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8/10/2019 Bevilacqua, M.- Plans, Views and Panoramas, The Visions of Vasi, Nolli, and Piranesi (article-2010)+
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/bevilacqua-m-plans-views-and-panoramas-the-visions-of-vasi-nolli-and 1/18
8/10/2019 Bevilacqua, M.- Plans, Views and Panoramas, The Visions of Vasi, Nolli, and Piranesi (article-2010)+
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/bevilacqua-m-plans-views-and-panoramas-the-visions-of-vasi-nolli-and 2/18
PLANS
VIEWS
AND PANORAMAS:
THE VISIONS
OF VASI
NOLLI
AND
PIRANESI
M
ario
Bevilacqua
In176
9, on the
occasion of the visit of
the
Austrian
Emperor
Jo seph II
and
his brother, Grand
Duke
Pietro Leopoldo of
T uscany, Pope
Clem
ent XIII Rezzonico, 1758-69) had his
nephew, Monsignor
Rezzonico
, Majordomo of
the
papal house
hold, pr es
ent
his
gu
ests
with
the complete works of
Giuseppe
V
as
i, t
he
ten
volumes
of Giovanni
Battista Piranesi s
Opere
raccolte
da
l Cav
ali
ere Gio. Battista Piranesi,
da
lui
con
sommo studio
incise
ill
rame , ci
rc
a
e
antichita,
and Giovanni Battista Nolli s
map
, the
N uo
va
P
ian
ta
di
Roma.
Essentially,
they
were giving
them
Rome,
viewe d by three different eyes, whose visions were distinct
but
in
te r
tw
ined. Vasi, Piranesi
and
Nolli: these three names loom
large in the history
of
eighteenth-century
printmaking and
the
history of
th
e
representation of
the city
of Rome. They form
a
tria
ng
le: Piranesi
trained with
Vasi, Vasi was
the
principal
engraver
fo
r N olli s
Nuova Pianta
di
Roma, and Nolli employed
Piranesi
as
a
fi
eld assistant and, later,
as
a
collaborator
on
his
Piccola
Pianta .
In
the historical moment between 1744 and 1745, the three arguably
cons tituted the most advanced group
of
their kind. All were from
ou ts ide the city : Vasi (1710-82) was Sicilian; Piranesi (1720- 78)
ca
me
from
Venice;
and Nolli (1701- 56) was a Lombard, born
in C omo and
trained
in Milan. But
each came
to Rome and
lmmersed himself
in the
city.
And
although
each
had different
specia lties
and competencies,
they expressed a
common interest
In cartography as a means
and
instrument to
summarize
and orga
nize the historical and architectural knowledge of the city. Th ey
gai ned mome
ntum
through their
shared
experiences
and
common
contacts,
creating among
them a
body of
work that effectively
determined
the outcome of urban cartography and vedutismo in
Rome
and, in many regards , in all of Europe.
Cityscape
and
cartography are considered
two
separate genres
but often they
nestle side
by
side. Sometimes, a plan
map may be
framed by a series of views, and in
other
cases , series of urban views
were accompanied by a plan map or a perspective map. 2 t bears
remembering
that Vasi s
Magn Jicen z e
di
Roma antica e modema
(cat.
15) and Prospetto Grande dell'alma citta di Roma (cat. 9) are tightly
connected, commercially even , to his Nuovo Pianta
di
Roma (cat.
69) as well
as
to his guidebook, the Itinerario istruttivo diviso in
otto stazioni 0 giorante. .. , cat. 102) while Piranesi s
1773
Pianta
di
Roma
(cat. 68) was sold and
bound with the complete
series of his
Vedute
di
Roma
(cat. 78-81). In a climate of heated competition
that stretched over decades, Vasi, Nolli, and Piranesi were some
times collaborators, sometimes rivals,
and
always protagonists
of
their
tim
e.
By examining
their
lives, their connections, and their
approaches to Rome, we can understand not only Vasi but a defin
itive
moment
in the history of both cityscape and cartography .
Eighteenth-century cartography is marked by the affirmation
of
the ichnographic or plan
view map. The
work
of Giovanni
Battista Nolli ,
begun in
1736
and culminating
in
the publication
of
the Nuova Pianta
di
Roma
in 1748 (cat. 66), was
an example
of
this
type
.
His
work, characterized by its topographic exactness and
the
lucid essentiality of its
gr
aphic vocabulary, became a model of
concision and
clarity,
and enjoyed an extraordinary international
8/10/2019 Bevilacqua, M.- Plans, Views and Panoramas, The Visions of Vasi, Nolli, and Piranesi (article-2010)+
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G IU SEPPE VASI 'S ROME
success.
4
Nolli'
s map, which was immediately copied, modified,
and plagiarized, represents the sole original cart
og
raphic produc
tion
of
eighteenth-c entury
Rome
. Aside from
him
the mapmakers
of
thi s period continued to produce re-editions and derivative
variations
on th
e perspective maps
of
the
pr
ev
iou
s
cent
ury.
The
great map of Falda of 1676 (cat. 65), for example , was re-issued
a numb er of
tim
e s
in
1679, 1705, 1730, a
nd
756 and there
are
about ten
ot
her versions
and
derivations engra
ved
during
the co
urse
of th e ce
ntur
y. Likewise, the map of Magg
i-M
aupin,
dating from 1625, was offered anew by the editor Carlo Losi in
1774. Production was driven by
in
creasing demand, and th e
new
Calcografia
Camerale
(founded by Clement XII w ith the ac
qui
si
tion
of
th
e
De
Rossi printwo rks exploited its immense patrimony
of copperplates to
meet
it .
5
Unlik
e the
oe
uvre
of
Nolli, Fa
ld
a,
or
M aggi, Piranesi's cart
o
graphic production
includes
maps of both modern and a
ncient
Rome and maps of arch aeological si tes, such as Hadrian's Villa at
Tivoli
His famous imaginalY, visionary, and
polemi
ca l recon
structions of th e.ancient top ography of the
Urbs
(cat. 68) drew on
cen
turies of ca
rt
ographi c and a
ntiqu
arian c
ultur
e and joined it to
th
e sc ien tific model exemplified in the work of Nolli. Vasi also
updat
ed
tr
a
dition
in a
way that
is sc ient ific and sys
tem
ati c.
In
the
ten bo oks
of
his Magn Jicenze, he t
ook
up Falda's baroq ue tradi
tion of
vedutismo,
th e genre of depicting urban landscapes, and
renew
ed
it , setting himself
in
dialogue with the most advanced
Italian
expo
nen ts of th e genre: Carlevaris and Canaletto (cat. 82)
in Venice
,
Marc'
Antonio dal R e
in
Milan, and
Gi
use
pp
e Zocchi
in
Florence.
Nolli
began survey
in
g Rome in 1736,
th
e same year Vasi
es tablished him self
in
th e city. A few years later,
Pir
anesi, at age
twenty th e
yo
ungest of th e th ree, arrived and learned
printm
.a
kin
g
from
Vasi.
The
earlies t biographers of Piranesi reco unt instances
of in tense rivahy, and the art historical literature has latch ed
on to these stories to advance an image of the genius student
ent ering the studio
of
a master suspicious
of
th e talent
of
his yo
un
g
apprentice
7
T he discord between the two ,
as
narrated by Legrand
and Bianconi, is said to have culminated in attemp ted h
om
icide.
Vasi
defend
ed him self,
pushing
the hot
-b
loo ded
Venetian
back
and sub
se
quen tly dismissing him from the studio . Legrand has
him telling Piranesi, vous et
es
trop peintre
pour
etre jamais
graveur ( you are too much a painter to eve r be an engr aver ) g
Whether
Vasi eve r actually said thi s (and,
in
fac
t ,
wheth
er
Piranesi actually did try to kill him) is an
ot
her question, although
Piranesi's presence as an a
ppr
enti ce
in
Vasi's studio is docum
ented
in contemporary accounts.
9
Piranesi's collaboration on the first
co
ll
ec tion of eng
ra
vin
gs
published by Vasi, the Vedute di R oma sui
Tevere (ca. 1743-44) and reissued in the Mag
n Ji
cenze,
is
accepted
by most
sc
holars
IO
T he influence of Vasi sho ws in the earliest
wo
rks
of
Piranesi, including a small drawing of the Ponte Milvio
(fig. 1 , which displ
ays
strong affi nities to an etching executed
for the Vedute di R oma sui Tevere (cat.4
3 .11
I
wou
ld suggest that
these initial contacts
between
Piranesi
and
Vasi
exten
d b
eyond
th e incidental and are actu ally essenti al to th e more general
artistic development of Piranesi. And the same Roman art istic
and c
ultur
al circles that sponsor
ed
Vasi also promoted the activity
of Piranesi. In these same years
th
at Vasi was devel
opi
ng the idea
that
wo uld become the
Magn Jicenz
e, he was also collabora ting on
the engraving of
Nolli
's uova PiQl1ta (cat. 66). Ini tally, the great
vedutista
Giova nni Paolo Panini was
in
volved with the project
as we ll . Panini exe rt
ed
considerable influence on both Vasi
and
Piranesi,
and
it was he w ho fac ilitated the influence Filippo
Ju
var
ra would
have
on
the
tw
o ar
ti
s
ts.
12
OLL
Giovanni Battista Nolli trained as an engineer and surveyor in
Milan un der the direct supervisi
on of
th e eminent mathemati
cian Giovanni Giacomo Marin
on
i during th e cadastral campaign
ordered by Charl es IV of Austria.
3
Arri
ving
in R ome in 1734-35 ,
Nolli
enthu sias
ti
cally and
somewha
t over-am.bitiously proposed to
survey the entire city wit h th e same new
ca
rto graphic techniques
used in
th
e recent Milan tax n ap. His goal was
to
publish an inno
vative and highly precise map integrat
in
g ancient, med ieval, and
modern Rome.
T his major u ndertaking was initially promoted by a
8/10/2019 Bevilacqua, M.- Plans, Views and Panoramas, The Visions of Vasi, Nolli, and Piranesi (article-2010)+
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Fi
g.
1.
G . Piranesi .
Pont
e Milvio, ca .
1743-47.
Black chalk. Biblioteca
di
Archeolog ia e Storia dell arte.
pr
i
va
te
comp
any
form
ed by
thr
ee friends-
Diego
R evillas,
Canon
An
ton
io Baldani,
and
Marchese Alessandro Gregorio
Capponi-a
trio w
ho se
motives co
mmingl
ed
th
e scientific and
th
e
commer
ci
a
l.
Revillas, a mathematician and cartographer
from
Milan, was
professor of mathematics at
th
e Sapienza (the pontifical university)
as
we ll as an ama
teur
architect and s
tudent
of
th
e philosoph er and
scient ist Francesco Bianchini.
14
Baldani was a canon, a lea
rned
anti
quarian and secretary and librarian of the same Cardinal Alessandro
Albani who
wo
uld later be re
membered
for his me
ntor
ship of
Jo
ha
nn Joa
c
him
Winckelmann.
ls
Capponi
was superintende
nt
at
the
Ca
pitoline
Museum
a
nd one
of the
mo
st e
nthu
sias tic cultural
or
ganizers at the
court
of Clem
e
nt X
(Co rsini ,1
730-40
.16T he
pa
rtne
rs
intended
to
promote
the
ex
haustive surveying
of
every
block of hous
in
g every monum ental building every c
hur
ch,
an
d every vestige of antiquity. T his
in f
ormat
ion was
then
to be
integrated
into
a systematic,
sc
ientific collection
of all
knowledg
e
regarding the structural evo
lution
of
the
Urb s from
antiquity to
the pre sent.
17
The collaborators projected a map of several colors
to better indicate
th
e various periods a
nd
transformations
and
an
encyclopedic register
of
building
s monuments
, a
nd other
stru c
tures,
both
ancient
and mod
ern, including
ho t
el
s
hospital
s
public
offices,
th
eaters, libraries, a
nd
bread s
hops.
Nolli s
work, both
as proj ec
ted
a
nd as
ac tually executed, is
th
e
produ
ct
of
a close collaboration be
twe
en
many
participant
s
all
invo
lved
in
th
e
progr
ess
ive artistic a
nd
int
e
ll
ectual culture
of
Rome.
Card
inal N eri
Cor
sini s circle, for instance,
domin
ated by
Bottari a
nd
Capponi,
developed
pr
ecocious and
inten
se
re
fl
ec
tion
s
a
bout modern urb
anism ,
th
e conservation
of
historical
patrimony
,
a
nd th
e defen
se
a
nd
development of the papal state.
8
Likewise,
the s
umptu
ous and aes
th
e
ti
ca
ll
y pi
onee
ring co
urt of th
e
Car
dinal
MA R
IO BEVILACQUA
39
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GIUSEPPE VASI'S ROME
4
0
Alessandro Albani, enlivened by the presence
of
Antonio Baldani
and Ridolfino Venuti, was probably the most advanced circle for
the debates on ancient art.19 And the sc ien tific conm1Unities of
the French Minim
order
of the Trinita dei
Monti,
with Fathers
Jacquier and Le Seur,
were
important, too,
as
(among
other
contri
butions)
th
e first diffusers
of
the work
of
Newton. Finally, among
th
e first proponents
ofNolli's
work we re the Girolamite monks
of
Sant'Alessio and the Jesuits
of th
e Collegio
Romano. Th
e Kirch
e
rian museum, assembled at the collegio and directed by Father
Contucci, was formative to the mathematic and as tronomic int er
ests of the grea t Jesuit polymath Ruggero Giuseppe Boscovich.
Nolli 's netw orks put him in contact with
ll
these circles.
Th e agenda of
Nolli's back
ers was
too
demanding
and
complex
not to fail. n 1748, tw elve years after starting on the
work,
a re
du
ced version
of
the
proje
ct
took form in
the
publi
cation of the uova Pianta (cat . 66): as splendid as the map is it
lacks
most of
the planners ' initially
co
nceiv
ed
apparatus. Its author
had renounc
ed
his plans
to
create a map
of ancient
Rome and
delegated the anal
ys is
of the medieval and R enai
ssa
nce city
to
hi
s r
ev
ision of
Leonardo
Bufalini's
1551
map, through which he
provided the po
ss
ibility of a comparative analysis
of
ancient topog-
raphy. In the
uova
Pianta the
monum
ental vestig
es of
antiquity
are indicated with a darker line and are integrated into the plan
view
of the contemporary city , thus suggesting an in tegration
of
the
ancient
and modern .
Nolli's precision led him to remeasure all ancient monuments
de
sp
ite the labor involved and even when recent surv
eys
were
available and published . In the case
of th
e Colosseum, for instance,
Nolli rectified the survey that Carlo Fontana had published in
1725 .
2
The ca rto gra
pher
's familiarity
with
the Forma Urbis the
ancient marble map of
Rome
from the
tim
e of Septimius Severus
whose
fra
gments Nolli and R evill
as
mounted a
lon
g the stairs of
the Ca mpidoglio's Palazzo
uovo
in 1742, led him to investigate
more deeply the questions
of
ancient topography. Studying the
fragments of the Forma Urbis with R evillas Nolli attempted to
identify existing ruins in
th
e ancient fragments, advancing
th
e study
of
this scale map
of th
e ancient ci
ty.21
From this e
xper
ience
most
likely arose Nolli's plans
to
dedicate hi m
self to th
e planimetric
rendering
of
great ancient architectural complexes, such as Pliny 's
Villa Laurentina and Hadrian's villa at Tivoli. n his training as
a pragmatic draftsman, his fascination with the st
ructur
e of the
co
ntemp
orary metropoli
s
and
his
pr
eocc
upation
w
ith
technical
problems (fi ss
ur
es
in
large s
tructur
es dra
in
age, and land registers ,
for instance), Nolli had not previou sly developed any interest
for the ancient. Several oversights, such
as
the completion
of
the
Teatro di M arcello
into
the
form of
an amphitheater in
th
e
uova
Pianta reveal his limitations in the field of archaeology. Although
he included references to th e ancient layer
of
the city in the map
and its index, Nolli played to his own strengths by devo tin g
his
a
ttention
primarily to
th
e surv eying of
th
e settecento city. The
great success of Nolli's wo rk
in
Rome
and
in
all of
Europe
may
be meas
ured
by the
number
of
r
e-e
dition
s
copies, a
nd
deriva
ti
ons
a
pp
earing on both the Ro man and the foreign market-especially
in
England-during the second half of the eighteenth century 22
The uova Pianta established new criteria for the representation
of urban
space and laid the foundation for a truly mature and
a
utonomous
ca rtographic aesthetic based on advanced scientific
techniques new
to
surv eying.
PIR NESI
Piranesi 's cartographic production
cl
osely parallels the scientific
revolution
of Nolli, but mu ch more than e
ither Nolli or
Vasi,
Piranesi immersed hi mself
in
antiquity. Hi s early biographer,
Legrand (who used documen tation
provided
directly from the
artist's sons),
23
noted that he was always among the ruins, and
that in
Rome
he found himse
lf
immediately in a wo rld richer with
new
ven
tures and stimuli
than
what he had known in Venice.
Prior
to his arrival
in
Rome at age t
we
nty , Piranesi was
edu ca ted
in
Venice among circles that included the land surveyor
Giova nni Filippini, a former colleague of Nolli on the cadastral
works in Mil an. n
Rome,
Piranesi was closely
ti
ed to
th
e Vene
tian Felice Polanzani, an engraver specializing in cartography
and
who, late r, in 1755, signed the edition of Maire and Boscovich's
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NIIOila C
arta
Ce
ograjica dello
Stato Ecclesiastico
4
Piranesi branched
out
from his Venetian roots, ho wever befriend
in
g the young
pClIsiolll1
aires of
the
French
Academy. in R ome w ith w
hom
he
shared a develop
in
g interest
th
e vIsIonary reformulatIon
of
the
arandeur of the ancient city.
In
Piranesi's case, thi s vision was
n f o r m e by an analytic knowledge of the monuments ga
in
ed
through laborious measuring cam paigns.
25
H e also had his
Roman
influences,
of
this period,
including Giovan
ni Paolo Panini, the
celebrated vedutist and professor
of
perspective at the
French
Academy, a
nd
Giova
nni
Battista
Nolli
, whom Legrand calls,
the
scholar N olli.
In
the bio grapher's words:
[Nolli]
took
up and
produced
also this map of Rome so
admirable for its careful details and its extreme fidelity.
Pira esi followed in their footsteps and he became familiar,
especially because
of
Nolli , with every last ruin
of
anc ient
Ro me. He sought ou t the various ramparts
of
the city's
walls and ran incessan
tl
y from the
ruin
s to the libraries to
learn their nam es and their positions, from the libraries back
to the ruins to admire once again these
imp
osing creations
2 6
In this lively description we sense the excitement of Piranesi
ab
out
the execution
of
a precisely defined professional task
ca
rri
ed
out
un
der the supervisio n of
Nolli
, all in that critical and genera
tive moment of the Nuova Pianta.
At the behest
of
Pope Benedict X IV (Lambertini, 1740-58),
Piranesi also served
as
a field
ass
istant to Nolli in
th
e redefinition
of the
rion
i
of Rome
Y Likewise , he collaborated with Nolli and
R evillas on a prestigious project comm
is
sioned by the Marquis
Capponi, curator
of
the Capitoline Museum. Mentioned abo ve,
the projec t consisted
of
the study of the fragments
of
the
Forma
Urbis
and marked a moment of deep reflection on th e city and its
cartographic represen tation. It was a foundational experience for
all of Piranesi's future
ca
rtographic production.
28
Nolli
recognized
the talents and proclivities
of
th e yo ung
Venetian
and, by 1743,
entrusted hl'ln .
h i
. d . f h' P
p wit t
le
ecoratlOn an
engrav111g
0 IS lanta
lccola
c
at . 67).
Th
us, Piranesi
occupie
d a
position
parallel
to
R O BE V L CQU
Fig. 2 Detailfro
l l
cat 67
41
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G IUSEPPE VAS] S ROME
42
Fig. 3: G.B. Piranesi.
Pl
an of an
cie
nt Rom
e j
rom Le a ntichi ti romane, 175 6, Vol 1, Plate 1
6.
Fig. 4: G. B. Pir l .
esi.
Fragments of the Forma Urbis,jrom Le anti chit a ro mane, 6 Vol. 1, Pl
ate
17.
Vasi , who engraved N olli s Nu ova Pi an
ta
, w ith dec
or
ative parts
by Panini .
29
While Piranes i conte sted Nolli s relative disin terest in
antiquity, he remained fa ithful to the model of cartogr aphic re
pr
e-
se
nt
ation se t fo
rth
by his maste
r.
30
Piran
es
i s fi rs t published map of his
own
appears at th e
ope ning of th e fi rs t vo lume of th e An tichita
Ro
m
an
e which he
published in 175 6, th e year of N olli s death
(fig. 3)
. Titled Pi
an
ta
di
Ro
ma
diseg
nata
co
lla sit
ua
z ione di tutti i Monum en ti antichi, it
pr
esents a plan of th e ruins of th e principal ancient
monum
ent s
w ithin the city walls. Beyond th e walls, th e artist reproduces,
with sha
din
g
to
highlight the material
thickn
ess of th e marble
slabs,
th
e k
no w
n fragme
nt
s of th e Forma
Urhis
w hich he depicts
on th e follow ing plates in mo re detail (fig 4). T he map is based
on N olli s topogra
ph
y with
Pi
ranes i
co
pying
th
e orographic indi-
cations that delim it the city s hills, as we
ll as
the course of th e city
wa
ll
s.
T he
wa
lls and many of
th
e monu men ts are,
in
fac t,
dir
ec tly
traced
on
a
1:
1 scale) f
rom
N olli s Pianta Pi
cco
la (cat. 67),
th
e
same
pr
oj ect on
wh
ich Piranesi h ad wo rked as th e e ngrave
r.
N o lli
had himself plann ed a map
of
ancie
nt
R om e, but it neve r m ade it
to publication.
Although Piranesi s Pianta
di
R
oma
depends
on
N olli in certain
ways, it is not entirely derivative . H e deploys Nolli s material
(so
me of which he had helped pro duce himse lf during his appren-
ticeship) to incisively fo cus on his own interests. Pir anes i s additi
on
of th e
fr
agm e
nt
s
of
th e F
orm
a Urhis in the margins, along with the
cele
br
ative inscriptions markin g the 1742 installa
ti
on of th em by
N olli and R evillas, reflects a new approach .
Th
ese are complete d
with In
dici
distinguishing th e historical
fr
agments from the new,
speculative modern
on
es that Nolli had devise d (and that Pi ranesi
had excluded from re
pr
odu ction). At the e
nd
of the volume, Pira-
nes i inserted a double page m ap sh
ow
ing the cour
ses of
the ancient
a
qu
educt
s,
which he had prepared, aga
in
using N olli s
Pi
an
ta Picco
la
as a te
mpl
ate (cat. 68) . T he delinea
ti
on of the borders of
th
e four-
teen
reg
iones of
th
e ancient city
(a
nces
to rs
of the mo
dern
city s rioni
and th e layout
of
the aqu educts
dr
aws on an unco
mpl
eted proj ect
on which N olli s backer Can
on
A
nt
onio Baldani was invo lved ,
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Fig. 5.
G. B . Pi
rartes i. Pi an
ta
e veduta del Ca mpidog
li
o
antico from
Le
ant
ichi ta ro m ane, 1756, Vol. 1.
Fi
g.
6.
G.
B. Pi ranes i. Pianta de ll anti co Foro Ro m
ano from
Le antichita
romane
1756,
Vo
l
1,
Plate
11
3.
along w ith the learned Jesuit Contuccio
Co
ntu cci and several other
erudite contributors to the
Libro th
at accompanied
th
e Nolli plan.
31
Th is map exte
nd
s its scope to the
north
, beyond the Porta del
Popolo and along the Via Flarninia c
ontro
versially exte
ndin
g the
ancient Campus Martius
up
to the P on te Milvi0
3
Pi
ranesi s borro wings, repetition
s
collaboration
s
a
nd perh
aps,
even, instan ces of plagiarism do
not in
validate
th
e brilliance of
his first c
oh
ere nt and critical ensembl e
of
topographi c plates, his
Antichita R omane, the fi rs t volume of w
hi
ch co
nclud
es w ith plans
of the Forum (
Pi
anta dell antico
Foro
R omano and the Capit oline
Hill
(Pianta
de
l Monte Capitoli
no
(figs . 5,
.
n
thi s instance,
the visionary constru ction
of
a grandi ose ancient metropolis is
made
ta
ngible, me asurable and real
throu
gh a general plan view.
Co nceptually, the
se
plans for eshadow P
ir
anesi s grandiose map
of the Campus M artius of ancien t Rom e.
At
op a solid a
rm
atu re,
Piranesi s Campus M artius is rendered as a dreamlike and utopian
space, far fro m principl
es
of topographic realism ye t still repre
sented through th e terse and crystalline sc ientific patterns devel-
oped by N olli for
th
e ic
hno
graphi c map of
th
e real, mode
rn
, and
meas
ur
able R ome. n
th
e 1773 Pi
a
nta di
R oma e del Campo Marz io
(cat. 68),
Pir
an
es
i again began by tracing Nolli s
P
ian
ta P
icco
la
with out bo therin g to modify th e plan either w ith the updates
tha t N olli had inc
orp
orated bet we en the publication of the Pianta
Pi
la and the later
Pian
ta Grande, or with his ow n wo rk on the
Ave
ntin
e, the church and piazza of
Sa
nta M aria del P riorato. T he
map-
ind
ex stru ctu re advances N olli s v ision and wa s similar to that
used by Giu
se
ppe V
as
i in his P
rospetto
(cat. 9), which
had
been
published in 1765. Piran
es
i, too o
ft
en considered
to
be a geni
us
individualist, is actually deeply imbricated in a wo rld of peers
whom he respected enough to fu el his ow n brilliance with their
ideas a
nd in
nova
tion
s.
MA R IO BEVILAC Q UA
43
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; I
USEPPE VAS
I S RO
ME
44
V SI
H av
in
g arrived
in
Ro me in 1736, Vasi was qui ckly r
ecog
nized
as
one of the principle
eng
ravers in the city. H e was know n especially
for his
s of architec
tur
e, as the erudite antiquarian Francesco
Vettori re
mind
s us
in
his
17
41
A nim
adversiones
in Lame
ll
am
Aeneam
vetustissimam Musei Vi
ctorii
, a t
ex
t in which the author lists a
ll
the
active R oman engravers with their respective specializa
tion
s.
33
A
learned man and courtier, Vettori cultivated exce
ll
ent rapports
with Vasi s proponent Giovanni Gaetano Bot tari and the C orsini
court
of
which he was a central figure) as w e
ll
as with Giu
se
ppe
Bianchini, al
so
one ofP iranesi s fmt R oman p ro tectors. Bianchini s
yo un
g
ass
istant , O razio Or landi co
ntribut
ed text for the
Li
bro
of
N olli s
Pian
ta
G
ra
nde
as we ll as the commentary for the earlies t
boo ks of Vasi s
Magn
iji
.
ce
nze,
which Piranesi wo uld later make use
of in the
dr
afting of the text used in his own
wo
rks.
34
In his
fmt Ro
man years, Vasi worked for the Ca lcogra
fi
a
Ca m
erale, engrav
ing
large celebrative prints and colla
bor
a
tin
g
w ith the pensionna i
res
of the
Fr
ench Academy. T hese included
Pi
ra
nes i s yo
un
g co
ll
eagu
es
and friend s, such as Duflos and Le
Lorrain
wh
o, w ith Vasi, recor ded the annual Jesta de
ll
a Chinea
at
th
e commi
ss
i
on
of
th
e
Co
lo
nn
a princes (cat
s. 86, 88- 90).35
Vas i diligently devo ted himself to managing a wo rkshop, which
becam e increasingly impo rtant and organized in its activity over
th e years. In his wor kspace and under the direct sup ervision
of
the maestro, specialists, young artists, and co
ll
aborators wo rked
on
such important illustrated books as
Ni
cola Zab aglia s 1743 Caste
ll
i
e Ponti,
edit ed by Bottar
6 (cat. 10); a
vo
lum e by
Geo
rg Caspar
von Penner, published in 1748, on the frescoes
of
the Zu ccari
bro
th
ers
in
the Palazzo Fa
rn
ese at
Ca
prarola (cats. 98- 101); and
the
E
va
ngeliario Qu
adru
plex
and various other publica tions
of
Bianc hini, that same schol ar who a
utho
red
th
e texts of
th
e first
two
b
oo
ks of Vasi s
Magnijicenze.
T he wo rks
hop
also pro
du
ced
some
of th
e plates for the
Narrazione
de ll
e
so
lenni
reali
Jes te Jatte
ce
l
ebrare in
Napo
li
da Sua Maes ta
il
R e
de
ll
e
Du
e Sicilie C
arl
o .. per
la
nascita
de
l suo Pr imogen i
to
Fi lipp o . . for Vasi s patron King C ha
rl es
of
the
Two
Sicilies,\an
un
de
rt
ak
in
g
coo
rdinated by
Bo
ttari
hi m
s
el
f
and published in 17 49
ca
ts. 3,
4)
.
7
In thi s same fruitful decade,
Vasi also did the engraving
wo
rk for N olli s N uova Pianta di Roma,
men tioned above, and began the Magnijicenz
e,
the wo rk that
wo uld ens
ur
e his
fa
m e.
T he genes is and exact c
hro no
logy of the ten vo
lume Magniji-
cenze,
published b
etwee
n the years
1747
and
1761,
is still
not
ent irely cl
ear
38 What is abu ndan tly evident , neve rthel
ess,
is the
encyclopedic a
mbition
a
nd
sys tematic me
thod
of
th
e project. The
volumes foll
ow
a clear organiza tional strategy, beginning with
the city s ex terior (Le po rte e mura di R oma , 1747), pr oceeding
to the public squ ares
of
its int erior (Le piazze principa
li
di R oma,
1752) and on to its great
es
t buildings (Le
bas
iliche e chiese an
tiche di
R
oma, 1753; I
pal
az z
i e
e
vie pi
i ce
lebri di
essa, 1754). T hen,
come
s
a book of
bridg
es and ri
ver
views i po
nti, e Ie v
ed
u
te su
I
Tevere,
1754), b
ase
d on and partly reusing material
fr
om a book that Vasi
had pro
du
ced
over
a decade before, the Ve
dute di Roma s
uI Tevere
(probably printed in
1743).
T he res t
of
the volumes
of
th e Magniji-
cenze likewi
se
proc eed by cat
egory
Le chi
ese
parrocch
iali,
i
ss
ued
in
1756; I
conventi e Ie
case
dei chi
er
i
ci rego
l
ar
i,
1756; I
monasteri e
conserv
a
to ri
di donn
e, 175
8; a
nd I co llegi,
sp
eda li
, e lu
og
hi pii, 1759-
concluding w ith a set of villas and gardens
th
at takes the viewer
back
ou
t
of
the dense,
urb
an
fa
bric to the garden zone within
and im
me
diately outs
id
e
th
e city s walls
(Le ville e giardini piu
rimarc
h
evo li
,
1761). V
as
i s sys tematic examina
ti
on of
th
e
modern
city renews
th
e spirit e
mb
odied by prior a
uth
ors of
vedute
of the
baroqu e city, from Ferre ri o to Fa
ld
a a
nd Ve
nturini. Such proj ects,
organized in series, represe
nt
atte
mp t
s at a cartogra
phi
c riassunto
,
or summary, of the city.
T he first
bo
ok of
th
e
Magnijicenze, th
e one treating the wa
ll
s
a
nd
gates of the city, includes a table w
ith
the distances from one
gate to anothe
r.
Th e title that Vasi gives to th e table, M
i
sura
de
ll
e
di
stanze da una
Po
rta
a
ll
al
t
ra
,
ca
mmin
and
o p
er la
st
ra
da Ju
ori
de
ll
e mu
ra,
per dimensione Orizontal
e, Javor
ita a
ll
Autore
di quest
e
Descriz ion i dall Architetto, e Geometra il Sig. Gi
o.
Ba ttista No
i
Co ma sco,} gives direct t
es
tilTlOny of Vasi s relatio nship with and
debt to N olli a
nd
suggests, furthermore, a rapport of esteem . H e
also includ
es
a sma
ll
ic
hn og
ra
phi
c map ori
en
ted w
ith no
rth at
th e top
of
the page, which, though no t copied from N olli, surely
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G
IU
SE
PPE
VAS I
'S ROME
that I wo uld not suffer them
in
any of my own plates, and that
the defects
all
derive
from
not having used
proper
diligence . H e
follows by explaining Vasi' s efforts
to
repair
th
e damage :
Ther
efore
Signor
Vas
i,
in order
to
re
me d
y the me
ntion
ed
defects in th e manner po
ss
ible, took recourse in masking
th e writing wi th the mentioned coun termarks, whi
ch
through modifying the harshne
ss
of th e characters rendered
their de fects less detectable.
This
is
what
I can say
in
regards to the quality of this lettering.
Piranesi goes
on to
rec
onunend
that Ghigi not be paid the full
price, t
es
tifying about rates with a specificity
th
at makes this state
ment
an extremely valuable doc
um
ent for the economic
hi
s
to
ry
of
settec
e
nto
printmaking.
On the basis of L
eg
rand's
co
lorful story of
attempted
homi
cide ,
it
is easy to assume (as so
man
y have) that Piranesi and Vasi
were firm antagonists. But
Pir
anesi's testimony
in
the Ghigi case
shows that Vasi trusted him
and
respected his ju dgment enough to
ask him for a testim.onial and that Piranes i was willing to put his
ow n reputation at Vasi 's service when aske
d.
Th e episode suggests
a degree of es teem between the two sometime collaborators. It
should be noted also that Piranesi's appearance as an outside and
os
tensibly
imp
artial expert witness precludes the possibility
th
at
he was directly
involved in
the preparation of
th
e Prospetto,
as
some have tried to assert.
Th e
wording
on the Prospe tto and the acc
ompanying
Indice
isto rico also caused some problems of a different sort. Vasi h ad care
lessly indicated that th e Piazza di Spagna, the piazza onto which
the Spanish Em.bassy fronted, fell under direct Spanish jurisdiction ,
like the emb
assy
itself. A delicate diplomatic quarrel between th e
church and the kingdom of Spain ensued, and Vasi surely fe lt th e
burden of th e scapegoat. Charles
of
Spain, to whom. th e work
was dedicated, must have been
pl
eased, as he bought up a
ll
copies
of the work a
nd
circulated them
as
gifts.
42
Vasi was al
so
p(llitically as tute: he ga ve his Prospetto to various
European co
urt
s, among
th
em the imperial co
urt
at Vienna and
th
e
Savoya rd court of the kin gs
of
Sardinia at Turin. On September
24,1766
, Natoire, direc
tor of th
e Frnch Academy in
Ro m
e, wrote
to
inform
the
Marqui
s
of
Marigny in Paris that the engraver had
me
ntion
ed his intention to offer the king of France th e
Prosp
etto
w
ith
fini s
hing
touch
es
in
waterco
lor.
4
For this
th
e king
wo
uld
gi ft
Vasi 100 luigi, a considerable
sum
. Th e exchange was considered
sufficiently newsw
orthy
to m
er
it me
ntion
in C hracas's news
paper,
th
e
popular
Diario Ordinario di Roma.
44
N atoire could not
withhold
from snippily wishing,
os
tensibly on Vasi's behalf, that
the other
mon
archs to whom he had sent his Prospe
tto
had al
so
compensated him
so
genero us ly. 45
In
offering to watercolor the
view
to resembl e a painting, Vasi was participating in a traditi
on
of
polychromy, abhorrent as it may be to today
s
collector,
th
at had
ampl e preced
ent
in Ro me. Th e Maggi-Maupin map of R ome,
from
1625, was particularly
we
ll
s
uit
ed to this
pr
actice .
One
can
only imagine what an impression Vasi's wall-sized print
might
have
mad
e with color applied by the mas
ter
himself.
As
mu
ch as s
om
e viewers reveled
in
Vasi's work, he also had his
critics . Louis
XVI,
who had rewarded Vasi
so
richly for the Pros-
petto
found
his engravings of th e interior and
ex
terior of St. Peter's
Basilica undistinguished (cats. 13, 14)45 But eve n the Prospetto
more spectacular than scientific, sometimes
fell
short in circles
that prized technical developments like
Nolli
's or intellectual
flights like
Pir
anesi's. Luigi Vanvitelli, the architect, dismissed it as
being of use primarily as a tourist's souvenir. Vanvitelli, ironically
enough, was both the son of a view painter (Gaspar van Wittel)
and one of the backers listed in the final
volume
of the Magn ficen ze
(1761). Charging his
broth
er with the task of procuring Vasi prints
for Antonio
Rinaldi
, arc
hit
ect at the impe
ri
al court at Saint Peters
bur
g,
Vanvitelli states:
It 's not Piranesi's works that Rinaldi is asking for, but
th
e
views
of Rome
by Vasi, which cost l
ess,
that is to
sa
y about
two
or three zecchini . . .. If I have written Piran
es
i it was a
nusunderstanding, even
i
I have wlitten that I don
't
want
you to acquire the big vi
ew
of Rom e [i. e. Vasi s Prospetto] as
I don
't
like it, though perhaps in St. Petersburg it w
ill
be fine.
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He
seems to have a change of heart in mid para graph , and
con tin ues:
But, since it 's Rinaldi s mo ney you co uld also provide it ,
at a relatively low price, as I believe Vasi has set th e price
low deliberately in order
to se
ll the
work
w hich is of
poor
qua lity,
as
one
mu
st
with
a
thin
g of
poor
taste
4 7
It is true, incidentally, that Vasi's works generally cost less
than Piranesi's,
but
part
of
the disc rep ancy is certainly due to
sc
ale: Piranesi's standard vedute were made from larger plates than
Vasi's 8 Ano
th
er dismi
ssa
l
co
mes
from the
famous
collector Pierre
Jea n Ma riette, w ho declared in January of
1766
that "Vasi's view
of
Ro me
,
taken from th
e Ja
niculum, doe
s
not piqu
e my curiosity
very muc h. 9 But th ese criticisms reflect only a portion
of
public
opinio n. Vasi's engravings supplied the market with a doubtlessly
cap tivat
ing
product
and
were
s
impler
and
more
affordable
th
an
Piranesi' s prints. The reader will recall from the first paragraph of
this essay that Clement XIII hi mse lf bought Vasi's wo rks to offer,
along with those of
Pir
anesi and
Nolli,
to guests and illustriou s
visitors . And in the splendid
librar
y
of
th e Co unt of Firmjan, th e
plenipoten tiary minister in Naples, imperial governor of Milan,
and patron of artists and archi tec ts the works
of
Vasi, Piranes i,
and No lli appear together alongside other se lec t publications illus
trating ancient and mode
rn Rom
e.
50
Vas i is often
comp
ared to
Pir
anesi, but the
pro
s and cons of
each from an e
ighteen
th -
ce
ntury
point
of
view eme
rge w
ith
a certa
in
clarity in the assessment of a
contempor
ary observer,
the French
eco
nomist and politician
Jean
-
Marie-Roland
de la
Platiere . Speaking of Pi anesi , he wr ites:
No
o
ne
h
as
engraved
th
e ruins in a
mann
er
quit
e so grand,
and wi
th
as
much
effect.
This
Ve netian has a ta
lent
so
superior in this genre,
that
he renders
ce
rtain obj ects
mo r
e
strongly than
nature
it
se
lf
do
es.
His burin,
it is tru e, is
not
alw
ay
s the
most
faithful [to reality],
he
knows well
how
to
l
d to a subj ect when his
mod
el is s
par
se
or
arid
....
As for
R O
BEVIL CQl
F <;. 7. Piranes i Piazza Sa n Pietro, ca . 1775 from Vedute di
Kama.
Fi
g
8.
Giu
se
ppe
Pia zza San Pietro. 177
4.
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GIUSEP PE VAS I'S ROME
regular architecture, he renders it
with
mediocrity. Vasi
gives
mo r
e precision and a better effect: one can
ju d
ge,
for instance, from th e view
of
th e Piazza and C
hur
ch of
San Pietro , which both artists have etched. Vasi's version
is mu ch sup erior to that of Piranes i's (cats. 7, 8).
As
for
figure-d rawing, this is an enterprise
from
which he [Pira
ne
si] should abstain
himself
I highly esteem
Piran
esi 's
etching
s, who wouldn ' t? [But] his wo rkshop is a non-stop
market, where one is disappointed to see talent doubly
degraded by an avidity that is at
on
ce bitter and sham
ef
up l
While Vasi's Prospetto r
em
ains remarkably and consistently
popular (even today, as the mysterious owner
of
the copperplates
continues to produce copies
that
are alternately passed off as eith er
antique or new), the Magnificenze has been less
fortun
ate: t stood
up
less firmly
to
the demands of romanticism,
and
th e vo gue for its
vo
lumes died out
in
the e
ighteenth
century. An
attempt to
revive
the mark
et after his dea
th
with new produc
tion
of the prints-and
to fraudul
en
tly pass them off as the collaboration of V
as
i a
nd Pira
nesi im ed at a gullible audi ence who recognized the latter artist
as a celebrity
c
ats.
25, 32, 34, 48).
The author of thi s attempt ,
possibly V
as
i' s
son Mari
ano, affixed the falsified insc
ription
Vasi
e
Piran
es i upon the co
pp
erplates and also
aw
kwardly so
ught to
update the images by e
limin
a
ting outdated
details
in
th e
clothin
g
of the p
eo
ple and th e style of
the
carriages. 52
n he middle dec ad
es
of th e eighteenth century, Nolli, Vasi,
and
Piranes i all la
id
th e
foundation
s for a new vision of Rom e,
includin
g both its millen nial gl
ory and
its role in modernity. But
each leg of this
tripod
is distinct.
Piran
esi's poetics is pervaded
with a vision of grandiose antiquity and
tr
agedy of th e sort
that
is
characte ristic of
Vico
. Hi s modus operandi and taste for the sublime
are distant from the rationa l, clean, and crystalline method s of
Nolli, even ifPiranesi found co nsiderable inspiration in Nolli.
On
the
other
hand, Vasi's sys t
em
atic analysis
of
the
mo d
ern metrop
o
li
s
in
his seri
es
of
extremely rich views, consistently equal
in
size,
format, and technique, constitutes an exhaustive
taxonometric
catalogue. His w ork, in the end , is both popular and didactic,
offering at a glance a summary view yet display
in
g a systematic
methodology,
always lucid , rational, and concei
ved
in
th
e true
spirit
of
the eighteenth century. Piranes
i,
by contrast, is
sel
ec
tive, and as he ages, he increasingly privileges effect
ov
er truth.
Piran
es i,
in
his
135
l
arge-format
vedute (cat
s.
78-8
1), choo
ses hls
subjects liberally, pri vileging th e most commercially viable themes
(Saint Peter's Basilica, the Trevi Fountain, the
Co
losseum) and
excludin
g either partially or en tirely others considered less impo
r
tant . Plates of palaces, villas,
indi
v
idu
al churches , and scenes of
piazzas are, in fact,
quit
e rare
in
his oeuvre. Vasi, on the other
hand , pro ves to be faithful to himself over the decades in which
the publica tion of th e M agnifice nze soars. He gives his
view
er the
w hole ensemble, which in its totality attains a surpassing greatne
ss.
Translated from the I
ta
lian by Stephen McCormick
Bruno
Contard
i, 1998, p. 55. Piranesi e
La
corte
Rezzoni
c
a,
in Barbara
Jatta, ed.
Piran
es
i e l Aventino
(
Ro m
e: 1998), pp. 4
9-
55.
2 Consider, for instance, Ludovico Ughi 's map of Venice from 1729, which
seems to have been conceived
in
close relationship to D omenico Lo
vi
sa's
Gran teatro
di
Venezia;
M arc'A ntonio dal Re ' s
vedu
te of Mi lan, produced in
1734 along with a planimetri c map of the c ity ba sed on a recent tax map);
and the 1731 plan
of Flor
ence by Ferdin
ando
Ruggieri, which was regula
rl
y
sold along wit h Giuseppe Zo cchi's series of views, published in 1744.
3 Luisa Scalabroni,
Giuseppe
Va
si
1710-1782),
Ro m
e 1981, pa
ss
im
;
Oli
vi
er
Mi
chel,
L Accademia
in
Le Palais Famese ,
2,
Ro
me, 1981, pp.
567-611
;
H enry Millon,
Vasi-Piranesi
:f
uvarra ,
in Georges Brunei, ed. ,
Piran
ese
et les
FraI1
(ai
s Rome , 1983, pp. 345- 354; Giovanna Curcio, ed.,
Giu
sepp
e V
asi:
Palazz i di Roma, Milan 1993 ; John Moore, Prints, Sa lami and C heese:
Savoring the
Roman
F
es
tival
of
the C hin e
a,
in
Art Bulletin,
77 (1995),
pp.
584-606;
Mario Gori
Sa ss
o
li
, G iuseppe
Vas
i: 'Magnificenze' di
Ro m
a
mod
erna,' in Mario Bev
il
acqua, e
d.
,
Nolli Va si Piranesi: Ilr/m agin e
di
Ramo
antica e mod ema , Rappresentare e c
onoscere
la metrop oli dei Lumi,
pp. 31- 35;
Paolo C oen,
Arte, cultura e me
rcato
in una bott
ega
rOllana del
XV I
II
sec
olo:
L impresa c
al
cografica di Giuse
pp
e e
Mari
ano Va si ra ntinuita e rin/1.ovame
llf
o,
in Bo llettino d'arte ,
Vo l.
115 , 2001, pp. 23- 74; Allen C een, G iu
se
ppe
Vasi, in Edgar Peters
Bowron
a
nd
Joseph
J. Ri
shel, eds.,
Art in Rome
in
the
Eighteenth Century,
London, 2000, pp. 152- 154; Anna Grelle
Iusco,
G iusepp e Vasi. II fonda di matrici dell lstituto Naz ionale per la Grafica.
Osservaz ioni e divagaz ion i, Ro me, 2004.
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GIUSEPPE VASI'S ROME
50
fidelite. Piran
es
i s'a ttachait
it
leurs p
as,
il apprit
it
connaitre surtout avec ce
dernier ju
squ 'aux mo
indr
es vestiges d
es ant
iguites de Ro me; il recherchait
les diff
ntes enceint es de ses 111urs et courait sans cesse des
Ruin
es aux
bibliotheques pour
tr
ouver l
es
noms, la po si tion et la destination de ses
masses , des bibli othegues aux
Ruines po ur
admirer e
ncor
e ces fabriqu
es
ill1posantes .
27
Bernardi no Bernardini ,
Des criz ione del nuovo ripartirn
ento
de' rioni
di
Ramo
fatto per
ordine
di N. S. Papa Benedetto X IV, Rome, 1744.
28
John
Pinto, Forma Urbis Roma
e,
op. cit. , pp.
143-46.
29 For dating, c
fr.
Mario Bev ilacqua, R oma el secolo dei LUll1i op. cit. pp.
38, 40; Luigi Fi cacci, The
Di
scovery
of
Rom e out of the
Sp
iri
t
of
Piron esi, in
idem, Pi
rones
i.
The Complete Etch ings, Koln
, 2000, pp. 18- 19.
30 Allan Ceen, Pir
an
es
i and Nolli:
lrn
ago
urbis
Ro
mae
,
in Malco
lm
Campbell, ed.,
Pironesi: R ome Recorded ,
Ro m e, 1990, pp.
17
-2 1.
31
Some
of
the
res ults of this map, the
Tavola
topog rajica di R oma
in
wi si
disl1lostrana
gli andamfllti degli al1tichi
acquedotti we
re taken up in Alberto
Cassio, Co rso dell'Acque Antiche portate
da
lantarle contrade ... , I- I Ro me
1756-57.
32
Mario Bevilacqua, ed.,
Piran
esi
Ta ccuini di Modema
(
Ro m
e:
2008), I.
pp.
226-27.
33 Fra ncesco Vettor i, A nimadversiones in Lamella
Aeneal1l vetustissill1am
iVlusei
Victorii ,
Rome,
1741, p. 16.
34 Mario Bevilacqua,
The Youn
g Piranesi: th e Itin era ri es of his Formation ,
in F Barry, M. Bevilacqua , H. Hyde Minor, e ds. The Serpent and
the
Stylus:
Essays on G.
B. Piran
esi (Ann Arbor: 2006).
35 Archivio di Stato di
Roma,
Ca mera1e
n
Calcografia, b. 6, with reco rd
of payments to engrave rs from 1738 to 1746; Pao lo
Co
en
, op. cit. , pp.
27 -28; John Moo re,
Prints,
sa
lami
and cheese , cit .; idem , Buildirrg set pieces in
eighteenth- century ROln
e:
the
case
of he Ch in
ea
,
in M emoirs of the
Ameri
can
Academy in R ome ,
43 (1998-1999),
pp. 183-292
.;
Mari o
Go
ri Sassoli,
De
lla
Chinea e di altre 'Macchine di Gioia' . Apparati arch itettonici perfuochi
d
'a
rtificio a R oma nel Settecen to
(R oma
1994 ;
[d. ,
La
cer
ilnonia della Ch in
ea.
Dal teatro delle
corti
al popolo
festegg
ial1te, in M arcello Fagiolo, ed. , La festa a
R oma dol Ri l1asci/'llento 1 1870. At/ant
e,
Torino 1997, pp. 42 -55.
36
Nicola
Zabag
lia,
Caste
lli
e ponti di maestro N icco
la
Zabag
li
a ,
Ro m e,
1743.
Cfr. Ange la Marino , ed., Sap ere e
sap
erfa re nella Fabbrica di S. Pietro: Castelli
e ponti di
Ma
est ro Niccola Zabaglia, 1743, Rome, 2008.
37 Though the prince was born in 1747, the wo rk on the festival b
ook
took
ove r t wo years. Heather H yde Minor, R ejecting Piran esi, op. cit.
38 Millon
,
op
. cit. , passim; and Sca
1ab
ron i , op. c
it
., p .
412.
39 Co
en,
op. cit., p. 60.
40 Mario Go ri Sassoli , Roma veduta: Disegni e stamp e panora
m,i
che della
citta dal XV al X IX secolo , in idem., ed., Roma verl
uta:
Diseg
l i
e stalt/pe
pal/oralllic/le della
citra rial
XV 1 XIX
seco lo, Rome , 2000, pp. 79-94.
41
Bibli oteca Aposto li
ca
Vati
ca
n
a,
Autografi Ferrajoli , sezione III ,
ra
ccolta
Visconti, n. 5761, anno 1765.
Th
e text, in full and in the origi nal Italian,
reads: 10 sottoscritto ricercato per la velid ad osserva re, e dire con mio
giuramento,
se
i
ca
ratteri , che
so
no in
cis
i dal Sig.
D. Gi
o. Batta Ghigi nei
ra lll
i
del Sig. Giu se ppe Vasi, i quali appartengono
alla
Prospetti
va
di Roma siano
stati fa tti ad u so d'arte, 0
pure se
siano
dif
ettosi; e
po
i rifelire qual s
ia il l
o
ro
prezzo, e vaJore;
Avendo
li percia diligente
mente
osserva
ti
in alcun e
li
ste d i
ca
rta ove si liconosce l'opera del Sig. Abbate Ghi
gi
pura, e sc hietta
per
essere
state stampate prim
a,
che il Sig. Va si avesse
co
ntrasegnati dd. ca ratteli, con
tante linee, co
me
ho ve
dut
o d'altre liste
di ca
rta
di
posteliore
impress
ione.
vedo , che non v'e, che dire intorno alla fornu de
ll
e lettere; imp eroche se ella
non e pelf etta, mente di meno ella e tollerabile, ma osservo
per
altro primiera
mente, che Ie linee fra loro non sono in dista nze uguali; secondariamente, che
Ie
lettere di aJc une linee so no pili pi cco1e di
qu
elle dell'altre;
in
terzo
lu
ogo,
che in alcune linee Ie lettere
so
no pili strette; in qua rto lu ogo, che Ie majus
cole
d.i
u
na
medesima lin
ea non so no
ugu
alment
e alte, ma qual'e pill grand
e,
quai'e pi ll piccola; ed in quinto luogo, che n
on
essendo capu ta in una linea
tutt
a la dicitura com
presa
so tto
que
sto , e quel nunm1ero il Sig. Abbate Ghigi
in molti di questi incontri ne ha tiportato il rimanente nello spatio susseg
ue
nt
e: difetti
tutt
i cosi disgradevo
li
, che da me
non
si
soffr
ir
e
bb
ero in alc un
dei
mi
ei ra nti, e deri
va
ti tutti dal non
ess
ere stata usata la
do
vuta diligenza .
Cosi che il Sig. Vasi
per
rimediare a tutti i divisati difetti nella maniera possi
bile e ricorso a velare tut ta la sc ri ttura con i dd. contrasegni, i quali men tre
modiftca no I'asprezza dei caratteri, ne rendono meno se nsibile il difettoso; e
cia e
quanto
io po sso dire de lla
qualid
di questa
littur
a. Quamo a1 prezzo
po
i, che suol pagarsi non agli Inciso ri, che o perano cosi negligentemente,
com e ha fatto il Si
g.
Abbate Ghigi nei prede tti rami del Sig. Vasi, ma acoloro,
che u
sa
no Ie divisate diligenze, posso attestare essere sempre stato, ed
esse
r
solito darsi sei pauo li , e
ta
lora cinque pauoli per
og
ni centinaj o di parol
e, e.
questo e il prezzo, che pagasi ... non
so
lo in R oma , ma in
Napo
li , in Firenze,
ed
in Venez
ia
, ed il prezzo , c
he
io
so
no srato solito di
pa ga
re per c ir
ca
duemila
rami da m e incisi, e da diversi Incisori scri tti . .
Cia
e
quanto
io
po
sso att
es
tare , e riferire per la ve ritit , e
medi
ante il mio
g
iuramento per la piena sc ienza, che io ho di tali cose, che rutto il giorno
s
ono
acc
adut
e, ed acca
don
o a m e medesimo, e c he
ho
veduto accadere a
tanti altr i Inciso ri in Ro ma. [n fede Ro ma que sto di primo Giugno 1765 .
Gio. Barta Piranes
i.
42 Thi s
incident
has been disc usse d and made famous by Al essandro Anselmi,
II Palazz o dell'Alllba
sci
ata
di
Spagl/o presso la Santa Sede ,
Ro me, 2001,
pp.
187-88.
43
Corr
espondOll ce des
Directeur
s de I A cademie
de Fran
ce aR
ome
1666 1793
edit ed by Anatole de M ontaiglon , Jul es Guiffrey, X II
(1764-177
4), Paris ,
1902, pp. 1
27-28
, 132, 136.
44 Coen, op . cit. , p. 57
n.
195; Su
sa
nn a Pasquali, op. cit . See also the letters
of
Va
si
to Mar
igny in
Correspon riOl
lCe
rles Directelm ,
pp.
14
8-
49,
and th e
repli es
of
M arigny to Nato ire and Vasi , ibirl
.,
pp.
147- 4
8;
152- 54; as
we ll as
Chracas, Diorio
Orrlir/Orio
, n . 7782, May 16, 1767.
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Detail
o
Cat
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