Giovanni Battista Piranesi (1720–1778)

• Was an Italian Classical archaeologist, architect, and artist.
• Piranesi was born in Venice.
• His brother Andrea introduced him to Latin literature and ancient Greco-Roman civilization, and later he was apprenticed under his uncle, Matteo Lucchesi.
• From 1740, he had an opportunity to work in Rome as a draughtsman for Marco Foscarini.
• He resided in the Palazzo Venezia and studied under Giuseppe Vasi.
• According to Legrand, Vasi told Piranesi that "you are too much of a painter, my friend, to be an engraver."
• After his studies with Vasi, he collaborated with pupils of the French Academy in Rome to produce a series of vedute (views) of the city.
 • From 1743 to 1747 he was mainly in Venice where, he often visited Giovanni Battista Tiepolo, a leading artist in Venice.
• In 1761 he became a member of the Accademia di San Luca and opened a printing house of his own.
• He died in Rome in 1778, and was buried in the church he had helped restore, Santa Maria del Priorato.
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