Giovanni Battista Piranesi: Ad Infinitum

Testaverde, Antonina N.

Item

Giovanni Battista Piranesi: Ad Infinitum

Testaverde, Antonina N.

Abstract

The etchings of Giovanni Battista Piranesi have been celebrated across disciplines since their creation in the eighteenth-century. Though Roman vedute were widely produced, Piranesi’s images have stood the test of time. What is it about Piranesi’s lens that provides an unusual perspective of a prevalent view? This research will investigate literature and imagery spanning from ancient Rome to the eighteenth-century in order to present evidence that suggests Piranesi conveyed a didactic allegory in his depictions of Roman antiquities, using the Tempio della Sibilla in Tivoli as a casestudy. Distinct from other vedutisti, the images present metaphorical devices which emphasize physicality of materials and their amalgamation into nature. Are the motifs within the image what sets Piranesi apart from what Margeurite Yourcenar calls the “literal and mediocre confreres that precede him,” as well as his successors, in their modern conceptions of the vedute di Roma?