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Gianbattista Piranesi
Mozano di Mestre, Venice 1720 – 1778 Rome
First title page (with Latin text) to
Ioannis Baptistae Piranesii, Antiquariorum Regiae Societatatis Londinensis Socii de Romanorum Magnificentia ed Architectura
First title page (with Latin text) to
Ioannis Baptistae Piranesii, Antiquariorum Regiae Societatatis Londinensis Socii de Romanorum Magnificentia ed Architectura
Giovanni Battista Piranesi, Fellow of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of London, On the Grandeur and the Architecture of Rome
Wilton-Ely 753
448 x 288 mm
Original etching, 1761.
The plate signed and dated.
Edge mounted in the margins.
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Additional
Information about the Print
The Della Magnificenza ed Architettura de’ Romani
In his treatise Della Magnificenza ed Architettura de’ Romani, published 1761, Piranesi demonstrated his personal view in the Graeco-Roman debate that Roman art was superior to Greek art, and was derived from the Etruscans. The book was dedicated to his patron Pope Clement XIII, whose portrait adorned the frontispiece.
The lower half of the plate is based on Scene 78 (Victory and Trophies) which separates the frieze narratives commemorating the Emperor Trajan’s first and second Dacian campaigns) on Trajan’s Column.
Piranesi added to the blank shield, on which the winged Victory is writing, the papal Coat of Arms of Clement XIII, his patron.
Trajan’s successful military campaigns funded his massive building works, including a new forum, his column, as well as bridges, aqueducts and roads; much of the architecture that made Rome magnificent.
At the foot of the design, in support of Piranesi’s theory of the supremacy of ancient Roman architecture and its origins in native Etruscan civilisation, rather than dependence on Ancient Greece, is a bound bundle of rods of the Roman Fasces, which originated with the Etruscans.
Prints from Della Magnificenza ed Architettura de’ Romani in this exhibition are:
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