1 July
work
Timepiece of Humanity
computer
1996.07.01
Flash 001
Flash 002
Flash 003
2000.07.01
more on Piranesi's Campo Marzio
2001.07.01 09:05
2001.07.01 11:20
Piranesi Campo Marzio in 2 states
2001.07.01 11:12
Re: more on Piranesi's Campo Marzio
2001.07.01 14:24
Projects for Quaestio Abstrusa Fashions
2002.07.01
Etant donnes' back door
2003.07.01
Crackscam 001
Crackscam 002
Crackscam 003
2003.07.01
Pretensions of an UnArchitect
2003.07.01
Modern Trajectory
2004.07.01 14:57
2004.07.01 15:59
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John Wilton-Ely
Piranesi Campo Marzio in 2 states
2001.07.01 11:12
Dear John Wilton-Ely:
After spending over ten years redrawing Piranesi's Ichnographia Campus Martius utilizing CAD, I finally (on 14 May, 1999) went to the University of Pennsylvania's Fine Arts Library to see an original Ichnographia. I had been using a poster of the Ichnographia as the source of my redrawing, but I never saw an original of the large plan. To my astonishment, I found that the plan that I had been used to looking at, and indeed the plan as it is most often published, e.g., in your The Complete Etching, is distinctly different in certain areas than the plan within the U of P's original Campo Marzio tome. I had documented the differences in April 2000, and published the differences online at www.quondam.com.
My question to you is whether anyone else has, to your knowledge, discovered that the Ichnographia Campus Martius exists in two states. I have yet to come across any such record. In fact, the only reference that comes close is within your The Complete Etchings, where, within the "List of G.B. Piranesi's Published Works," by Arthur M. Hind, there is noted a later(?) edition of Il Campo Marzio in Thomas Ashby's collection that has only Italian text. It would be interesting to see whether the Ichnographia within Ashby's copy is of the first or second state.
I am not going to disclose here what and where the differences within the Ichnographia are, but I will say that the plan as most often published is not the original plan. At this point, I am personally satisfied in having 'discovered' the two states of the Ichnographia, but, since I am not associated with any academic institution, I am not in a position to further research when the plan was altered, nor who altered the plan, nor even why the plan was altered (--although I do have some preliminary theories). Answers to those questions might be something you could investigate. In any case, it appears The Complete Etchings is just a tad shy of being truly complete.
If our correspondence continues along lines of mutual respect, I will be happy to share any of the other things about the Ichnographia that I have "found out" over the last few years.
Sincerely yours,
Stephen Lauf
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