Antichità Romane de' tempi della Repubblica, e de' primi Imperatori, disegnate, ed incise da G.B.Piranesi architetto Veneziano… Parte Prima [-Seconda]

Rome: Si vende dall' Autore dirimpetta l'Academia di Franzia, 1748. FIRST EDITION, FIRST ISSUE. The paper bears the watermark “lily within two circles”. Hardcover. Fine. Bound in contemporary patterned boards, painted vellum spine and corners (boards and paint with some wear). Internally a fine copy with very wide margins and minimal light foxing. Part I: 4 unnumbered plates comprising the title, dedication, and 2 leaves of inscriptions; 11 plates numbered 1, 6-15 (the plate numbered “1” is in some copies corrected in ink to “5”). Part II: title, 13 plates numbered 16-28, and 1 unnumbered plate “Facciate della chiesa di S. Vito. Arco di Galieno”, as (truncated) called for. First edition of this work comprising some of Piranesi's earliest etchings of ancient Roman monuments. These views are “among his purest etchings in their early states. One of them, the Arco di Galieno, has a simplicity of tone reminiscent of Tiepolo or Canaletto, but in most of the others Piranesi is already using double biting to add variety and depth to his light and shade. From the purely artistic side there is scarcely anything more attractive in Piranesi’s work than this early series.”(Hind)

The work was published at Piranesi’s first Rome address, on the Corso across from the French Academy (i.e. Palazzo Salviati.) The first part comprises views of monuments within the city; in the second “Antichità Romane fuori di Roma…”, Piranesi presents others found in Rimini, Pola, Foligno, Albano, Ancona, and elsewhere. Piranesi's archaeological interests are evident not only in the historical accuracy of the views, but in the two plates recording the inscriptions found on the arches and bridges depicted in the plates. The first of the two plates also includes a list of the subjects illustrated, though the final, unnumbered Arco di Galieno plate is not included in the list.

In the dedication, Piranesi explains that he produced this dual volume of etchings for the purpose of placing unobserved and hidden monuments before the eyes of all, while at the same time presenting the well-known ones to a broader, international audience.

“These exquisite plates, based on sketches made during Piranesi’s travels in Italy, c.1743-47, may be considered among the artist’s graphic masterpieces. They possess a unity and range of experiment lacking in the ‘Varie Vedute’ and even in the early plates of the larger ‘Vedute di Roma’, which probably overlap this series in time… They show strong evidence of Tiepolo's decisive influence on Piranesi during the latter's return visit to Venice in the mid-1740's, together with the first signs of certain compositional ideas which were to be transferred to the larger Vedute in the next decade.”(Wilton-Ely, t. I, p. 144)

The work is dedicated to Monsignor Giovanni Gaetano Bottari, chaplain of Benedict XIV, Vatican Librarian, and art historian, whom Piranesi met while frequenting Casa Corsini, at the time a meeting place for intellectual and, under Bottari’s stewardship, a growing repository of prints. (Inventory #: 5131)