Giovanni Paolo Panini

Giovanni [Gian] Paolo Panini [Pannini] was the foremost painter of vedute, or topographical views, in Rome during the eighteenth century. Many of his compositions glorify the remnants of the city's classical past while others, animated depictions of processions, ceremonies, and festivals, record contemporary topography, lifestyles, and customs. Panini received instruction in painting and perspective in Piacenza, then in 1711 moved to Rome and continued his studies with the figure painter Benedetto Luti (1666-1724). In Rome, he was also influenced by the classical ruin pictures of Giovanni Ghisolfi (1623-1683) and the landscapes of Jan Frans van Bloemen and Andrea Locatelli (1695-1741). In 1719 Panini was nominated to the Accademia di San Luca, where he taught perspective drawing and later served as president (principe). He became a member of the Académie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture in Paris in 1732, a rare honor for a Roman painter.

During the 1720s Panini painted several decorative fresco cycles in Roman palazzi and villas. In the last thirty years of his life, the artist specialized in painting the Roman views for which he is best known: minutely detailed architectural fantasies enlivened with freely drawn figures, sometimes depicting religious and historical subjects or contemporary events. To meet the demand for his pictures, Panini oversaw a thriving workshop which included his son Francesco (b. 1738) and the transplanted Frenchman Hubert Robert (1733-1808). His influence can be felt in the works of Giovanni Battista Piranesi and Giovanni Antonio Canaletto. Panini married Catherine Gosset, sister-in-law of the painter Nicolas Vleughels (1668-1737), in 1724. He died in Rome on 21 October 1765.