In the book «Le Antichità Romane» by Giovanni Battista Piranesi the topographical knowledge of the author plays a major role. Already on the first pages, before we even start to really read the book, we get to see several topographical analytics of Rome.
Antichità Romane shows us an overview of the archaeological information on Ancient Rome that Piranesi gathered over the years. The way in which he presents us all this information, is in a mix of images and drawings, as well as a very detailed explanatory text. Only because of the expansive topographical knowledge of Rome, Piranesi was able to include a great spectrum of buildings in the work and place them within landscape settings. In his work he combines more than 250 images and illustrations, impressive etchings and an enormous amount of data, which he describes in his texts.
Even though the text and the pictures of the single buildings take a huge part of the book, the topographical knowledge and analysis is the fundament and origin, from where on Piranesi could even start to go into the detailed measuring and sketching. As already mentioned, there are a few very important and impressive maps of ancient Rome already on the first pages of the first volume. But also later on there are several moments in which topographical maps come up in the book.
The purpose of this overview of the archaeological information on Ancient Rome was the education of contemporary designers and their patrons. Piranesi balances the picturesque appearance of Roman architecture with detailed text in one, so everyone was able to understand and read his work. The Antichità Romane represents a milestone in the history of classical archaeology and gives historians a great ground for their studies.
But what’s especially great, that even if you don’t read the complete text in the first volume about Ancient Rome, you can understand so much already only by looking at the visuals. Piranesi focuses and pays a lot of attention to present his 4 volumes in a visually stunning way. His drawings are made so carefully in a very detailed way. Volumes two, three and four contain nearly only visual interpretations and information about Rome. There is a big variety of detailed sketches for example about columns or the decorations of the buildings, as well as a complete overview of the city and the buildings as a whole.
Keywords: Visuals, Etching, Education