Piranesi’s Letter to Lord Charlemont and the Public dated 20th June 1757

Abstract

There are only two copies known of this manuscript letter, both of which were inserted by Piranesi in two sets of his Antichità Romane (1756), one of which is now in the Vatican Library, and the other in the Corsiniana Library in Rome.
They are almost identical, written in Italian with a French translation. This indicates that Piranesi, despite the limited circulation of this manuscript, meant it to be read by international readers. The transcription (Appendix 1) and the
translation into English (Appendix 2) given here are based on the Corsiniana copy (53 K 19), to which I added paragraphs absent in the original. The letter in the Vatican has been transcribed by Lamberto Donati (Donati 1950).