Giovanni Battista Piranesi believed he could do anything he put his mind to—and he did. "I need to produce great ideas,” he once declared, “and I believe that if I were commissioned to design a new universe, I would be mad enough to undertake it." He was an avid archaeologist, yet the historical record proved no hindrance to his imagination: he fabricated elaborate fantasies of ancient cityscapes, adhering only vaguely to the evidence.
In his prints and drawings, Piranesi imagined fantastical worlds of looming architecture and grand monuments. His Views of Rome exaggerated the size of ancient Roman monuments—in stark contrast to the realism of his contemporaries, such as Canaletto and Tiepolo. In his Prisons series, he constructed brooding, maze-like dungeons that suggested an awe-inspiring immensity.
Piranesi's Perspective of Arches, with a Smoking Fire, Plate 6 from Carceri d'Invenzione (1749).
The realistic depiction of Canaletto's Grand Canal from Palazzo Flangini to Palazzo Bembo is a stark contrast to Piranesi's imaginative thinking.