On 12, 13 and 14 June the British School at Rome is excited to present the exhibition “Giovanni Battista Piranesi: Prints from the Research Collections of the BSR”.
As part of an ongoing project, launched in 2021, to create a catalogue of the etchings by Giovanni Battista Piranesi in the BSR collection, this event, the third in the series of four annual exhibitions, will display this year’s selection of prints, focussing on the “Vedute di Roma” series and arranged to trace a visitor’s itinerary through the 18th century city. The display will include some guide books and maps by other authors that explore the same itinerary from viewpoints different to that of Piranesi, such as that of Giuseppe Vasi.
Giovanni Battista Piranesi (Venice 1720-Rome 1778) was a prodigious and multi-talented scholar and artist who was an antiquarian and archaeologist, an architect, draughtsman, print-maker as well as being an entrepreneur in publishing, sculpture restoration and in the art market; he was a leading figure in the arts and scholarship in Grand Tour Rome, famous throughout Europe. His magnificent printed books, focussing on the artistic and architectural achievements of the ancient Romans and views of the contemporary city, were widely collected by private libraries during his lifetime and now are conserved in public and university collections globally.
Clare Hornsby is an art and architectural historian and a Research Fellow at BSR. She has published on the Grand Tour, the antiquities market between Rome and London and on eighteenth-century architecture. She is a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London, a member of the Centro di Studi sulla Cultura e l’Immagine di Roma and of the Scientific Committee of the Edizione Nazionale delle Opere di Giovanni Battista Piranesi.
Caroline Barron is an ancient historian who works on the cultural and historical significance of Latin epigraphy, from antiquity to the present day. A monograph on the collecting of Latin inscriptions in the eighteenth-century is forthcoming, and her current research project is on the history of epigraphic forgery. She is Assistant Professor in Classics (Roman History) in the Department of Classics and Ancient History at Durham University, a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of London, and a Research Fellow at BSR.
The event will be held in-person. No registration is required to attend.
We look forward to seeing you soon!
This exhibition is dedicated to the memory of our friend and colleague Harriet O’Neill
