Calcography of the Piranesi, or, Treatise on the Arts of Architecture, Painting and Sculpture: Developed by the View of the Principal Ancient and Modern Monuments
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After working for many years, despite the innumerable difficulties they had to overcome, the Piranesis are today in a position to carry out with certainty the project formed by their ancestors, that of transmitting to posterity the collection masterpieces of antiquity that existed in ancient Greece, in Sicily, in Rome; in a word, over the immense expanse of the country which today composes the States of the King of Naples, those of the Holy Father, and part of the Italian Republic.
It was not enough to have succeeded in bringing together, in Paris, a Collection as numerous as it is important, of original Drawings taken on the very places where the Monuments existed. Collection formed by a work constantly followed for more than eighty years; it was necessary to consider the means of ensuring the composition and publication of a work, the importance of which should not remain exposed to the chances of commerce, or to the uncertainties of an enterprise formed by a purely interested society. It belonged only to France to ensure these means of execution; and it is to the influence of his Government, it is to the powerful protection of Napoleon Bonaparte and his illustrious Family; it is to the influence of the Ministers Chaptal and Talleyrand, that the Piranesis owed the recovery of most of the original drawings disseminated during the war of which Italy was the theater for several years. What other country than France could it better suit to become the central point of an establishment whose background guarantees a fertile source of materials equally useful for the arts of Architecture, Sculpture and Painting? We can convince ourselves daily that France possesses a collection of works of art of all kinds which, from time immemorial, will excite the admiration of the whole world. A possession so important to procure the benefits it promises, wanted to be augmented with the detailed knowledge of objects which no human force can actually conquer. It is not enough for the Artist to have before his eyes what Antiquity offers the most beautiful in Sculpture, in Painting; the genius of the ancients did not excel, leaving great monuments to posterity.
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