Piranesi. Interior of the Pantheon, Rome
A good illustration of Piranesi’s originality in choosing a point of view
so curious as to give a novel air to the best known subjects
The Pantheon, completed by Agrippa B.C. 27, consecrated to the divine ancestors of the Julian family, and now dedicated as the Church of Santa Maria Rotonda, is 142½ feet in diameter and its height, to the apex of the great hemispherical coffered dome, is the same. The lighting of the interior is solely from an opening, 28 feet in diameter, at the summit of the dome. The dome is practically solid concrete.
Size of the original etching, 18⅞ × 22¼ inches
Francesco Piranesi, after the death of his father, sold the collection formed by him to Gustavus III of Sweden in return for an annuity. He continued the publication of etchings, many, although unacknowledged, from drawings by his father, and was assisted in his archæological research by Pope Pius VI. After various rather dishonorable transactions, as spy to the court of Sweden, he started for Paris by sea in 1798, having with him the plates of his father’s etchings, and accompanied in all probability by his sister Laura. The ship on which he traveled was captured and all it contained taken as a prize by a British man-of-war, England and France being then engaged in hostilities. By some curious chance, the English admiral knew the worth of Piranesi’s work, and persuaded the officers who had made the capture to restore the plates to his son, and in addition obtained, by some still more curious chance, both the admission of the plates into French territory free of duty, and government protection of Francesco’s ownership. At Paris, Francesco Piranesi and his brother, Pietro, tried to found both an academy and a manufactory of terra-cotta. He also republished his father’s etchings and his own, thus creating the first French edition, already inferior in quality to the original Roman impressions. He died in Paris, in 1810, in straitened circumstances. The plates of both the father’s and the son’s work passed into the hands of the publishers Firmin-Didot, who republished them once more. The original plates, which at one time were rented for almost nothing to any one who wished them for a day’s printing, finally found a refuge, as before said, in the Royal Calcography at Rome, where they have been coated with steel and rebitten, so that it is now possible to print as many copies every year as tourists and architects may desire. It can, therefore, be seen that, most unfortunately, the world is flooded with countless impressions which, even if they have value for an architect as documents, or still retain enough character to give them some merit as pictures, are yet so utterly changed and debased as to do the gravest and most irreparable injustice to the reputation of the genius who created them.
Piranesi. Piazza Navona, Rome
This plate shows how Piranesi could render a complicated view without confusion and, at
the same time, give an air of novelty to a well-known place
Size of the original etching, 18⅜ × 27⅝ inches
