Exploring Rome Piranesi and His Contemporaries

The response to Rome by eighteenth-century Italian, French, and British artists is the subject of this beautifully illustrated, large-format book. The focal point is a group of approximately 40 drawings and prints by Giovanni Battista Piranesi (1720-1778), whose dramatic and often fanciful views of Rome helped to create and spread a new vision of antiquity. Most of the works illustrated are drawn from the collections of the Canadian Centre for Architecture and the Pierpont Morgan Library, whose holdings of Piranesi drawings is the largest in the world. The works encompass the full scope of Piranesi's activities as architect, antiquarian, and designer. Works by Pannini, Fragonard, Robert Adam, Filippo Juvarra, Hubert Robert, Jean-Laurent Legeay, Charles de Wailly, and other eighteenth-century artists who drew inspiration from Roman art, architecture, and the surrounding countryside during this period are also included. In addition to texts by the three main authors, there are essays by John Wilton-Ely and Elisabeth Kieven, and entries by Henry Millon, Christine Challingsworth, Ruth S. Kraemer, and Jean de Cayeux.