Piranesi and Milan
Archive
01.10 2020 - 14.11 2020
Sala Maria Teresa

Piranesi and Milan

An exhibition to mark the 300th anniversary of the birth of Giovan Battista Piranesi, the greatest engraver in the History of Italian art.

2020 is the 300th anniversary of the birth of Giovan Battista Piranesi, the greatest engraver in the History of Italian art.

On this occasion, the Braidense Library is dedicating an exhibition to the great artist that showcases an extraordinary collection of 97 works including catalogs, drawings, engravings, books, and paintings, as well as 66 documentation photographs and two videos that testify to the link between Piranesi and the city of Milan, where the artist never stayed.

Giovan Battista Piranesi, “L’Arco trionfale”

Giovan Battista Piranesi, “L’Arco trionfale”, Grotteschi, in Opere Varie di Architettura, prospettive, grotteschi antichità, Roma, 1750. Si noti in basso a sinistra l’indicazione che sono vendute in faccia all’Accademia di Francia. Biblioteca dell’Accademia di Brera

Curated by Pierluigi Panza and Aldo Coletto and supported by Intesa Sanpaolo with the Friends of Brera, the exhibition at the Braidense Library makes use of material from the Brera Academy Library, the Achille Bertarelli Prints Collection, the Civic Cabinet of Drawings, the Milan State Archives, the Museo teatrale alla Scala theater museum, the collections of the Teatro alla Scala and the Rancati tooling company, the Teulié Military School Library as well as private collections related to Milan.

Veduta interna del Sepolcro di Santa Costanza

Giovan Battista Piranesi, “Veduta interna del Sepolcro di Santa Costanza”, in "Vedute di Roma", particolare. Biblioteca Nazionale Braidense

The exhibition testifies to the attention Milan paid to Piranesi’s engravings (such as the series of “Carceri” and “Vasi” from the Bertarelli partly already owned by the Trivulzio family), documenting their unpublished acquisition processes and their fortune in Brera’s neoclassical season. In particular, among the catalogs preserved at the Braidense Library is the only copy in the world of the “Roman Antiquities,” formerly owned by the plenipotentiary Carlo Firmian, to which the manuscript “Allocution” to the academicians of San Luca is prefixed.

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