3/22/2023 0 Comments Piranesi prints![]() Piranesi, a draftsman, printmaker and architect, is revered for his captivating, atmospheric representations of antiquity, ranging from grandiose buildings of classical Rome to the then newly-discovered ruins of Pompeii. They concluded that what is preserved on these drawings is the trace of a book that never was offered for sale, at least not in the form in which it exists on these drawings. It's incredibly exciting as art historians working together to reach a conclusion that answers so many questions about Piranesi.” Professor Yerkes added: “We had to consult experts from forensic-type specialists to print experts to be able to interpret what we were seeing. Each individual piece of evidence, each drawing that we discovered, fit like another piece in the puzzle.” We kept finding new clues, but they didn't come together until the end when we could conjure up this lost book. Professor Hyde Minor told the Telegraph: “The research felt like a murder mystery. They will include it in their forthcoming book, titled Piranesi Unbound, to be published by Princeton University Press on September 1. The discovery was made by Carolyn Yerkes, associate professor of Early Modern Architecture at Princeton University, and Heather Hyde Minor, professor of art history at the University of Notre Dame, Indiana. He even became directly involved with excavations of ancient sites.Įrrors in the printed text - such as “qui” instead of “quid” (the Latin words for who and why) - indicate that this was from a printer’s proof rather than a finished copy ready to be bound. The drawings, in pen and brown ink, appear on the back of printed texts relating to ancient tombs in Rome, a subject that fascinated Piranesi in the early 1750s. On bits and pieces of recycled paper, he created two exquisite drawings depicting printers hard at work, perhaps feverishly sketched in a workshop. Paper was by far the most expensive component of an early modern book, and Piranesi did not waste this resource. ![]() ![]() Scholars have been taken aback by the discovery after reconstructing what they describe as the Italian master’s “trash” - irregular scraps cut from printers’ proofs bearing quotations from ancient writings, including the Roman poet Juvenal. Evidence of a lost book created by Giovanni Battista Piranesi, one of the greatest printmakers of the 18th century, has been discovered through previously-unpublished drawings that were created on the back of fragments of printed texts.
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