This page was created by Anonymous. The last update was by Helen B. Kampmann Marodin.
Title Page
The title page of Carceri d'Invenzione displays some of the elements that Piranesi would repetitively depict throughout the remaining fifteen pages that compose the publication. Piranesi takes us by the hand to explore the dramatic subterranean spaces filled with catwalks, wooden beams, pulleys, chains, wheels, and spikes he built down into the depths of the earth. From the first plate, the viewer is already departed from the surface that will only partially appears in few plates. Through Piranesi's deliberate manipulation of the audience's viewpoint and emotions, the artist reached the powerful effect of his compositions. Immersed in a tenebrous scenario, usually framed by darkened archways or similar architectural elements, the perspectives vantage point offers a look from below in which exits are almost imperceptible. The chiaroscuro implies a source of light coming from the upper right that theatrically washes Piranesi's lettering.
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The Greco-Roman controversy, in which Piranesi took part as a personal matter throughout his life and with unprecedented vigor in Carceri d'Invenzione, came to him in the early education he received in his hometown Venice. Since his years living in La Serenissima, Piranesi got involved in the heated discussion about the origins of the Italic civilization and developed his fascination for construction technology. It was through his uncle Matteo Lucchesi, engineer for the Water Magistrate in Venice, that Piranesi had accompanied many hydrological assessments in the Venetian murazzi, the Istrian stone walls that protect the island from the waters of the lagoon.
The comparison between the state published in 1761, reproduced in Didot's Opere, and the first states published from 1749-50 is telling of Piranesi's aspirations for the imaginary prisons. The architecture is much more complex in the second edition, presenting a multiplicity of planes significantly increased after the first edition. Piranesi created a succession of archways and bridges that almost obliterates the open skies which, in turn, now only appears through a slight opening in the background. He also expanded the space downwards by creating a passageway in the bottom right of the picture plane, enticing us to continue our journey through his dazzling ingenuity in the following plates.