18. Giovanni Battista Piranesi
(1720-1778)
The Villa Albani

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Piranesi, The Villa Albani

The Villa Albani

Etching, 1769, from Vedute di Roma, 442 x 695 mm., Hind 89 i/iii. A fine impression on laid paper with good margins, from the first Paris edition (which was also the first edition); a few soft creases and a tear into the image from the bottom, neatly repaired but visible. The Villa Albani, located on the Via Salaria to the East of the Villa Borghese, was constructed between 1746 and 1767, completed just two years before Piranesi’s etching of it. It was designed and built by Carlo Marchionni for Cardinal Alessandro Albani, to house his vast collection of ancient sculptures. Despite its lack of historical associations, it was obviously impressive enough, both for its buildings and its very formal gardens, to be included in Piranesi’s views of Rome. Because of the formal, geometric design of the grounds, the perspective view presented considerable problems of draughtsmanship, partially solved here by using figures of different sizes to indicate proximity and distance.