Imaginary Landscape with Roman Ruins

Italian, 1691-1765
1740 
Oil on canvas
Gift of the Samuel H. Kress Foundation

Pannini was a painter and an architect famous for his many paintings of Rome. In this painting, Pannini has brought together buildings that are located throughout Rome including the Colosseum, the Basilica of Maxentius, and the Temple of Fortuna Virilis. It is an homage to Rome’s classical past. Pannini influenced a generation of Italian vedute painters including Canaletto and Bellotto, but it was Piranesi who adopted his sense of the ‘romantic ruin.’