Paris. 1803. Edition: First Paris Edition., Binding: Loose without binding. , Notes: Giovanni Battista Piranesi (1720 – 1778) was a prominent Italian Classical archaeologist, architect, and artist, famous for his etchings of Rome. Although he was the son of a stonemason and studied structural and hydraulic engineering, Piranesi is best remembered for his monumental etchings, which demonstrate this lifelong interest in architecture and design. As passionate about architecture was he also about Rome and Roman culture, and in Piranesi: The Complete Etchings, John Wilton-Ely writes that Della Magnificenza formed Piranesi’s “first explicit contribution to the debate” concerning the advocacy of Greek art and architecture as being superior to those of Rome (820). In the “excessively erudite” text of Della Magnificenza, Piranesi vehemently defends Roman art and architecture, citing that Etruscans, being the “first instructors of the Romans,” were an “older and more gifted race than the Greeks” and their architectural history demonstrated the origins of “Roman grandeur” (Wilton-Ely, 820). Although published in 1761, Wilton-Ely observes that Della Magnificenza was almost certainly in preparation by 1758, when Piranesi wrote that the work of Le Roy’s Les Ruines des plus beaux monuments de la Grèce published that year had prompted “‘the enlargement’” of Della Magnificenza (820). Indeed, the bulk of the plates present in Della Magnificenza represent “visual attacks on Le Roy (and, by implication, on the French architectural theorist Laugier),” and also serve to illustrate “the effects of this ancient legacy” descending from the Etruscans to the Romans (Wilton-Ely, 820). Wilton-Ely writes:
“Abandoning his arguments in favor of functional austerity, he endeavored to show the imaginative richness and sheer variety of late Roman ornament. In several of Piranesi’s illustrations Le Roy’s restrained line engravings of Attic detail are illusionistically pinned onto plates crowded with Roman fragments and rendered with the greatest luxuriance of texture at his command.” (820)
Missing text
- Dedication
- Text, iii-lxxxvi
- Index, lxxxvii-lxxxx
- Osservazioni di Piranesi…, 1-23
Missing plates
1. 1: studies of the substructure of the Capitoline Hill
2. 6: various columns in Greek architecture
3. 8: various fragments
4. 14: various capitals, etc.
5. 15: various capitals
6. 16: various capitals and a column
7. 17: various capitals, friezes, etc.
8. 18: LEFT HALF/fig. 1: brackets, friezes, and various ornamental fragments
9. 19: various entablatures, capitals, and ornamental fragments
10. 20: various Roman Ionic capitals compared with Greek examples from Le Roy
11. 22: view and elevation of Temple of Concord, Agrigento
12. 27: diagrams of roof structure in Doric temple construction
13. 30: section of the Emissarium at Lake Albano with inset views
14. 35: Roman architectural details compared with Greek examples from Le Roy
15. 38: various architectural details including fragments relating to the Temple of Vesta, Rome
(Missing plates from Della Introduzione)
- 6
- 7
- 8
- 9

Notes
- Additional plate to Della Intro #5 is misnumbered as #6 in our example.

, Size: Large Folio (575x420 mm), Illustration: A very good example of Piranesi’s impassioned defense of Roman art and architecture. With both engraved titles in Latin and Italian, and the rare frontispiece of Pope Clement XIII. Contains plates only; 32 in total, including engraved titles and frontispiece, all clean and crisp. Lacking 15 and left half of plate XVIII. Includes 5 plates meant to accompany Piranesi’s Osservazioni sopra la letter de M. Mariette… (not present in this copy), published in 1765 as an ardent rejoinder against the French critic Mariette’s attacks on the theories expressed in Della Magnificenza. This copy includes the striking titlepage to Osservazioni, in which Piranesi visually illustrates the principal arguments of his theories and allegorically refutes Mariette’s ideas with two insets found at the top left of the engraving showing Mariette’s left hand beneath a column of artist’s tools, making the point that “such discussions of art are beyond the experience of armchair critics like Mariette, and can only be resolved by active designers who, like Piranesi, are in far closer contact with the creative spirit of antiquity” (Wilton-Ely 868)., References: John Wilton-Ely, Piranesi: The Complete Etchings, vol. 2, pp. 820-884., Category: Book Art, Architecture & Design; Book Europe Italy;. A very good example of Piranesi’s impassioned defense of Roman art and architecture.
All clean and crisp. Item #B6751

Price: $13,000.00