International events: Exhibit devoted to Giovanni Battista Piranesi kicks off in St. Petersburg as a part of Cultural Exchange Year for Russia and Italy

On December 7th 2011 as a part of “Hermitage Days 2011” the State Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg is opening an exhibition “Palaces, Ruins and Prisons. Giovanni Battista Piranesi and Italian Eighteenth-Century Architectural Fantasies” which covers the early career of Piranesi. The exhibition is running as a part of the Year of Italy in Russia and the Year of Russia in Italy – 2011.

The exposition contains over 100 drawings and prints from the collection of the Hermitage Museum and is divided into two parts: the first deals with Piranesi himself and presents his series of prints Prima Parte, Grotteschi and Carceri, with examples of rare early states never before published in Russia. These all derive from the album Opere Varie of 1750, purchased by Catherine II in 1768 as part of the collection of Count Heinrich von Bruhl, which formed the basis of the Hermitage print room. The Carceri series is shown in two states, the early one from the Bruhl collection juxtaposed with the later, much worked version. This is a first time that these prints have been seen side by side in Russia.

The second part consists of drawings by Italian eighteenth-century artists who worked as set designers and architects and who produced imaginary vedute (a veduta is an architectural view). This genre is extremely important to our understanding of the Italian Settecento style. Thus the phenomenon of Piranesi's early fantasies are set in the context of the genre, allowing the exhibition to trace both the sources of the phenomenon that was Piranesi and his influence on further developments of the imaginary veduta.