5 — For an overview see Juan Manuel Lizarraga Echaide, Cárceles y otras fantasías arquitectónicas de Giambatista Piranesi en la Biblioteca Histórica, Estudio bibliográfico y catálogo, documentos de trabajo UCM, Biblioteca Histórica, Madrid, 2011/12, p. 13—18, URL: www.ucm. es/BUCM/foa/doc18677.pdf, (Accessed: 09/05/12) See also Juan Calatrava (ed.), De la magnificencia y Arquitectura de los romanos y otros escritos, Giovanni Battista Piranesi, Akal, Madrid, 1998, p. 9
6 — The second plate is Part of a great harbour. See Arthur M. Hind, Giovanni Battista Piranesi. A critical study. With a List of his Published Works and Detailed Catalogues of the Prisons and the Views of Rome, The Costwold Gallery, London, 1922, p. 80
from fruitless meandering; no, entering into the confused game proposed by the labyrinth itself, the repeated vision of the same space that constantly returns to the retina of the incautious visitor. A space that does not even warn us that we are about to enter it; only a short while after finding ourselves inside it do we lose all sense of direction. Daedalus built the monster’s dwelling but failed to recognise its architecture. The palace whose entrance condemns whoever is forced to enter does not make it impossible to return but demonstrates the conflict aroused by knowing that the exit exists, yet being unable to recognise its position. Ariadne found the solution by the only way of bypassing any illusion, any deception, thrown up by the structure: fixing one end of a ball of thread at the entrance is the same as establishing the start of a journey and, consequently, identifying the geometric position of every turn, every corner, every path that makes up the labyrinth. These three factors – the initial identification of the entrance, the presence of the Minotaur inside it, and the impossibility of distinguishing the path travelled – would be overcome by Ariadne by identifying the form – in other words, the architecture. In this respect, the labyrinth of Daedalus and Ariadne constitutes the earliest of the architectural operations that celebrate angst, aligning itself with the most implacable phenomenon of repetition since original sin: time. Losing oneself in a labyrinth is thus the same as stopping time with no value; once inside, it is impossible to speed up any process because the only alternative, if you manage to escape the Minotaur, will be death from starvation. The exit, we should not forget, is only there in the imagination.
AMPIO MAGNIFICO COLLEGIO. PIRANESI Opere varie di architettura, prospettive, grotteschi, Antichità is a compendium of various prints that Piranesi made during his youth. This compilation volume was published for the first time in 1750, when Piranesi had already settled in Rome; from then on, different editions were published in a steady stream, each adopting minor changes and some additions.5 This first edition, along with various series, contains two prints that escape any attempt at pigeonholing; one of them, entitled Plan of a Large and Magnificent College,6 is also notable for only being represented by a plan – the other images are shown in perspective. The project Fig. 3 was a proposal – not submitted – for the Klementino competition convened by the Accademia di San Lucca in Rome in 1750. The competition rules were very clear: a building was sought in which to teach Mathematics, separate from those where the Fine Arts of Painting and Architecture were taught. The 28
CARABI & BOIX