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The Digital Piranesi

View of the Capitoline Hill with the Steps leading to Santa Maria in Aracoeli

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View of the Capitoline Hill with the Steps leading to Santa Maria in Aracoeli Title: Veduta del Romano Campidoglio con Scalinata che va alla Chiesa d’Araceli Architettura di Michelangelo Bonaroti. Key: 1. Abitazione del Senator Romano 2. Museo ove si conservano le Statue Antiche 3. Palazzo de Conservatori 4. Statua equestre di Marco Aurelio di metallo Corintio 5. Statue Colossali antiche di Castore, e Polluce 6. Trofei d’Augusto, volgarmente detti di Mario 7. Colonna milliaria Aurea 8. Leonesse di marmo Egizio Signature: Presso l’autore a Strada Felice nel Palazzo Tomati vicino alla Trinità de’ Monti. Signature 2: Piranesi del(ineavit). scol(psit). Title: View of the Capitoline Hill with the Steps leading to Santa Maria in Aracoeli, Architecture by Michelangelo Buonarroti. Key: 1. Residence of the Senator of Rome 2. Museum where they keep the Ancient Statues 3. Palace of the Conservators 4. Equestrian statue of Marcus Aurelius of Corinthian bronze 5. Ancient Colossal statues of Castor and Pollux 6. Trophies of Augustus, commonly called the Trophies of Marius 7. Column of the Milliarium Aureum [Golden Milestone] 8. Lioness of Egyptian Marble. Signature: Published by the Author on the Strada Felice in Palazzo Tomati near Trinità de Monti. Signature 2: Drawn and engraved by Piranesi. This view of the Capitoline Hill is one of Piranesi’s earliest etchings in the Vedute di Roma. In the early 1740s he produced a set of ten etchings, including the view above, for the Roman collector and bibliophile Alessandro Gregorio Capponi (1683-1746) (Battaglia). The earliest collection of Piranesi’s views, called the Capponi set and held in the Vatican libraries, attests to Piranesi's initial foray into the large-scale, folio size veduta. Scholars often highlight the similarity of the composition of this early etching to those of his contemporaries such as Giuseppe Vasi, Giovanni Antonio Canaletto (1697-1768), and Bernardo Bellotto (1722-1780) (Wilton-Ely 1988, 32; Nevola 65). Yet it is clear that Piranesi, even in this early stage, was expanding the possibilities of the genre.
Piranesi’s experimentation with oblique perspective, exaggerated scale, and theatrical lighting anticipates the dramatic and sublime characteristics of his later views. For example, the zig-zag effect of light and shadow on the left creates a sense of movement by leading the eye to the rough and unadorned façade of the church of Santa Maria Araceli. From the grooves that are visible in the dirt left behind the carriage on the right, it is as though we are in fact behind them, ready to ascend to the hill. The water dripping off of the basins from the two flanking lionesses “di marmo Egizio,” work almost like a photograph, capturing a singular and ephemeral memory, placing viewers in the moment of the etching’s creation. Here, the life of the city is palpable, whereas in the works by Canaletto, Bellotto, and Falda, the city lacks vitality, and sound and movement are sacrificed for the sake of architectural order and symmetry, and the regularity of the axis lines creates a pristine, flat quality. Piranesi, by contrast, deliberately makes these lines oblique. The buildings are all at different heights, the houses on the left are piled on top of one another, the vestiges of the old buildings jut out of the base of the stairs on the left, and rubble and dirt occupy the foreground on the right. Such chaos invokes the disordered palimpsest of different styles that characterized the architectural space of the Capitoline Hill. Medieval and Renaissance buildings were built on ancient Roman foundations, which caused their irregularity. Any sense of architectural design and order that can be found—in the main staircase (or cordonata), the campanile and façade of the Roman Senatorial Palace, or the framing balustrade of the square—reveals the interventions of Renaissance artist Michelangelo, to whom Piranesi refers in his title.

In a further departure from Canaletto and Bellotto, the oblique perspective and supplemental key provided Piranesi with the space to pack the visual field with the maximum amount of information. In this sense, the engraving has more in common with Falda’s seventeenth-century print, whose annotations also label significant monuments. However, Falda’s more documentary style is flat when compared to the dramatic chiaroscuro of Piranesi's etching. Even in this early, somewhat traditional view are seeds of Piranesi’s experimentation with perspective and lighting effects, which are taken even further in the frontal and side views of the Capitoline Hill that follow. (ZL)

To see this image in the Vedute di Roma, volume 17 of Piranesi’s Opere, click here.