Giovanni Battista Piranesi: A Critical Study, With a List of His Published Works, and Detailed Catalogues, of the Prisons and the Views of Rome (Classic Reprint)

Excerpt from Giovanni Battista Piranesi: A Critical Study, With a List of His Published Works, and Detailed Catalogues, of the Prisons and the Views of RomeThis work does not claim to be a general study of Piranesi's Life and Works. This is well supplied in three recent books - those of Mr. Arthur Samuel (London, 1910), Mr. Albert Giesecke (Leipzig, 1911), and M.Henri Focillon (Paris, 1918), the last being in many ways the most comprehensive, and the only one that offers a complete list of all Piranesi's etched plates.I was first attracted to the study of Piranesi in 1910 by the series of early states of the 'Prisons' acquired by the British Museum from the late Mr. Herbert Batsford. This led to my article in the Burlington Magazine of May, 1911, which was followed in the same place in December, 1913, and January and February, 1914, by notes on Piranesi's etched work in general, with a complete chronological list of his published works treated in somewhat more detail than in either Samuel's or Giesecke's book. It also gave a chronological list of the 'Views of Rome.'Focillon's Catalogue is definitive as far as it goes, but it attempts no detailed description of state. This would be an unnecessary labour with regard to the majority of the plates whose interest is perhaps antiquarian rather than artistic. But I have felt that a detailed catalogue of the 'Prisons' and 'Views of Rome,' which include the majority of Piranesi's most important plates, would be a useful guide to the collector who is often baffled by the varying qualities of these large prints owing to the difficulty of comparing impressions. Thus the earlier and more lightly etched impressions have until quite recently been less valued than the later rebitten states: a judgement which careful comparison may induce the amateur, at least in the case of many of the subjects, to revise.The Antichità Romane dè Tempi della Reptibblica (Archi Trionfali) and the Paestiim series contain examples of equal beauty, but in the latter case the question of state hardly enters, and in the former the division is little more than rebiting and change of numbers in the later edition, details which are sufficiently indicated in my List of Piranesi's Published Works.The mere bulk of the volumes of Piranesi's work has made the necessary comparisons, extending over many years and in a variety of collections, a laborious business, and one that I should long ago have thrown up were it not for a natural aversion from being baffled even where the end to be achieved is small.About the PublisherForgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.comThis book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.