Lucchesi’s role as an early mentor seems clear, with the young Piranesi regarding architecture as his real calling when, as a twenty year-old draughtsman, he joined the train of the future Doge, Marco Foscarini (1696-1763), who served as Venice’s ambassador to Pope Benedict XIV (1675-1758) in 1740. His father Angelo was a master stonemason, and his maternal uncle, Mateo Lucchesi (1705-76), was an architect and hydraulics engineer, involved in the ongoing construction of the sea walls then being built to protect the Venetian islands. Piranesi was born at Molino in the Veneto region. He understands the buildings of his own time as well as having great passion for the ‘classical’ city”. “Well immediately you had the biggest collection of that whole series (loose) in the country, and that’s the core that you’re seeing when you see largely landscape-format prints of Rome, whether it’s ancient buildings or the Baroque Rome … the modern Rome of day because you also see that. In a move that distinguishes this particular exhibition from any other of Piranesi’s works thus far in Australia, the decision was taken to dismantle the binding and remove the prints. They were in a terrible binding … it wasn’t a case of taking them out of a beautiful eighteenth century binding, a very badly preserved nineteenth century binding, and if you picked it up the wrong way and dropped it on the floor you might have done some damage, serious damage”, he relates. “You can see almost fifty of his most commercially successful works in his lifetime … as a result of a question I raised about the future health and welfare of a beautiful group of these big format etchings (133 of 135). Indeed, it was Holden’s advice to the Library conservation team regarding one of the volumes of Piranesi’s renowned Vedute di Roma that led to such an abundant display. This treasure is their inheritance, as the long record of free access to libraries, galleries and museums demonstrates”. “At this point I hope that will grow in their awareness of, and pride in, the holdings of our public collections, particularly in Melbourne. Many of his prints appeared as illustrations in books, while collectors often had his other prints bound into folios at their own expense”, he remarks. Piranesi would probably have taken this for granted. “The location of the largest holdings of his works in Australia may also come as a surprise – not our art galleries, but our libraries. Holden’s research as the 2010 Redmond Barry Fellow, a joint program of the State Library of Victoria and the University of Melbourne, led to the creation of this exhibition. It brings together nearly sixty works and seven bound volumes from the engraver and printmaker widely regarded as the most important of the eighteenth century, and indeed the greatest architectural artist in history. Colin Holden, Fellow of the School of Historical and Philosophical Studies at the University of Melbourne, has curated Rome: Piranesi’s Vision (until 22 June, 2014). The largest exhibition of works from Giovanni Battista Piranesi (1720-78) to be staged in Australia opened to the public during White Night Melbourne at the State Library of Victoria’s Keith Murdoch Gallery. “An artist who would do himself honour, and acquire a name, must not content himself with copying faithfully the ancients, but studying their work he ought to show himself of an inventive, and I had almost said, of a Creating Genius.”
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