Giovanni Battista Piranesi

Giovanni Battista Piranesi began his training as an architect with his uncle and continued with the architect Giovanni Scalfarotto, who is said to have taught him mainly architectural drawing. In 1740 Piranesi travelled to Rome in the entourage of the Venetian envoy to the Holy See, Marco Foscarini, where he studied Roman architecture and worked in the workshops of the architects Nicola Salvi and Luigi Vanvitelli, but there was no opportunity for him to work as an independent architect.
Instead, he trained as an etcher and engraver under Giuseppe Vasi and published his first own engraving work in 1743: Prima parte di Architettura e Prospettive – a series of twelve views with reconstructions of ancient Rome. The famous Carceri were followed in 1745 by Varie Vedute di Roma Antica e Moderna, views of ancient and modern Rome. After a longer stay in Venice, he produced further series of vedute from 1748 onwards, with which he shaped the image of the city for a long time. His reputation as an archaeologist was established by the Antichità romane, published in four volumes in 1756. In 1761 he set up his own workshop and printing press in Palazzo Tomiti, where he now published his works himself. The redesign of S. M. del Priorato in 1764 is Piranesi’s only work as an architect.
In the last decade of his life, his works Diverse maniere d’adornare i cammini (1769) and Vasi, candelabri, cippi, sarcophagi, tripodi, luzerne ed ornamenti antichi (1778) are of lasting influence, especially on English villa architecture and their interiors. Two months before his death, he published another archaeological publication, Différentes vues de Paestum.