged with a feeling of romantic nostalgia, a longing to recapture a past civilization and

preserve it on paper before it was lost forever. Both the work of Piranesi and the artists of the Voyages pittoresgues was connected with the aspect of travel, even though their prints were aimed at different sectors of the population.

At the same time, the differences between the two can 159

also be seen. In spite of the artist's desire to preserve the classical monuments of Rome, the etchings of Piranesi were intended as a commercial venture, executed for the purpose of making a living. They were designed to appeal to a wide audience and were especially popular among the visiting Grand Tourists who came to the Eternal City. On the other hand, Baron Taylor's conception for the Voyages pittoresgues reflects a different scope of ambition, a larger idealistic outlook than that exhibited by Piranesi.

Baron Taylor's primary goal was to preserve the medieval ruins of France for future generations. His publication was not designed for a mass public, but intended for a select few, who would appreciate his noble aspirations.

The shift in emphasis from the classical period in the eighteenth century, to the enthusiasm for the middle ages in the nineteenth, is important for the understanding of the fundamental differences between the graphic depiction of ruins by Piranesi and the French and English contributors to the Voyages pittoresques. These differences are a result of the cultural transformations which took place from the eighteenth to the nineteenth century, in philosophic and artistic expression. The artists of the Voyages pittoresgues very likely absorbed the lessons of Piranesi, re-evaluating and reinterpreting them to satisfy their own needs and those of the cultural environment in which they worked. 160

In the graphic work of the English lithographer

Richard Parkes Bonington from the Voyages pittoresques, this link with Piranesi is best observed. Though the connecting thread between the two may be tenuous, owing to the difficulty of establishing a direct influence, yet in the work of these two artists exists a common spirit which binds them together. The city views of Bonington, in particular, bear a remarkable resemblance in execution and feeling to those of Piranesi. Through these lithographs by Bonington and certain other artists who contributed to

Baron Taylor's volumes can be witnessed the transformation for nineteenth century use of that extensive groundwork laid by Piranesi in the century before. The impressive patterns established by Piranesi were important in the development of the romantic ruin in print in the nineteenth century, as reflected in the work of Baron

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Rothlisberger, Marcel. Claude Lorrain: The Paintings. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1961.

Santanello, A.E. Sebastiane Serlio and the Book of Architecture. New York: Benjamin Blom, 1970.

Scherer, Margaret. Marvels of Ancient Rome. New York: The Phaidon Press for the Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1955.

Schudt, Ludwig. Le Guide di Roma. Vienna: Benno Filser, 1930. Scott, Jonathan. Piranesi. London: Academy Editions, 1975. Senefelder, Alois. A Complete Course of Lithography. New York: DeCapo Press, 1968.

Smart, Alastair~ The Life and Art of Allan Ramsay. London: Routledge and Paul, 1952. Spencer, J.R., trans. Treatise on Architecture. By Antonio Filarete. 2 vols. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1965.

Spencer, Terence. Fair Greece, Sad Relic: Literary Philhellenism from Shakespeare to Byron. New York: Octagon Books, 1973. Stechow, Wolfgang. Dutch Landscape Painting of the Seventeenth Century. London: Phaidon, 1966.

Stillman, Damie. The Decorative Work of Robert Adam. London: Tiranti, 1966. Taylor, Basil. Constable: Paintings, Drawings and Watercolors. London: Phaidon Press, 1973. Ternois, Daniel. L'Art de Jacques Callot. Paris: F. DeNobele, 1962. Trease, Geoffrey. The Grand Tour. New York: Putnam, 1969. ~1 • 169

Twyman, Michael. Lithography 1800-1850: The Techniques of Drawing on Stone in England and France and Their Application in Works of Topography. London: Oxford University Press, 1970.

Van Tieghem, Philippe. Le Romanticisme francais. Paris: Presses Universitaires, 1957.

Vaussard, M. Daily Life in Eighteenth Century Italy. London: Allen and Unwin, 1962.

Walker, John. John Constable. New York: Harry N. Abrams,

1978 0

Weber, Wilhelm. A History of Lithography. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1966.

Weiss, Roberto. The Renaissance Discovery of Classical Antiquity. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1969.

Westfall, Carroll. In This Most Perfect Paradise. University Park: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 1974.

Wilkinson, Gerald. Turner Sketches 1802-20: Romantic Genius. New York: Watson-Guptill, 1974.

Wilton-Ely, John. The Mind and Art of Giovanni Battista Piranesi. London: Thames and Hudson, 1978.

Wittkower, Rudolf. Architectural Principles in the Age of Humanism. New York: Random House, 1965.

Wittkower, Rudolf. Etienne Duperac: Designi de le ruine di Roma e come anticamente erono. Milan: Arti Grafiche Amilcare Pizzi, 1963.

Wittkower, Rudolf. Palladio and Palladianism. New York: George Braziller, 1974.

Zucker, Paul. Fascination of Decay: Ruins, Relic, Symbol, Ornament. Ridgewood, N.J.: Gregg Press, 1968.

Articles

; Bareham, W. "Canaletto and a Commission From Consul Smith." Art Bulletin LIX (1977): 383-93.

Chamberlain, Samuel. "The Triumphal Arches of Piranesi." Print Collector's Quarterly XXIV (1937): 62-79. 170

Frazer, Alfred. "The Iconography of the Emperor Maxentius' Buildings in Via Appia." The Art Bulletin XLVIII (September-December 1966): 385-392.

Gotch, Christopher. "The Missing Years of Robert Mylne." Architectural Review CXXX (September 1951 ): 182.

Harris, J. "LeGeay, Piranesi and International Neoclassicism 1740-50." Essays Presented to Rudolf Wittkower i, New York: Phaidon Press, 1967.

Knox, G. "G.B. Tiepolo: The Dating of the Scherzi di Fantasia and the Capricci." Burlington Magazine CXIV (1972): 837-42. Lewis, L. "Stuart and Revett: Their Literary and Architectural Careers." Journal of the Warburg Institute II (1938-39): 128ff.

Linsey, Martin. "Pannini: Interior of the Pantheon, Rome." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art Vol. 62 (1975): 263-269.

Pignatti, Terisio. "Les Graveurs venetiens de vedute au XVIII siecle." Oeil 149 (May 1967): 24-33. Poulet, G. "Piranese et les poetes romantiques francais." La Nouvelle Revue Francaise XIII (April 1966): 660- 71; XIV (May 1966): 849-62. Robison, A. "Giovanni Battista Piranesi: Prolegomena to the Princeton Collection." Princeton University Library Chronicle XXXI (1970): 165-206. Robison, A. "The Veduta di Roma of Giovanni Battista Piranesi: notes towards a revision of Hind's catalogue." Nouvelles de l'Estampe 4 (1970): 180- 98. Salamon, Teresa V. "Giovanni Battista Piranesi: A Catalogue." The Print Collector XXIX (September December 1975): 4-52 •

. Seaver, Henry L. "The Golden Book of Landscape Litho graphy." Print Collector's Quarterly V (1977): 444- 4 71.

·Stillman, Damie. "Robert Adam and Piranesi." Essays in the History of Architecture Presented to Rudolf Wittkower. London: Phaidon Press (1967): 197-206. 171

Vivien, F. "Joseph Smith and the Cult of Palladianism." Burlington Magazine CV (1963): 157-62.

Weinhardt, C.J., Jr. "Canaletto: Master Etcher." The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin XVIII (1958): 77-87. Weitenkampf, Frank. "The Lithographs of Eugene Isabey." Print Collector's Quarterly V (1977): 295-315.

Wittkower, Rudolf. "Piranesi's Parere su l'Architettura." Journal of the Warburg Institute II (1938-1939): 147ff.

Catalogues

The Age of Neoclassism. London: Burlington House, 1972.

Bromberg, Ruth. Canaletto's Etchings: A Catalogue and Study Illustrating and Describing the Known states, Including Those Hitherto Unrecorded. London: Sotheby Parke Bernet, 1974.

Carlson, Victor. Hubert Robert: Drawings and Watercolors. Washington: National Gallery of Art, 1978.

Chastel, Andre, et al. Piranese et les Francais. Rome: Academie de France a Rome, Villa Medici, 1976.

Croft-Murray, E. Giovanni Battista Piranesi: His Predecessors and His Heritage. London: British Museum, 1968. Eugene Isabey: Paintings, Watercolors, Drawings, Lithographs. Cambridge, Mass.: Fogg Art Museum, 1967.

Fleming-Williams, Ian. Constable: Landscape, Watercolors and Drawings. London: Tate Gallery, 1976.

Les Frangais A Rome: Residents et Voyageurs dans la Ville Eternelle de la Renaissance aux debuts du Romanticisme. Paris: Hotel De Rohan 87, Rue Vieille Du-Temple, 1961.

Georgel, Pierre. Bonington: Un romantique anglais a Paris. Paris: Institut de France, Musee Jacquemart Andre, 1966.

Giovanni Battista e Francesco Piranesi. Rome: Calcografia Nazionale, 1967-68. 172

Kainen, Jacob. The Etchings of Canaletto. Washington: Smithsonian Press, 1967.

Karlstrom, Paul J. Views of Venice in the Graphic Arts From the Late Fifteenth Century Through the Eighteenth Century. Los Angeles: The Grunewald Graphic Arts Foundation, 1969. Mayer-Haunton, K. Etchings by Giovanni Battista Piranesi: 1720-1778. London: P. and D. Colnaghi, 1973. Nyberg, Dorothea. Giovanni Battista Piranesi: Drawings and Etchings at Columbia University. New York: Avery Architectural Library, 1972.

Pilo, G.M. Marco Ricci. Venice: Alfieri, 1963.

Plumb, J.H. The Pursuit of Happiness: A View of Life in Georgian England. New Haven, Conn.: Yale Center for British Art, 1977. La Residenza Imperiale di Massenzio, Villa, Circo e Mauseleo. Roma: Fratelli Brothers, 1980.

The Romantic Movement. London: Arts Council of Great Britain, 1959.

Russell, H. Diane. Rare Etchings of G.B. and G.D. Tiepolo. New York: Macmillan, 1972. Spencer, Marion. R.P. Bonington: 1802-1828. Nottingham: Castle Museum and Art Gallery, 1965. Virch, C. The Circle of Canaletto. Allentown, Penn.: Allentown Art Museum, 1971. Wallace, Richard w. Salvator Rosa in America. Wellesley, Mass.: Wellesley College Museum, 1979. The William A. Gumberts Collection of Canaletto Etchings. Santa Barbara, California: The Santa Barbara Museum of Art, 1979.

Zerner, H. Venice in the Eighteenth Century: Prints and Drawings. Providence: Museum of Art, Rhode Island School of Design, 1967. 173

APPENDIX A

Selected List of Piranesi's Works

1743 Prima Parte di Architetture e Prospettive c. 1745 Grotteschi Invenzioni capric di Carceri

1745 Plates published by Fausto Arnidei in Varie Vedute di Roma Antica e Moderna c. 1748- Vedute di Roma 1778

1748 Antichit~ Romane de' Tempi della Repubblica e de' Primi Imperatori c. 1750 Opere Varie di Architettura, Prospettiva, Groteschi, Antichita (reprint of Prima Parte, except for one plate, with additions, plus the Grotteschi)

1751 Le Magnificenze di Roma (composite publication containing a selection of the early plates of the Vedute di Roma)

1756 Le Antichita Romane c. 1 760 Carceri d'Invenzione (reworking of Invenzioni capric di Carceri with two additional plates)

1761 Della Magnificenza ed Architettura de' Romani

after Alcune Vedute di Archi Trionfali (reprint of 1765 Antichita Romane de' Tempi della Repubblica e de' Primi Imperatori) 174

APPENDIX B

Volumes of Voyages pittoresques et romantiques dans l'ancienne France*

i. Normandie 1820

ii. Ancienne Normandie 1825

iii. Franche Comte 1825

iv. Auvergne 1829

v. Auvergne 1833

vi. Languedoc 1834

vii. Languedoc 1834

viii. Languedoc 1835

ix. Languedoc 1837

x. Picardie 1835

xi. Picardie 1840

xii. Picardie 1845

xiii. Bretagne 1845

xiv. Bretagne 1846

xv. Bretagne 1846

xvi. Dauphine 1854

xvii. Cham)2ag:ne 1857

*This sequence of volumes is based on the set in Cambridge University Library. 175

xviii. Champagne 1857 xix. Bourgogne 1863 xx. Ancienne Normandie 1878 (,1 • 176

Plate l: Fra Francesco Colonna. The Polyandrion, woodcut. Hypnerotomachia Polifili, 1499. cooper Union Museum, New York 177

~=~~~-~. ~ e V.....V JNTO LIBRO D' ARCHITETTVR A, •' Dl SEBASTfAN S.ER.LIO BOLOGN.ESE, Nclqu.dc: fi mtt:; di diut:~ forme. di Tempij facri, fecon:fo il . collumc Wmthaao .. & .11 modo antic:o.

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Plate 2: Sebastiane Serlio. Title Page of Book III, woodcut. D'Architettura, Venice, 1540. Third Edition, 1551. 178

Plate 3: Etienne Duperac. Temple of Antoninus and Faustina, A.D. 141, etching. I Vestigi dell'Antichita di Roma, Rome (Rossi), 1575. 179

Plate 4: Claude Lorrain. Ruins of Ancient Rome With the Burial of Santa SerapJ.a, Detail. Prado, Madrid. 180

Plate 5: Salvator Rosa. Battle Scene, early 1650's. Louvre, Paris. 181

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Plate 6: Egidius (Gilles) Sadeler. Nymlhaeum Aquae Julia, engraving. Vestigi d€ra Antichita di Roma, Tivoli, Pozzuolo e Altri Lvochi, Prague, 1616. Cooper Union Museum, New York. l82

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Plate 7: Bartholorneus Breenburgh. A Roman Ruin, etching, 1620-27. 183

Plate 8: Benedetto Castiglione. The Artist's Genius, etching, 1648. 184

Plate 9: Ferdinanda Bibiena. Stage Design showing a scena per angelo, Architettura Civile, 1711. 185

Plate 10: Giovanni Paolo Pannini. Landscape With Rom:an Ruins, 1735. Kaiser Friedrich Museum, Berlin. 186

Plate 11: Hubert Robert. Portico With the Statue of Marcus Aurelius. Louvre, Par1s. 187

Plate 12: Antonio Canaletto. The Portico With the Lantern, etching. Vedute altre prese da 1. luoghi, altre ideate, c. 1744. 188

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Plate 13: Antonio Canaletto. Landscape With Ruined Monuments, etching. Vedute altre prese da i luoghi, altre ideate, c. 1744. J.89

Plate 14: Antonio Canaletto. Title Plate, etching. Vedute altre prese da i luoghi, altre ideate, c. 1744. 190

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Plate 15: Giovanni Battista Tiepolo. Young Man Seated, Leaning Against an Urn, etching. Capricci, c. 1743. 191

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Plate 16: Giovanni Battista Tiepolo. Seated Man and Two Magicians, etching. Scherz1. di Fantasia, c. 1744/5. 0 . 192

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Plate 17: Giovanni Battista Tiepolo. Seated Magician With Monkey, Standing Youth and Ox, etching. Scherzi di Fantasia, c. 1744/5. 193

Plate l8: Marco Ricci. Capriccio, etching. Experirnenta, 1730. 194

Plate 19: Giovanni Battista Piranesi. Frontispiece, etching. Prima Parte di Architetture e Prospettive, 1743. 195

Plate 20: Giovanni Battista Piranesi. Plate from the Grotteschi, etching, c. 1745. 196

Plate 21: Giovanni Battista Piranesi. Fa9ade of St. John Lateran, etching. Varie Vedute d1. Roma Ant1.ca e Moderna, c. 1745. ~97

Plate 22: Giovanni Battista Piranesi. Circus of Caracalla, etching. Varie Vedute d1 Roma Antica e Moderna, c. 1745. 198

Plate 23: Giovanni Battista Piranesi. Pyramid of Cestius, etching. Varie Vedute di Roma Antica e Moderna, c. 1745. t1 • 199

Plate 24: Giuseppe Vasi. Pyramid of Cestius, etching. Magnifi·cenze di Roma Antica e Moderna, 1747. 200

Plate 25: Giovanni Battista Piranesi. Arch of Constantine, etching. Antichita Romane de' Tempi della Repubbl1ca e de' Primi Imperatori, 1748. (Later reprinted as Alcune Vedute di Archi Trionfali, c. 1765.) 201

Plate 26: Giovanni Battista Piranesi. Arch of Janus, etching. Anti chi d1 Romane de 1 Tempi della Repubblica e de' Primi Imperatori, 1748. (Later reprinted as Alcune Vedute di Archi Trionfali, c. 1765.} 202

Plate 27: Giovanni Battista Piranesi. Frontispiece, etching. Le Antichita Romane, 1756. 203

Plate 28: Giovanni Battista Piranesi. Foundations of the Castel S. Angelo, etch1ng. Le Antichita Romane, 1756. 204

Plate 29: Giovanni Battista Piranesi. Arch of Constantine and the Colosseum, etching. Vedute di Roma, c. 1748-1778. 205

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Plate 30: Giovanni Battista Piranesi. Pyramid of Cestius, etching. Vedute di Roma, c. 1748-1778. ,, . 206

Plate 31: Giovanni Battista Piranesi. Arch of Titus, etching. Vedute di Roma, c. 1748-1778. tl '

207

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Plate 32: Giovanni Battista Piranesi. Pyramid of Cestius, etching. Vedute di Rorna, c. 1748-1778. 208

Plate 33: Giovanni Battista Piranesi. Colosseum, etching. Vedute di Roma, c. 1748-1778. 209

Plate 34: Giovanni Battista Piranesi. Tomb of Cecelia Metella, etching. Vedute di Roma, c. l74B-177B. 210

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Plate 35: Giovanni Battista Piranesi. Interior of the Central Hall, Baths of Caracalla, etch1ng. Vedute d1 Roma, c. 1748-1778. 211

Plate 36: Giovanni Battista Piranesi. Temple of the Sibyl, Tivoli, etching. Vedute di ~I Co 1748-1778. 212

Plate 37: Giovanni Battista Piranesi. Temple of the Sibyl, Tivoli, etching. Vedute di Roma, c. 1748-1778. " ' 213

Plate 38: Giovanni Battista Piranesi. The canopus, Hadrian's Villa, etching. Vedute di Roma, c. 1748-1778. Q .

214

Plate 39: Giovanni Battista Piranesi. Interior of the Baths, Hadrian's Villa, etch1ng·. Vedute di Rorna, c. 1748-1778. 215

Plate 40: Eugene Ciceri. Grand Rue Vieille a Nantes, lithograph. Voyages pittoresques {Bretagne, c. 1845). 216

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Plate 41: Adrien Dauzats. Fagade de Notre-Dame Cathedrale de Rheims, lithograph. Voyages pit·toresques (Champagne, 1857). 2~7

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Plate 42: Paul Huet. Tour du Mont-Perrou vue des bords de l'Allier, lithograph. Voyages p1ttoresques (Auvergne, 1833). 218

Plate 43: Eugene Isabey. Abside de l'JSglise de Saint-Nectaire I lithograph •. voyages Eittoresques (Auvergne, 1833). 2l9

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Plate 44: Eugene Isabey. Eglise de Saint-Nectaire, lithograph. Voyages pittoresques (Auvergne, 1833). 220

Plate 45: Eugene Isabey. Ruines du Ch~teau et du Village de Saint-Necta1re, l1thograph. Voyages pittoresques (Auvergne, 1833). 0 ' 221

Plate 46: Eugene Isabey. Ruines du Ch&teau de Bouzols, lithograph. Voyages pittoresques (Auvergne, 1833). 222

Plate 47: Eugene Isabey. Croix sur la route de Clermont a Royat, lithograph. Voyages pittoresques (Auvergne, 1833). 223

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Plate 48: Eugene Isabey. Croix du village des Bains au Mont-Dor, lithograph. Voyages p1ttoresques (Auvergne, 1833). 224

Plate 49: Eugene Isabey. Chateau de Larderole, lithograph. Voyages pittoresques (Auvergne, 1833). 225

Plate 50: Eugene Isabey. Donjon de Polignac, lithograph. Voyages pittoresques (Auvergne, 1833). 226

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Plate 51: Eugene Isabey. Donjon du Ch~teau de Polignac, lithograph. Voyages pittoresques (Auvergne, 1833). 227

Plate 52: Eugene Isabey. Chateau de Pont-Gibaud, lithograph. Voyages p1ttoresques (Auvergne, 1833). 228

Plate 53: Eugene Isabey. Eglise Saint Jean, Thiers, lithograph. Voyages p1ttoresques (Auvergne, 1833). 229

Plate 54: Louis Haghe. Ruines de l'Abbaye de Saint Martin du Canigou, lithograph. Voyages pittoresques (Languedoc , . 1835) • 230

Plate 55: J.D. Harding. Chateau d'Oliferne, lithograph. Voyages p1ttoresques (Franche comte, 1825}. 231

Plate 56: Newton Fielding. Ruines du Ch&teau de Richecourt, lithograph. Voyages pittoresques (Franche Comt4; 1825). 232

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Plate 57: Righard Parkes Bonington. Faqade de l'Eglise de Brou, lithograph. Voyages pittoresques (Franche Comte,/ 1825}. 233

Plate 58: Richard Parkes Bonington. Croix de Moulin-les-Planches, lithograph. Voyages pittoresques (Franche Comte, 1825). 234

Plate 59: Richard Parkes Bonington. Vue generale des Ruines du Ch~teau de'Arlay, lithograph. Voyages pittoresques (Franche Comt~, 1825). 235

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Plate 60: Richard Parkes Bonington. Rue du Gros Horloge, Rouen, lithograph. Voyages pittoresques (Ancienne Normandie, 1825). 236

Plate 61: Richard Parkes Bonington. Tour du Gros~Horloge, Evreux, lithograph. Voyages pittoresques (Ancienne Normandie, 1825). 237

Plate 62: Giovanni Battista Piranesi. Piazza Navona, etching. Le Magnificenze di Roma, 1751.