Giovanni Battista Piranesi

Giovanni Battista Piranesi (Mogliano Veneto, near Treviso, Republic of Venice, October 4, 1720 – Rome, November 9, 1778) was a famous Italian engraver and architect, but also famous for his more humanistic approach. He was also a brilliant designer, a worthy theorist and physiocrat, an excellent hydraulic engineer and a renowned archaeologist. He was born in 1720, into a family that had a great interest in art and, in particular, architecture.

He began his Drawing studies at a very young age. I particularly appreciated the perspective and, from a theoretical perspective, the theme of “Classicism”. Piranesi's drawings and engravings revealed great talent in combining dramatic perspectives with a sharply mannerist and profoundly neoclassical architecture.

He traveled to southern Italy at the age of 15 to study the memorable Greco-Roman art, of which there was no shortage of evidence in the region. Piranesi dedicated himself to producing some excellent works that portrayed and studied classicist art. Here it is clear why they believe him to be an archaeologist.

At the age of twenty he went to Rome where he finally came into contact with ancient Roman ruins, including the Colosseum, and with buildings that were testament to Baroque urban architecture. Piranesi then began a series of drawings and paintings, today very popular and of great commercial value, in which he essentially portrayed the interiors of palaces and prisons.

Piranesi's drawings and engravings influenced the style of several artists and characters in Modern Age literature. Many of the neoclassical designers and writers of the low romantic period reorganized their eclectic worldview that preceded them. Piranesi opened his studio, which prospered in Rome, even becoming the city's “calling card”.

Posthumously, Giovanni-Battista Piranesi's engravings were widely explored and reproduced by his contemporaries.