Chimneypiece

c. 1760

The Caffè degli Inglesi in the Egyptian style

Around 1760 Piranesi began designing the Caffè degli Inglesi on the Piazza di Spagna, conceiving its interior in the “Egyptian style” according to his pan-Roman theory; only etchings of it survive. In this café with his wall paintings and in the Antico Caffè Greco, Piranesi, whose print workshop and museum of antiquities stood close by, cultivated wealthy travellers, particularly English ones.

1761

Second edition of the “Prisons”

For the second edition of 1761 all the etchings were reworked and numbered I–XVI, plates II and V were newly added, and some were given, probably deliberately, impossible geometries. Ten years after the first edition Piranesi made practically new works on the same plates: he deepened the shadows and added details and figures, either jailers or prisoners bound to instruments of torture.

1761

The treatise “On the Magnificence and Architecture of the Romans”

In 1761 Piranesi set out his ideas in a treatise that provoked a Europe-wide scholarly debate: a champion of the pan-Roman theory, he held the architecture of the ancient Romans to be a direct continuation of Egyptian rather than Greek building, and the highest achievement of the classical world.

1761 · Carriera

the Accademia di San Luca; a press of his own

In 1761 Piranesi became a member of the Accademia di San Luca and opened a printing house of his own.

1765

Dispute with Mariette: the “Dialogue on Architecture”

In his “Letter” of 1764 the French connoisseur P.-J. Mariette called the art of the Etruscans and Romans derivative and imitative, and that of the Greeks original and unsurpassed. Piranesi answered with the “Dialogue on Architecture” (1765), stressing the technical perfection of Roman buildings and their creative reworking of tradition rather than copying.

1769

Designs for chimneypieces and furniture

In 1769 Piranesi published a series of ingenious and sometimes bizarre designs for chimneypieces and an original range of furniture, which established him as a versatile and resourceful designer.