In this plate can be seen a favorite device of Piranesi’s, which is to enhance the size and stability of massive architecture by placing on some part of the ruin a human figure in active motion. The Arch of Titus was built in commemoration of the taking of Jerusalem. The vault is richly coffered and sculptured, and the interior faces of the piers display reliefs of Titus in triumph, with the plunder of the temple at Jerusalem.
Size of the original etching, 18⅝ × 27¾ inches
Every two years, if not oftener, a monumental book would make its appearance, to say nothing of separate plates, and Piranesi was now a famous man. With the exception of Winckelmann, he did more than any one to spread a knowledge and love of classic art, while his learning and his researches aroused a widespread appreciation of the nobility of Roman ruins, thereby largely contributing to their excavation and protection. His exhaustive acquaintance with antiquity and his impassioned admiration for its beauty, combined with his singular and interesting character, caused him to mingle with all that was most remarkable in the world of arts and letters in Rome, at the same time bringing him into relation with whatever foreigners of distinction might visit the city. He was, however, then and always a poor man, for his first important work, “Le Antichità Romane,” sold in the complete set for the ridiculous pittance of sixteen paoli, or about seventeen lire, while later the Pope was wont to pay him only a thousand lire for eighteen gigantic volumes of etchings. The very fact that his fertility was so enormous, lowered the price it was possible to ask for his plates during his lifetime, just as since his death it has militated against a correct valuation of his talent. Forty years after he came to Rome, he wrote to a correspondent that he had made, on an average, some seven thousand lire of modern money a year, out of which he had had to support his family, pay for the materials required in his business, and gather together that collection of antiquities which was a part of his stock in trade.
The rapidity with which Piranesi worked, and the number of plates, all of unusually large dimensions, which he executed, are so extraordinary as to leave one bewildered by the thought of such incomprehensible industry. Competent authorities vary in their statements as to the number of plates produced by Piranesi, but accepting as correct the lowest figure, which is thirteen hundred, it will be found that for thirty-nine years he produced, on a rough average, one plate every two weeks. Ordinarily, great productiveness will be found to have damaged the quality of the work accomplished, but this is not true in the case of Piranesi. Although his work is of varying merit, like that of all true artists, and even comprises examples lacking his usual excellence, there is no plate which betrays any signs of hurry or careless workmanship, while in many the meticulous finish is remarkable. Such an output is in itself phenomenal, yet in preparation for these works he found the time to pursue archæological researches and studies, in themselves sufficiently exhaustive to have occupied the life of an ordinary man. Moreover, in his capacity of architect, he executed various important restorations, including those of the Priorato di Malta, where he is buried, and of Santa Maria del Popolo. Most of his restorations were undertaken by command of the Venetian, Pope Clement XIII, who bestowed on him the title of Knight, or Cavaliere, a distinction of which he was proud, as he was of his membership in the “Royal Society of Antiquaries” in London, of which he was made an honorary fellow in 1757.
Piranesi. The Arch of Titus
Showing the relief of the Triumph of Titus and the carrying away of the Seven-branched Candle-stick from Jerusalem. A particularly beautiful and not very well-known plate, which clearly shows Piranesi’s fine sense of composition, and his keen appreciation of that singularly picturesque contrast between the ancient ruins and the more modern buildings in which they were then embedded.
Size of the original etching, 15⅞ × 24¼ inches
Piranesi. Façade of St. John Lateran