DOS Fantasy as Architectural Experimentation in the First Work of G. B. Piranesi

Abstract

Giovanni Battista Piranesi arrived in Rome in 1740 in a context in which the design of imaginary architecture was emerging, in the academies of fine arts of the “eternal city”. The objective here is to analyze how Piranesi used architectural fantasy as a resource for formal experimentation, focusing on his inaugural work: Prima parte di architetture e prospettive (1743). Upon checking his first work, it is concluded that fantasies have immense value for the development of the Piranesian trajectory between 1740 and 1778, in addition to nourishing the contemporary architectural and artistic debate. Thus, the Prima parte became a reference in terms of understanding the transition between the precepts established from the Quattrocento and an incipient modernity.