Classical Rome in Melbourne

Volume 6 Number 7 July 12 - August 8 2010

Veduta del Tempio della Sibilla (View of the Temple of the Sibyl) 1761 etching by Giovanni Battista Piranesi (1720-78). Deeply bitten etched lines add to the sense of drama, and the grotesque contemporary figures, digging parasitically on the edge of the site, throw the dignity of the classical heritage into even higher relief. Image courtesy University of Tokyo.
Veduta del Tempio della Sibilla (View of the Temple of the Sibyl) 1761 etching by Giovanni Battista Piranesi (1720-78). Deeply bitten etched lines add to the sense of drama, and the grotesque contemporary figures, digging parasitically on the edge of the site, throw the dignity of the classical heritage into even higher relief. Image courtesy University of Tokyo.

At a ceremony to announce the State Library of Victoria’s 2010 Fellowships, historian Colin Holden was named recipient of the Redmond Barry Fellowship. Gabrielle Murphy talks to Dr Holden about his forthcoming project, and how the classical architecture of some of Melbourne’s finest buildings has inspired Redmond Barry Fellows two years running.

Colin Holden’s interest in the work of the remarkable 18th-century architect and printmaker Giovanni Battista Piranesi (1720-78) was reinforced when he visited Rome for the first time in 1989, and saw in person various Roman ruins which confirmed how remarkably Piranesi had captured, and sometimes exaggerated, their grandeur.

“The Il Tempio della Sibilia (Temple of the Sibyl) is the subject for three quite different etched views by Piranesi, so I made a special effort to visit Tivoli when I was in Rome”, Dr Holden says.

“Of all Piranesi’s works, these are my favourites.”

According to Dr Holden, this tiny building became a model for many eighteenth-century buildings across Europe, hints of which can actually be seen in Melbourne, an example being the World War I memorial at Kew Junction.

Last month Dr Holden was named the 2010 Redmond Barry Fellow by The University of Melbourne and the State Library of Victoria which jointly fund and administer the fellowship for scholars and writers working in the archives of both institutions.

His project, titled ‘Rome in Melbourne: the Piranesi Collections in the Baillieu and State Libraries’ will undertake a major revaluation of Piranesi’s early posthumous printings, unduly neglected until now. The many bound volumes of Piranesi’s prints constitute what Dr Holden considers “one of the most important single collections of eighteenth-century work in the university and state libraries”.

Symbiotically, last year’s Redmond Barry Fellow, journalist Andrew Dodd, also drew inspiration from the classical architecture for which Melbourne is noted. The subject of his research is the architect John James Clark, who arrived in Melbourne in 1852 at the age of 14 and immediately started designing the colony’s important public and civic buildings, including the Royal Mint, Government House and the City Baths.

“I’m intrigued that by a happy coincidence there is a common thread linking my research and that of the previous holder of the Fellowship, says Dr Holden.

 “We are both looking at the heritage of the classical world in Melbourne, in Andrew Dodd’s case, the buildings of J. J. Clark, who as a teenager designed the Old Treasury building, perhaps the most significant building in the inner city to be built on classical principles.

“In my case, the subject is a great collection of 18th century prints, in book form, available in both the Baillieu and the State libraries. The prints I will be examining show in detail much of that classical Roman heritage from which Clark’s design concepts drew their inspiration, either directly or indirectly. However although Piranesi was, like Clark, an architect, his enduring influence is primarily the result of what he created on paper, not through visible buildings on European streetscapes.”

Dr Holden first fell in love with prints when he was an undergraduate at the University of Melbourne in 1970 studying for an honours degree in Archaeology and Middle Eastern languages. In those days Armenian, Ethiopic and other exotic texts were on display on the first floor of the Baillieu Library.

“I got up to give myself a break from reading Syrian, and walked around the floor for exercise,” Dr Holden says.

“At one end, there was an open door and a modest-sized room whose walls were covered with old master prints. What enchanted me from the first was that such a range of effects, some very rich, some almost colourful, could be made purely through the seemingly restricted medium of black (or sepia) and white.

“After that first accidental visit I frequently went back, and eventually came to realise that the changing displays of old master prints were thematically linked in some way. Later, when Professor Joseph Burke came to live in ‘the Vatican’ at Trinity College during the week, I would visit him after dinner, and ask him about a variety of 18th century prints, from Hogarth, his field of expertise, to the Houbraken portraits which decorated the walls of the Senior Common Room. He would give his answers as he walked backwards and forwards along the length of his room, sporting an elegant and ornamental dressing gown over the suit he had worn for dinner at high table.”

Winning the 2010 Redmond Barry Fellowship, a $20,000 grant awarded to assist with travel, living and research expenses, will enable Dr Holden to return to the Baillieu, its archives and those of the State Library, to pursue his passion for the work of Giovanni Battista Piranesi.

“These images of both classical ruins and contemporary Rome are recognised as major landmarks in the development of printmaking, architectural history, and the way in which cities are visualised,” says Dr Holden. “

“They were an important influence on the first systematic visual record of Australia’s colonial buildings, and they continue to influence contemporary Australian artists and architects today.”

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