Opere volumes
1 2018-11-17T00:05:01-08:00 Jeanne Britton e120651dde677d5cf1fd515358b14d86eb289f11 22849 1 plain 2018-11-17T00:05:01-08:00 Jeanne Britton e120651dde677d5cf1fd515358b14d86eb289f11This page is referenced by:
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Works and Volumes
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From this page, users can navigate through Piranesi’s works as they are arranged in the posthumously-published Opere (Works). This set of twenty-nine elephant-folio volumes was published in Paris between 1835 and 1839 using Piranesi’s original copper plates. The volumes were produced by Firmin Didot, a publication company known for its editions of western classics. While acquisition details have been difficult to trace, these volumes have almost certainly been at the University of South Carolina, formerly South Carolina College, since the 1870s. There are of course both subtle and significant differences between Piranesi's original eighteenth-century publications and those assembled and republished in Didot’s Opere. Some dedications, historiated initials and tailpieces crafted by Piranesi, as well as printer’s ornaments are missing; in some instances, keys are separated from their respective maps and included elsewhere in a volume. These and other changes are features of Piranesi’s early reception history, and particularly the shifting approaches to his combinations of word and image. In addition to illustrating this early stage of the artist's reception history, the value of the Opere lies, quite simply, in its completeness. Piranesi's works are annotated and cross-referenced in systems of interconnections that are virtually impossible to see. Access to this complete set and the extensive work carried out in University Libraries’ Digital Collections and the Center for Digital Humanities allow those print networks to be rendered as digital networks.
High-resolution scans are gradually being added to the pages below. When Piranesi’s images contain annotations—keys or captions on the same page or following page—the letters or numbers in his images are highlighted and, when hovered over, a pop-up box appears with a transcription of Piranesi's annotations. In many cases, these annotations contain objective historical or architectural detail; in others, they contain discussions about the significance of art or the construction of knowledge. In his views, the annotations tend to be restricted to a single page; in his maps, though, his keys refer readers to images in other volumes. We understand these pages as part of an enhanced digital edition, which is distinct from the digital collection that reproduces, without annotation or other digital reinterpretations, the twenty-nine volumes.
Currently, Roman Antiquities (vols 1, 2), On the Magnificence and Architecture of the Romans (vol. 7), City of Paestum (vol. 15), and Views of Rome (vols. 16, 17) contain digitally annotated images. Brief scholarly essays on each image in the Views of Rome appear in vols. 17 and 16. As of Spring 2024, essays are being written about every image in the first volume of Roman Antiquities. Additionally, project staff are adding and annotating images from other volumes of Roman Antiquities (vols. 3, 4), Architecture and Perspective (vol. 8), Imaginary Prisons (also vol. 8), and Campus Martius (vol. 10). Annotations appear in Piranesi's original Italian (or Latin or French), and translations for the two volumes of the Views of Rome and the first volume of Roman Antiquities can be found in “Additional metadata.”