This page was created by Erin Jones.  The last update was by Zoe Langer.

The Digital Piranesi

Interior view of the Pronaos of the Pantheon

       Striking in their sheer mass and verticality, the fluted Corinthian columns provide an abrupt and overwhelming entrance to the view of the Pronaos of the Pantheon. They not only act as a framing device, but tower over viewers such that they seem to be inside the portico itself. Equally impressive to their massive form, Piranesi remarks in the key, is the fact that “each column is made of only one piece, of a diameter of 6.6 palmi wide [and] 63.8 palmi tall.” Signaling their significance to Piranesi’s visual argument about the date of the Pantheon’s construction, the columns and their dimensions feature prominently in both the image and key. The dating of the portico in particular, was the subject of much debate throughout the early modern period. Piranesi was among many that considered the pronaos to be a later addition to the original design. The disjuncture between the columns, cornice of the portico and main building, seen in the detail below, visually demonstrates they were built in different time periods. Piranesi further argues this position in the Campus Martius in the image below. 
        In these engravings Piranesi visually and mathematically corrected the measurements first introduced by Palladio in the Quattro Libri dell’Architettura (1570), the authoritative source for the design of the Pantheon. Desgodetz was one of the first authors to challenge Palladio’s measurements in his treatise, Les Édifices antiques de Rome dessinés et mesurés très exactement (Paris, 1682). As indicated in the title, Desgodetz took “the most exact measurements” of the buildings, measurements he ‘drew with his own hand.’ Like Desgodetz, Piranesi emphasizes first-hand observation in his approach to the measurements, dating, and design of the Pantheon, its portico, as well as its interior. Both architects were critical of the way other authors relied solely on authoritative texts for their observations. For example, in order to “satisfy the scholars [eruditi],” Piranesi provides extensive philological analysis of Pliny’s description of the Pantheon to ascertain its date of construction (AR, Volume I, Map Index). Yet the wealth of visual evidence Piranesi provides in the above view, for example, renders the comment slightly mocking in tone, suggesting that textual commentary by itself is insufficient for an accurate study of the ancient temple. 
        The interior of the portico stages the distinction “between experiencing ancient architecture directly, through on-site examination, on the one hand, and studying it at several removes by means of measured drawings on the other” (2012, Pinto, 3). In the engraving above, Piranesi combines accuracy with the visual impact, showing that the Pantheon was a fount of inspiration, not only as an architectural model, as they were in the “measured drawings” by such architects as Palladio, Alberti, and Serlio. Piranesi’s dramatic perspective, heightened by the scena per angolo and submersion of the scene in almost complete shadow, in addition to the details of the crumbling wall, pilasters, and faded ornamental details on the left, emphasize the emotional effect of encountering ruins in person. They invite reflection on the concept of decay or the sublime, or inspiration for new imaginative architectural forms, as much as they relay more objective information such as dates of restoration, measurements, and literary citation. 
        Compared to Piranesi’s all-consuming and three dimensional landscape, the images of the Pantheon’s portico by Palladio and Desgodetz seem flat and inaccessible to viewers.
In Piranesi's view we participate, almost corporeally, in the architect's precise and on-site observations. Through the combination of the more ‘direct experience’ of architecture in the mode of the veduta genre, with factual information in the abundance of textual annotations, Piranesi sought to convince audiences of his argument. In the following view, Piranesi takes viewers further into the interior of Pantheon to expand upon his revisions of previous sources. 

To see this image in Vedute di Roma, vol 17 of Piranesi's Opere, click here.

This page has paths:

This page references: