That ancient college is extremely well calculated for such a
destination, from the extent of its buildings, its remoteness from
noise, and the airiness of its situation. By this liberal conduct to
the PIRANESI, the French government has shewn the warm interest it
takes in the progress of those arts. The establishment of these
Romans is to be divided into three branches. The first is placed in
the _Collège de Navarre_; the second is to be in the _Palais du
Tribunat_; and the third, at _Morfontaine_.
Three hundred artists of different nations, some of whom are known by
master-pieces, while others announce the genius necessary for
producing them, are to be distributed in the seven classes of this
academy, which include the fine arts of every description. Each
artist being at liberty to follow the branch to which he is most
partial, it may easily be conceived how noble an emulation will be
roused by such an assemblage of talents. Several are now employed
here in the workshops of Painting, Sculpture, Mosaic, and Engraving.
Let us see in what manner.
The ground-floor is devoted to Sculpture. Here are made, in plaster
and terra cotta, models of the finest monuments of Greece and Italy,
which are executed in stone of the richest species, such as porphyry,
granite, red antique, Parian and Carrara marble. From the hands of
the two CARDELLI, and other eminent artists, are seen to issue copies
of the most magnificent bas-reliefs of ancient Rome, and the most
beautiful friezes of RAPHAEL, MICHAEL ANGELO, JULIO ROMANO, and other
great masters of the Italian school; tripods, obelisks, antique
vases, articles of furniture in the Egyptian and Chinese taste,
together with objects taken from nature, such as the most curious
animals in the national _ménagerie_, likewise occupy their talents.
All these subjects are executed in different sizes, and form,
together or separately, decorations for apartments or tables,
particularly pilasters, and plateaux, in which the richness of the
materials is surpassed by that of the workmanship.
On the same floor is the workshop of Mosaic. It is under the
direction of BELLONI, who has invented methods, by means of which he
has introduced Mosaic into articles of furniture, and for the
pavement of rich apartments, at prices far inferior to what might be
imagined. The principal articles here exhibited, as specimens, are:
--1. Superb marble tables and stands, in which are inserted ornaments
and pictures in Mosaic, or incrustated in the Florentine manner--2. A
large pavement, where the beauty and variety of the marbles are
relieved by embellished incrustations--3. Small pictures, in which
the painting, in very fine Mosaic, is raised on an even ground of one
piece of black marble--4. Large tables, composed of specimens of
fine-grained stones, such as jasper, agate, carnelion, lapis lazuli,
&c. and also of valuable marbles, distributed into compartments and
after a design imitated from the antique, and enriched with a few
incrustated pictures, representing animals and flowers. Besides
these, here are to be seen other essays of a kind entirely new. These
are marbles, intended for furniture, coloured in an indelible manner.
Sometimes the figures and ornaments in them are coloured in the
ground; sometimes they are in colour, but raised on a ground of white
marble.
On the first story is the workshop for Engraving. Here the artists
are employed in engraving the seven hills of Rome, ancient circuses
of that celebrated city, plans of the _forum_, obelisks of Rome and
Egypt, ruins of Pompeia, drawn on the spot by the late J. B.
PIRANESI, together with modern subjects, such as the splendid
edifices of Paris, the beautiful views of the environs, the national
fêtes, and every thing that can deservedly interest artists and
persons of taste. On the same story are the plates of the PIRANESI
calcography, the place where they are printed, and the warehouse
where they are deposited. The engravings, now nearly executed, will
form upwards of twenty volumes; and those begun will equal that
number.
The second story is occupied by painters in oil-colours; the third,
by those in water-colours; the fourth, by draughtsmen in Indian ink
and bistre; and the fifth serves for the lodging of the artists,
particularly the most skilful among them, who direct the different
branches of this establishment. The principal pile of building is
crowned by a _Belvedere_, which commands an extensive view of Paris,
and seems calculated for promoting the inspirations of genius. Here
are copied, in oil, water-colours, Indian ink and bistre, the fresco
paintings of RAPHAEL, MICHAEL ANGELO, and JULIO ROMANO; the Vatican,
the Farnesian palace, the Villa Altoviti, and the Villa Lante
alternately furnishing models no less happily chosen than carefully
executed. The antiquities of Herculaneum, so interesting from the
knowledge they afford us of the customs of the ancient Romans, and
from the elegant decorations of which they have procured us the
models, the ruins of Palmyra and Balbeck, those of Greece and Sicily,
together with views of Constantinople and of the country in which it
is situated, are here rendered with the most exact truth, joined to
the most harmonious colouring. Here too are represented; in the three
manners before-mentioned, views and sites of Egypt, Greece, Italy,
France, and all other countries; cascades, such as those of TERNI,
NARNI, and TIVOLI; sea-pieces; landscapes, parks; and gardens;
arabesques after RAPHAEL; new and picturesque plants; in a word,
decorations formed of an assemblage of every thing most perfect in
art and nature.
On the first and second stories are also two exhibition-rooms, for
such pictures and works of sculpture as are finished, where the eye
wanders agreeably amidst a crowd of objects of an enlivening or
serious nature. Here it is that the amateur, after having seen the
artists at work in the classes of this academy, fixes his choice on
the kind of production which most takes his fancy. These two rooms
contain the different articles which are afterwards to be displayed
in the two porticos of the _Palais du Tribunat_.
Those elegant and spacious porticos, situated in the most centrical
part of Paris, facing the _Rue St. Honoré_, have likewise been
granted to the PRIANESI through the special favour of the government.
Not only all the productions of their establishment, but also the
principal master-pieces in painting, sculpture, and architecture,
produced by artists of all nations, will there be exhibited; so that
those porticos will present, as it were, an Encyclopædia of the Fine
Arts.[1]
[Footnote 1: The principal protector of the undertaking of the
PIRANESI is JOSEPH BONAPARTE, who has not confined himself to
assisting them in the capital. Being desirous to introduce the arts
into the country where he passes the finest season of the year, and
to promote the discovery of the PIRANESI, relative to the properties
of the argill found at _Morfontaine_, he has given to them for
several years the use of a large building and a very extensive piece
of ground, ornamented with bowers, where all the subjects modelled at
the _Collège de Navarre_, in _terra cotta_ or in porcelain of
_Morfontaine_, undergo the process of baking. In the last-mentioned
place, the PIRANESI purpose to establish a foundery for sculpture in
bronze and other metals. The government daily affords to them
encouragement and resources which insure the success of their
establishment. To its other advantages are added a library, and a
printing-office.]