Beschreibung:

Opere varie di architettura prospettive Grotteschi Antichita.
Rome: 1750 [but late 1760s-early 1770s]. Folio (597 x 432 mm). Letterpress title printed in red and black with engraved vignette, 31 etched and engraved plates by Piranesi on 27 leaves (10 small plates printed two to a page, 5 large plates on double-page sheets). Publisher's vellum-backed paper-covered pasteboard, paper label to spine with letterpress title printed in black 'Opere [V]ar.', uncut. Condition : tear to outer blank margin of the 18th leaf with plates on it; some scuffing, small tears and light soiling, spine label torn with slight loss. a very fine completely unsophisticated copy of this spectacular collection of plates, all present as dark crisp impressions on large uncut sheets. This volume is made up from four distinct groups of prints: the first 16 are from Piranesi's Prima Parte series of architectural fantasies (Robison 1-3, 15-17, 19-20, 18, 6-12), these are followed by ten small prints printed two to a page (Focillon 123-132). There are then two double-page 'single prints' (Robison 25-26) and the work is completed by the four double-page Grotteschi prints (Robison 21-24). Precise dating of this volume is difficult. Andrew Robison (p.135) notes that the title page is the 'Second version … found in issues of 1761 to the late 1790s', and that the 'ten small plates of architectural fantasies …, five of which were reworked states of plates originally in the 1757 Lettere di Giustificazione, five of which were new, … were added to the O[pere] V[arie] soon after 1761' (Robison p.63). The date can be narrowed down to the 'late 1760s-early 1770s' by examining the Prima Parte series, here a second edition, fifth issue: this is confirmed by the presence of the pasted-on caption at the foot of Robison's cat. no. 7 (Sala all' uso degli antichi Romani, state V of VI, bound here as the 11th sheet). The states of the various plates detailed by Robison are all consistent with these dates. Giovanni Battista Piranesi Venetian architect, draftsman, scholar, archaeologist, and designer, was tremendously influential in the development of neo-classicism. Patronized by both foreign tourists and Italians including Pope Clement XIII, he was internationally renowned for his etchings of the scenery and ruins of classical Rome. Piranesi, the son of a stonemason, was born in 1720 in the village of Mogliano, near Venice. Pursuing an early ambition to become an architect, he was apprenticed to his uncle Matteo Lucchesi a prominent architect and hydraulic engineer, and then to the Palladian architect Giovanni Scalfurotto. He later studied etching and perspective composition in the workshop of Carlo Zucchi In 1740, he traveled to Rome where he studied set design with Domenico and Giuseppe Valeriani and engraving with Giuseppe Vasi By the time of the publication of the present series he was well-established as the foremost producer of images celebrating classical architecture of the Roman school, a position he was to maintain until his death in 1778. Robison 1-3, 6-12, 15-26; Focillon 2-13, 15-18, 20-23, 121-132.