  Paris, March 19, 1802. As the period of my stay here is drawing rapidly towards a conclusion, I find much less leisure for writing; otherwise I should, in my last letter, have made you acquainted with an establishment not irrelevant to the leading subject of it, and which, when completed, cannot fail to attract general notice and admiration. Every one has heard of the PIRANESI. In the year 1800, PIETRO and FRANCESCO, the surviving sons of the celebrated GIOVANNI-BATTISTA, transported to France their immense collection of drawings, with all their plates and engravings. They were welcomed, protected, and encouraged by the French government. Anxious to give to these ingenious artists every facility for the success of an undertaking that they had conceived, it has granted to them the spacious and handsome premises of the ci-devant CollÈge de Navarre, in the Rue de la Montagne St. GeneviÈve, which the PIRANESI will shortly open as an ACADEMY OF FINE ARTS. That ancient college is extremely well calculated for such a destination, from the extent of its buildings, its remoteness from noise, and the airiness of its situation. By this liberal conduct to the PIRANESI, the French government has shewn the warm interest it takes in the progress of those arts. The establishment of these Romans is to be divided into three branches. The first is placed in the CollÈge de Navarre; the second is to be in the Palais du Tribunat; and the third, at Morfontaine. Three hundred artists of different nations, some of whom are known by master-pieces, while others announce the genius necessary for producing them, are to be distributed in the seven classes of this academy, which include the fine arts of every description. Each artist being at liberty to follow the branch to which he is most partial, it may easily be conceived how noble an emulation will be roused by such an assemblage of talents. Several are now employed here in the workshops of Painting, Sculpture, Mosaic, and Engraving. Let us see in what manner. The ground-floor is devoted to Sculpture. Here are made, in plaster and terra cotta, models of the finest monuments of Greece and Italy, which are executed in stone of the richest species, such as porphyry, granite, red antique, Parian and Carrara marble. From the hands of the two CARDELLI, and other eminent artists, are seen to issue copies of the most magnificent bas-reliefs of ancient Rome, and the most beautiful friezes of RAPHAEL, MICHAEL ANGELO, JULIO ROMANO, and other great masters of the Italian school; tripods, obelisks, antique vases, articles of furniture in the Egyptian and Chinese taste, together with objects taken from nature, such as the most curious animals in the national mÉnagerie, likewise occupy their talents. All these subjects are executed in different sizes, and form, together or separately, decorations for apartments or tables, particularly pilasters, and plateaux, in which the richness of the materials is surpassed by that of the workmanship. On the same floor is the workshop of Mosaic. It is under the direction of BELLONI, who has invented methods, by means of which he has introduced Mosaic into articles of furniture, and for the pavement of rich apartments, at prices far inferior to what might be imagined. The principal articles here exhibited, as specimens, are:—1. Superb marble tables and stands, in which are inserted ornaments and pictures in Mosaic, or incrustated in the Florentine manner—2. A large pavement, where the beauty and variety of the marbles are relieved by embellished incrustations—3. Small pictures, in which the painting, in very fine Mosaic, is raised on an even ground of one piece of black marble—4. Large tables, composed of specimens of fine-grained stones, such as jasper, agate, carnelion, lapis lazuli, &c. and also of valuable marbles, distributed into compartments and after a design imitated from the antique, and enriched with a few incrustated pictures, representing animals and flowers. Besides these, here are to be seen other essays of a kind entirely new. These are marbles, intended for furniture, coloured in an indelible manner. Sometimes the figures and ornaments in them are coloured in the ground; sometimes they are in colour, but raised on a ground of white marble. On the first story is the workshop for Engraving. Here the artists are employed in engraving the seven hills of Rome, ancient circuses of that celebrated city, plans of the forum, obelisks of Rome and Egypt, ruins of Pompeia, drawn on the spot by the late J. B. PIRANESI, together with modern subjects, such as the splendid edifices of Paris, the beautiful views of the environs, the national fÊtes, and every thing that can deservedly interest artists and persons of taste. On the same story are the plates of the PIRANESI calcography, the place where they are printed, and the warehouse where they are deposited. The engravings, now nearly executed, will form upwards of twenty volumes; and those begun will equal that number. The second story is occupied by painters in oil-colours; the third, by those in water-colours; the fourth, by draughtsmen in Indian ink and bistre; and the fifth serves for the lodging of the artists, particularly the most skilful among them, who direct the different branches of this establishment. The principal pile of building is crowned by a Belvedere, which commands an extensive view of Paris, and seems calculated for promoting the inspirations of genius. Here are copied, in oil, water-colours, Indian ink and bistre, the fresco paintings of RAPHAEL, MICHAEL ANGELO, and JULIO ROMANO; the Vatican, the Farnesian palace, the Villa Altoviti, and the Villa Lante alternately furnishing models no less happily chosen than carefully executed. The antiquities of Herculaneum, so interesting from the knowledge they afford us of the customs of the ancient Romans, and from the elegant decorations of which they have procured us the models, the ruins of Palmyra and Balbeck, those of Greece and Sicily, together with views of Constantinople and of the country in which it is situated, are here rendered with the most exact truth, joined to the most harmonious colouring. Here too are represented; in the three manners before-mentioned, views and sites of Egypt, Greece, Italy, France, and all other countries; cascades, such as those of TERNI, NARNI, and TIVOLI; sea-pieces; landscapes, parks; and gardens; arabesques after RAPHAEL; new and picturesque plants; in a word, decorations formed of an assemblage of every thing most perfect in art and nature. On the first and second stories are also two exhibition-rooms, for such pictures and works of sculpture as are finished, where the eye wanders agreeably amidst a crowd of objects of an enlivening or serious nature. Here it is that the amateur, after having seen the artists at work in the classes of this academy, fixes his choice on the kind of production which most takes his fancy. These two rooms contain the different articles which are afterwards to be displayed in the two porticos of the Palais du Tribunat. Those elegant and spacious porticos, situated in the most centrical part of Paris, facing the Rue St. HonorÉ, have likewise been granted to the PRIANESI through the special favour of the government. |
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