Rovine del Tempio de' Castori nella città di Cora

Etching and engraving, 1764, signed in the centre bottom plate Piranesi F.

View of the Temple of the Dioscuri, Castor and Pollux at Cori, taken from ntichità di Cora descritte ed incise da Giovambat Piranesi.

Magnificent proof, printed in black ink on contemporary laid paper with watermark "double circle and lily with letters CB", with wide margins, in excellent state of preservation.

In continuing his work as a 'special archaeologist', Piranesi moved outside Rome, and after visiting Albano and Castelgandolfo, he travelled to Cori, an ancient Latin city founded around the 5th century BC. He was accompanied on his journey by his French friend, the famous painter Hubert Robert, who left us a series of views of the town, with perspectives identical to Piranesi's work. The work came to light in 1764, with the title Antichità di Cora descritte ed incise da Giovambat Piranesi (Antiquities of Cora described and engraved by Giovambat Piranesi) and was yet another opportunity to polemicize the archaeological theories of the time. The study focused particularly on the city's Roman walls, which were compared to other fortifications erected in subjugated cities at the end of the social wars in the 1st century BC. It showed that opus incertus, with large, un-squared blocks, was one of the Roman building systems, used at the same time as others.

Although the city had undergone numerous transformations, the Venetian artist's panels remove the medieval constructions, providing a fantastic reconstruction of its primitive appearance.  The huge blocks become long prisms with sharp edges, between which electrified figures wander, the light falls suddenly, bringing out huge splinters. 

Bibliografia

H. Focillon, Giovan Battista Piranesi 1720-1778 (1918): n. 541; J. Wilton-Ely, Giovan Battista Piranesi, The complete etchings (1994): n. 675.