Giovanni Paolo Panini

1691-1765

Giovanni Paolo Panini arrived in Rome in 1711 and became one of the eighteenth century's most accomplished painters of the city itself. Trained initially in stage design, he brought that theatrical sensibility to his vedute—luminous, carefully composed views of Rome's monuments and ruins rendered with an imaginative, capriccio-like splendor. He decorated palaces across the city and taught perspective at the Accademia di San Luca and the French Academy, profoundly influencing artists like Fragonard and Hubert Robert. His interiors of the Pantheon and his gallery paintings, which collected multiple views of Rome into single compositions, established the template for how later painters would represent the city. Panini died in Rome in 1765, having created works sought by European monarchs and collectors who wanted painted records of Italy's wonders.