_Paris, March 19, 1802._
As the period of my stay here is drawing rapidly towards a
conclusion, I find much less leisure for writing; otherwise I should,
in my last letter, have made you acquainted with an establishment not
irrelevant to the leading subject of it, and which, when completed,
cannot fail to attract general notice and admiration.
Every one has heard of the PIRANESI. In the year 1800, PIETRO and
FRANCESCO, the surviving sons of the celebrated GIOVANNI-BATTISTA,
transported to France their immense collection of drawings, with all
their plates and engravings. They were welcomed, protected, and
encouraged by the French government. Anxious to give to these
ingenious artists every facility for the success of an undertaking
that they had conceived, it has granted to them the spacious and
handsome premises of the _ci-devant Collège de Navarre_, in the _Rue
de la Montagne St. Geneviève_, which the PIRANESI will shortly open
as an