pp. 12-14
After the rupture with Vasi, Piranesi made his way back to Venice and endeavoured to earn a living there as an architect, studying at the same time under
Tiepolo, who gave him instruction in historical painting. With Polanzani he studied figure design. Attaining, however, little financial success at Venice, he returned to Rome [1744], and thence went to Naples to paint. But it soon became clear to him that his powers did not lie in that branch of art.
Interest in archaeological matters was the chief reason for his journey to Naples. He visited Paestum and Pompeii, and also Herculaneum, which had been discovered in 1711 by Charles III of the Two Sicilies. Although the Theatre at Herculaneum was below the level of the ground and in almost total darkness, his imagination and instinctive knowledge realised what the whole had originally been like. Using such information as the discoverers had by that time acquired, he made a plan of the Theatre, supplying details of which there was no record, according to his own ideas of what the structure had been. In after years it was his intention to publish etchings of these researches, and he had planned to proceed with them as soon as he had finished the etchings of Hadrian's Villa at Tivoli. In this he was forestalled by death. He died while he was at work upon the plates of Hadrian's Villa. The etchings of Herculaneum were eventually finished and published, in 1783, after his death, by his son Francesco, and dedicated to Gustavus III of Sweden. There are evidences, however, that Francesco in this connection made use of Palladio's Le Terme del Romani.
pp.16-18
Thrown on his own resources, he directed all his powers to etching, and in about 1741, when he was twenty-one years old, published four romantic compositions of ruins framed in a decoration of scrolls and volutes of the type peculiar to the period. They are not dated, but they indicate where Piranesi was living; on them is his address--near the French Academy, in the Corso, opposite the Palazzo Doria Pamphili. These four compositions are
often found in the volume entitled Opere Varie published by Bouchard in 1750. In 1748 were published the first of his etchings which are dated; he called them Antichità Romane de Tempi delta Repubblica e de' primi Imperatori etc. (Archi Trionfali Antichi Tempi etc.), Roma 1748. They include 30 plates of views of several Roman buildings in the provinces, such as the Amphitheatre of Verona, and the Triumphal Arches of Pola in Istria, of Ancona, and of Rimini. He dedicated them to the literary antiquary Bottari, private chaplain to the etcher's patron, Pope Benedict XIV. Monsignore Bottari was the discoverer of the twelfth-century manuscript of The Vision of Alberico from which, says Isaac D' Israeli, Dante had borrowed or stolen the Inferno. These Antichità plates were reissued, under the same date, with the title altered to Alcune vedute di Archi Trionfali etc., and two fresh plates by Francesco were added.
pp.22-23
His mark was made immediately the impressions from his first plates appeared. Assisted by a brilliant needle and a delicate touch, he conveyed his own enthusiasm to all who examined his work. At Rome it was soon perceived that he possessed the skill to deal with architectural subjects in a manner incomparably superior to that in which such subjects had hitherto been treated. His fiery, contemptuous, quarrelsome disposition had made him conspicuous; a singularly facile and vigorous pencil now gained him distinction, and the growing fashion for archaeological research was confirmed, if not set, by Piranesi.
His plates appeared with inscriptions disclosing a wealth of arch^ological information, and these inscriptions Bianconi, who wrote Piranesi's obituary notice in the Antologia Romana, states were the outcome of assistance from Bottari and the learned Jesuit Father Contucci. But various authorities, among others Tipaldo, contradict this allegation, and Piranesi's son, in after years, put forward documentary evidence to prove that not only was Piranesi quite capable of composing the inscriptions, but that he was well versed in a knowledge of both Latin and Greek. A quarrel with Volpi, respecting some temples, also proved his antiquarian knowledge, and, on the whole, the evidence goes to show that the inscriptions may be attributed to the etcher himself.
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pp. 31-34
Towards the end of Piranesi's life his children were of assistance; but of his five children only two were old enough, before their father's death, to be of real help, namely, Francesco, born in 1748 [sic], and Laura, born in 1750 [sic]. They both etched somewhat in their father's style, and Francesco did fair work, as may be best seen in the Paestum etchings; a diligent worker, he possessed to some extent the power by which his father's work is marked, but in imagination and taste he was entirely lacking. After their father's death they turned to print-selling more than to producing, and Francesco and Laura, joined by their brother Pietro, published at Rome a quantity of engravings, and among them several sets of Piroli's engravings.
The frontispiece of this volume is reproduced from a portrait of Piranesi which his son Francesco engraved after the painting of Guisseppe Cades. Francesco etched the Il Teatro d'Ercolano plates which were presumably made up from his father's drawings, with the assistance of Palladio's Le Terme del Romani. These etchings show the relative difference in the quality of the father's ability as compared with that of the son. But in any case, however good Francesco may be considered, he suffers by comparison, as is usually the case where a son has to compete with his father's reputation.
Piroli the pupil drew the statue executed by Angelini which sometimes appears bound up with the works of Piranesi; the plate was engraved by Francesco. The statue itself was erected in the Priorato di Malta which was at one time connected with the Church of Santa Maria Aventina. It is mentioned by Baron Stolberg in his Travels, This church Piranesi restored about the year 1765, and there he lies buried, although immediately after death his body was taken to S. Andrea della Fratte, where it remained till it was decided that Santa Maria Aventina should be its final resting-place. There existed in Rome, and there is no reason to suppose that it has been destroyed, but it cannot be traced, a bust of Piranesi by Alessandro d'Este, the cost of which Canova defrayed. It used to stand in the Palace of the Conservatori. His contemporary Bianconi declares the bust to be a bad likeness.
p.98
Nearly a thousand plates were published during his lifetime, and besides the question of monetary return the frequency with which fresh plates appeared injured his reputation. Had only a few subjects been etched and a limited number of impressions taken from the plates, the etchings would have been eagerly sought after, and the price obtainable correspondingly higher.
The glut was accentuated after his death, for his sons Francesco and Pietro republished the etchings. By that time, however, the plates had become worn and the impressions had lost their charm and their original crispness. Unfortunately, the mischief did not stop there ; the plates were republished by Firmin Didot in 1835 at Paris, by which time all the sharpness which was the "quiddity" of the beauty of the etchings had disappeared for ever.
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pp. 122-23
Soane having acquired an affectation of the Classic, grew into the habit of following Piranesi's ideas, and then attained the power of absorbing the marked peculiarities of the treatment and adapting them to his own purposes. Soane did not rely on Piranesi's etchings. He made elaborate drawings and measured plans of the Temple of Sibyl at Tivoli. The Sir John Soane's Museum contains a number of Soane's drawings of this nature, and, in addition, a quantity of interesting drawings of ruins by Robert Adam, which recall Piranesi's type of work and were probably drawn by Adam when he was in Italy and in close touch with Piranesi and Clerisseau.
In this Museum are the drawings which perhaps are as well known as any of Piranesi's works--those of the Temple of Neptune at Paestum, executed by Piranesi and his son Francesco. They afford proper opportunity of seeing the method by which the father worked, and also of judging how good was Francesco's work. The association between Soane and the Piranesi family endured longer than Piranesi's life. The Soane Museum gives proof that Soane continued it by a friendship with Piranesi's son Francesco, for in the Museum there exist records that Francesco Piranesi actually gave Sir John Soane the Paestum series of drawings referred to above.
p.132
Among the other favourites of the etcher was the Pantheon. He etched in detail several plates of the Pantheon with the utmost care: he reproduced to scale complete plans, sections, and elevations of this building.
His son Francesco etched and published several excellent plates of the Pantheon; they appear in company with his father's etched plates of the same building, but without acknowledgment of assistance from his father's elaborate studies, to which Francesco undoubtedly had access.
p.145-47
Numbers of other English amateurs and collectors became interested in Piranesi, and many of their names can be seen in his etchings. The principal agents assisting the collectors were two painters, but as painters they are not usually recalled. One was Jenkins, who as an artist had accompanied to Rome
Richard Wilson, the great English landscape painter. Jenkins learnt much in his company, though apparently not of painting, and having amassed a considerable fortune by favour of Clement XIV, at length became the principal English banker in Rome; on the arrival of the French, however, he was driven from the city, and all his property was confiscated by them. He fled to England, and died at Great Yarmouth immediately on his landing after a storm at sea, in 1798.
The other was Gavin Hamilton, of Murdieston, a portrait painter, who had spent most of his life at Rome, where he ultimately died of fright, during the French invasion in 1797.
They dabbled at first as collectors for their own pleasure, and as amateurs. But by degrees both took seriously to selling for profit, and at length were able to gather around them a valuable circle of customers. Jenkins financed the partnership, and Hamilton was the salesman. As time went on, Hamilton found his aboveground supply of objets d'art less than enough to meet the demand of his customers; he forthwith turned to excavating, and with capital success. To Gavin Hamilton certainly must be given credit for having played the chief part in getting together one or more of the collections which, in course of time, went to form the British Museum.
Monsieur Geffroy, dealing with some unedited papers of Francesco Piranesi at Stockholm, tells of Gavin Hamilton. He was, says M. Geffroy, celebrated in Rome, "par ses belles manieres qui n'excluaient pas l'habilete," ["by his beautiful manners which did not exclude skill"] and he rendered himself interesting by the tears he shed on effecting a sale of a work of art.
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