Occupying the center of this print is an ancient Roman column, identified by Piranesi as the Column of Antoninus Pius but now understood to be the Column of Marcus Aurelius. Piranesi can be excused for this misattribution, which was widely held by his contemporaries and remains inscribed on the base of the column to the present day. The ancient column, the ostensible subject of the print, towers over the surrounding building and even breaks the frame of the print. Yet, so great is the attention paid to the modern features of the piazza (as seen from the Via del Corso, Rome’s main thoroughfare, which borders the piazza along its eastern edge) that the image could perhaps be better titled “View of the Piazza Colonna.”  

These modern features include the 16th-century fountain designed by the architect Giacomo Della Porta (1532-1602). Piranesi also renders in remarkable detail eight identifiable buildings, employing his single annotation of the print (A) to identify the Curia Innocenziana. Designed by Gian Lorenzo Bernini (1598-1680), it served as the papal courts (curia apostolic) in Piranesi’s day. Still more interesting, at least to Piranesi, is that the building was purportedly built out of the ruins of an ancient amphitheater, which he notes in his key. This callout mirrors Piranesi’s interest in the same building in the Vedute di Roma, where the Curia merits its own print.  

Yet the extent of Piranesi’s attention to piazza itself, as opposed to the ancient column, is all the more remarkable considering Piranesi’s tendency to downplay the modern architecture and more recent renovations throughout this volume, as in his “Veduta del Pantheon,” which diminishes the urban landscape relative to the monument and entirely omits the fountain of that piazza. The decisions here are thrown into still greater relief when compared with Piranesi’s later print of the column in the Vedute di Roma. This print, intended as a souvenir for grand tourists, renders the monument in far greater detail while diminishing both the relative size and visual features of the surrounding buildings. Perhaps the unique attention paid to the modern piazza setting here can be related to Piranesi’s own life: we know that the printmaker’s workshop was sited on the Via del Corso, only a few blocks away. Though one of Rome’s minor piazzas in terms of architectural and antiquarian significance, for Piranesi the Piazza Colonna was part of the fabric of daily life and an important center of administrative and judicial activity. (SB)