Giovanni Battista Piranesi was born in or near Venice in 1720 and died in Rome in 1778. Piranesi was the son of a stonemason and builder. Piranesis first teacher was his uncle M.Lucchesi, engineer of the Venetian waterworks. From him Piranesi learnt to draw and to design architecture and learnt his appreciation of Palladios work. Here he also gained important practical skills like keeping in working order Venices sea defences. At the age of fifteen Piranesi helped to restore some important Roman monuments in Rimini. In 1740 when he was twenty, Piranesi was able to move to Rome as a draftsman in the entourage of the Venetian ambassador M.Foscarini. Piranesi, knowing ancient history, had longed to see Rome and set out to explore the citys monuments enthusiastically and in every detail. In Rome, he also studied perspective and stage design and learned to etch with G.Vasi. Etching views of Rome and its architecture became Piranesis main source of income and earned him international admiration and demand for his works in only a few years. Piranesis four Roman decades were filled with archeological studies, theoretical work and with a remarkably fast production of large graphic series like the 'Vedute di Roma' (1747-74), the 'Antiquita Romane' (1756ff.) and 'Della Magnificenza ed Architettura de Romani' (1761). All his life Piranesi had seen himself not only as a graphic artist and scholar, but also as an architect and had wished to build architecture. Sadly only one small, but impressive Roman church, called Santa Maria del Priorato, was executed under his direction and after his plans from 1764 to 1766. Nevertheless Piranesis architectural ideas importantly influenced young French and British architects. In Piranesis etchings profound knowledge of specific monuments and of architecture in general and furthermore extensive construction and perspective skills are freely combined with inventive, ornate and visionary fantasies. Piranesis widest, most captivating and most talked about inventions were his 'Carceri' (1749-50 and 1761). Over the years Piranesi put together his own private collection of antiquities, he also restored and sold ancient Roman art. In the 1760s he made frequent visits to the Hadrians Villa in Tivoli and to Pompei to learn at first hand about the newest discoveries. One of his final projects was the recording of Greek temples in Paestum in 1777-8.