Plate VII
Many have raised questions about the spatial configuration of the scenarios of the Carceri series and whether they were truly meant to represent prisons. Piranesi, nonetheless, makes his intent of representing prisons clear in several different ways. One of the evidences is that he named his work as, in the first edition, Invenzione capric di Carceri (Capricious Inventions of Prisons) and, in the second, Carceri d'Invenzione (Imaginary Prisons). Another proof is the reference to the Marmetine Prison in Rome, distinctively addressed in Plate XVI. In the first state of Plate VII, Piranesi also elucidates that the series represent prisons in the lettering carved into stone that reads "subterranean prisons engraved by Piranesi."
A repetitive set of elements Piranesi uses in the prisons are, curiously, related to seafaring. The nautical elements found throughout the plates of the Carceri series are not only a personal connection that Piranesi explores with his hometown Venice. Port structures, fragments of ships, sails, cranes, and mooring rings are part of a visual repertoire deeply engraved in Piranesi's mind. In the Imaginary Prisons, Piranesi pays homage to the education he received in Venice and to the classical authors such as Livy and Pliny the Elder he read since his early days. These authors have taught Piranesi the love for the wonders that ancient Romans bequeathed.
As a consequence of the love for ancient Rome, Piranesi was deeply committed to defend the origins of the Italic civilization and its roots in the Etruscans as opposed to the Greeks. He was supported, among others, by the theories of the Neapolitan philosopher Giambattista Vico (1668 - 1744). In 1744, shortly after his demise and months before the assumed beginning of the imaginary prisons’ illustrations, a third, much enlarged, and completely revised edition of Vico's Scienza Nuova was published. Its ideas are essential to understanding the Carceri: the alternative lineage of Romans via the Etruscans instead of Greeks “proved” the autonomy of Rome from Greece.
The nautical elements, therefore, are also a reference to, according to Piranesi and Vico, the "true" founding fathers of the Italic civilization. The Etruscans, called “pirates" by the Greeks, were exceptional sailors and created a rich repertoire of ornaments derived from the forms of the shells, later on explored by Piranesi again in Diverse Maniere d'Adornare i Cammini. The artist also benefitted from the "shell mania" of the eighteenth century, a phenomenon similar to the seventeenth-century "tulip mania").
The prominent drawbridges in this plate are a reference to one specific event in ancient Roman history: the First Punic War (264 - 261 BCE) against the supremacy of Carthage. To overcome their lack of experience in naval battles, Romans invented a device called corvus, a sort of drawbridge tossed over the enemies' ships to allow soldiers to invade them. After this key war in Roman history, Rome conquered unchallenged notoriety across the Western Mediterranean, including the acknowledgement of Greece. Recognizing the naval power of Rome, Greek cities would ask for Roman intervention when attacked by other states and, therefore, became subordinated to Rome rule.
It was also to commemorate Roman victories in the First Punic Wars that the first naval triumph was enacted in 260 BCE, in the regal period. The event celebrated commander Gaius Duilius. Both Livy and the Greek Polybius, whom Piranesi referenced many times in his works, described this type of celebration in their histories, and Piranesi will unequivocally go back to triumphal celebrations and trophies in the following Plate VIII.