Artist Giovanni Battista Piranesi (Italian, October 4, 1720–November 9, 1778)
Artist Francesco Piranesi (Italian, ca, 1756–1810)
Title View of the Temple of Neptune (Vue du temple de Neptune, Dieu tutélaire de l'ancienne Ville de Pesto)
Plate Number Plate 10
Series Different Views of Paestum
Date 1778
Medium Etching on paper
Dimensions Image: 20 7/16 x 27 3/4 in. (51.9 x 70.5 cm)
Plate: 20 5/8 x 28 1/8 in. (52.4 x 71.4 cm)
Sheet: 22 1/16 x 31 3/4 in. (56 x 80.6 cm)
Credit Line Collection of Diether Thimme, Eskenazi Museum of Art, Indiana University
Accession Number 98.278.8
About this Work
In 1777 Giovanni Battista Piranesi and his son, Francesco, traveled to the coast south of Naples to draw the famous Greek temples at Paestum. These three buildings, ranked along a marshy plain facing the sea, represented an austere classical tradition that predated the richness and variety of the Roman buildings that the elder Piranesi had studied so deeply. Years earlier, he had disparaged the importance of the Greek tradition in Roman architecture, but his encounter with these “grave” and “wise” buildings transformed his opinion.
In an impressive suite of twenty-one prints completed by Francesco shortly before his father’s death, Piranesi shaped the taste of the next generation of the classical revival, which would turn with respect to the more sober grandeur of the Greeks.
Neptune, known as Poseidon to the Greeks, was the titulary deity of the seaside town of Poseidonia, called Paestum or Paistos by later inhabitants. The central temple in the city’s public plaza, probably built around 460 BC, has been traditionally linked to Poseidon. The best preserved of the three temples on the site, the temple of Neptune invited a rich sequence of views for artists. Piranesi stood back to encompass the entire façade in this image, which includes a glimpse for the older “basilica” nearby. Piranesi’s text draws attention to the “perfection” of both overall design and execution of this monument, and it notes that “the man of taste contemplates with pleasure the ensemble of this edifice.”
The Sidney and Lois Eskenazi Museum of Art has thirteen plates from this series(Eskenazi Museum of Art 98.278.1-.13) and the frontispiece (Eskenazi Museum of Art 98.277).
