Piranesi. Arch of Trajan at Benevento, in the Kingdom of Naples
A fine rendering of that air of glory which the most dilapidated fragments of a Roman Arch of Triumph never lose. The Arch of Trajan, one of the finest of ancient arches, was dedicated A.D. 114. It is of white marble, 48 feet high and 30½ wide, with a single arch measuring 27 by 16½ feet. The arch is profusely sculptured with reliefs illustrating Trajan’s life and his Dacian triumphs.
Size of the original etching, 18⅜ × 27½ inches
At the same time, he acquired a thorough knowledge of etching and engraving under the Sicilian, Giuseppe Vasi, whose etchings first aroused the great Goethe’s longing for Italy. At the age of twenty, thinking, probably not without foundation, that this master was concealing from him the secret of the correct use of acid in etching, Piranesi is reported, in his anger, to have made an attempt to murder Vasi. Such an act would not be out of keeping with the character of the fiery Venetian, for, before leaving Venice, he had already been described by a fellow-pupil as “stravagante,” extravagant, or fantastic, a term not restricted by Italians to a man’s handling of money, but applied rather to character as a whole, in which connection it usually denotes the less fortunate side of that complete and magnificent surrender to an overwhelming passion which aroused so lively an admiration of the Italian nature in the great French writer, Stendhal. When we, tame moderns, judge the “extravagance” of such characters, it is only fair to recollect that, with all their faults and crimes, these same unbridled Italians were capable of heroic virtues, unknown to our pale and timid age. Men like Cellini and Piranesi, who had much in common, are simply incarnate emotional force, a fact which is, at the same time, the cause of their follies and the indispensable condition of their genius.
After this quarrel Piranesi returned to Venice, where he attempted to gain a livelihood by the practice of architecture. There is reason to believe that at this period he studied under Tiepolo; at any rate there exist in his published works a few curious, rather rococo plates entirely different from his usual manner, and very markedly influenced by the style of Tiepolo’s etching. He also studied painting with the Polanzani who is responsible for that portrait of him which forms the frontispiece to the first edition of “Le Antichità Romane,” and gives so vivid an impression of the dæmonic nature of the man. Meeting with little success in Venice, he went to Naples, after returning to Rome, attracted principally by archæological interests. He stayed at Herculaneum, Pompeii, and Pæstum, where at this time, undoubtedly, he made the drawings of the temples afterward etched and published by his son. The drawings for these etchings of Pæstum, among the best known of the Piranesi plates, are now in the Soane Museum in London.
Piranesi. The Basilica, Pæstum
Size of the original etching, 17¾ × 26⅝ inches
Piranesi. The Temple of Neptune at Pæstum