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piranesi
Emil Kaufmann

1955
"Giambattista Piranesi" in Architecture in the Age of Reason

1 b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z

POUR NE PAS FAIRE DE CET ART SUBLIME UN VIL METIER OU L'ON NE FEROIT QUE COPIER SANS CHOIX
SO AS NOT TO MAKE THIS SUBLIME ART A VIL TRADE WHERE WE ONLY WOULD LIKE TO COPY WITHOUT CHOICE

280. Publius Terentius Afer, Eunuchus, ed. T. L. Papillon (Oxford, 1877), prologue. In the etching, vas should read vos.

Inscriptions on other plates likewise present Piranesi's personal point of view. Plate V contains a further defense of the modern, taken from the prologue of Terence's Eunuchus: AEQUUM. EST. VOS. COGNOSCERE. ATQUE. IGNOSCERE. QUAE, VETERES. FACTITARUNT. SI FACIUNT. NOVI. ('Tis but fair then for you to admit and allow the deed, if moderns do for once what their ancestors have done over and over.)²⁸⁰ Indiscriminate copying is censored in the inscription on Plate VIII taken from Leroy, the editor of Les Ruines des plus beaux monuments de la Grèce: POUR. NE. PAS. FAIRE. DE. CET. ART. SUBLIME. UN. VIL. METIER. OU L'ON. NE. FEROIT. QUE. COPIER. SANS. CHOIX. If the compositions left any doubt about the revolutionary spirit of Piranesi, the inscriptions would certainly dispel it. We should of course keep in mind that Piranesi did not go beyond the negation of the old system. The time was not yet ripe for the next step.

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