Piranesi, Giovanni Battista( 1720 – 1778 )
Villa of Hadrian: Octagonal room in the Small Baths, Metropolitan Museum of Art,
1994. 20 , Neg. 258027 , 39.4 55. 3 cm, Red chalk with charcoalIt would be impossible to examine the architectural drawings of the neoclassical period without a
discussion of Giovanni Battista Piranesi. Despite his architectural apprenticeship, he may not be
viewed as an architect in a strict sense, considering the few commissions attributed to him (Tafuri,
1987 ). However, he was extremely influential due to his prolific distribution of archaeological,
reconstructive, and fantastical architectural etchings, engravings, and sketches distributed through-
out Europe. Embracing the inventiveness of baroque illusion, he also defended the return to Roman
antiquity.
Piranesi was born near Mestre in 1720. The son of a stonemason, he first worked with his architect
uncle Matteo Lucchesi in Venice. Apprenticed to Giovanni Scalfurotto, he also received training as a
stage designer. In 1740 , he went to Rome as a draughtsman to Marco Foscarini, the Venetian ambas-
sador at the court of the new Pope Benedict XIV (Wilton-Ely, 1978 ). He traveled to archaeological
excavations at Herculaneum and in 1743 he published the series of architectural fantasies Prima Parte
dei Architetture e Prospettive(Wilton-Ely, 1993 ). Piranesi printed his various reconstructions and capriccio
such as Opere Varieand Trofei di Ottaviano Augustoand in 1756 , following thorough research, four vol-
umes of Antichità Romane(Wilton-Ely, 1993 ). The popular distribution enjoyed by these texts may be
compared to those by Alberti, Palladio, Serlio, and Vitruvius, all several centuries earlier. In his visual
statements, Piranesi advocated the practical usage of antiquity combined with skilled archaeological
speculation and exaggeration. He was a proponent of Roman antiquity, rather than Greek, and many
who have analyzed his work suggest that his images, especially the Carceri(fantasy prisons), display a
political and social polemic (Tafuri, 1987 ; Wilton-Ely, 1978 , 1993 ).
An incredible number of his drawings and prints remain. They range in media from ink and
wash sketches to etchings and detailed engravings, and are surprisingly loose and fluid. This sketch
(Figure 3.1) was not a preliminary sketch associated with the Carceri, but contains a similar theme –
excavated, subterranean, and dominated by a series of large arches. The sketch was drawn on heavy
paper using graphite guidelines and studied with brown, waxy crayon.
Both the theme and techniques of this sketch resemble concepts of the grotesque. Although a
comprehensive definition of the grotesque may be elusive, the author Geoffrey Harpham writes that
contemporary grotesqueries hover between the known and the unknown, and contain elements of
ambivalence, deformation, transition, or paradox ( 1982 ). These elements become visible in the
grotesque as fragmented or jumbled. The underground, excavated, and prison themes of Piranesi’s
work suggest the early use of the word referring to Grottesche, the ornamental arabesques found in
Roman excavations that connote the underground, burial, or secrecy (Harpham, 1982 ). A descrip-
tion of grotesqueries as being both bizarre and beautiful seems to fit Piranesi’s imaginative scenes.
The unfinished qualities, especially where patterned brick above the doors transforms into the
underside of arches, help to give this sketch a transitory feeling. Paradoxically, although the scene
appears to be underground, it contains light and articulation not usually associated with subter-
ranean space. The quickness of the lines, and the squiggles that resemble figures, reinforce the frag-
mentation. Similar to the Carceri, this technique lacks any place of stability, and the composition
continuously keeps the observer’s eyes in motion. Due to the ambiguity of the grotesque, the sketch
is not false, but may in fact be real to the extreme; so full of emotion that it allows the observer’s
imagination to speculate (Harpham, 1982 ).H5719-Ch03.qxd 7/18/05 10:16 AM Page 75