Veduta del Gimnasio a Pesto (The Gymnasium at Paestum)

Giovanni Volpato (born Bassano del Grappo 1735, died Rome 1803) was a noted antiquarian, excavator and manufacturer of decorative classical sculptures, but his principal fame and success came from his activities as an engraver of antiquities and archaeological sites for the tourist market in late eighteenth-century Italy.

Volpato produced many engravings of the complex of temples at Paestum, a major classical Greek city in southern Italy. Images of the ruins, which were difficult to access in the eighteenth century, were a subject of great interest. His subjects are often based on drawings commissioned in the 1750s by the Spanish military engineer Count Gazola (1698–1780). Francesco Bartolozzi (Italian 1727–1815), who engraved Gazola’s originals, was Volpato’s teacher. Filippo Morghen (Italian 1730–1807), the father of Volpato’s pupil and son-in-law, was also a pupil of Bartolozzi and produced prints of Paestum in 1765. Recent scholarship indicates that this engraving of the ‘gymnasium’ is based on a watercolour by Volpato’s collaborator, Swiss Abraham-Louis-Rodolphe Ducros (1748 –1810), who may have also coloured the monochrome print.1

In the 18th century it was mistakenly believed that the three ancient Greek temples in Paestum originally constituted a gymnasium, public basilica, and portico. The ‘gymnasium’ that Volpato refers to is in fact the first Temple of Hera, the oldest in the temple complex (circa 550 BC).

Volpato’s capriccio blends fantasy and topographical accuracy to create a sweeping view of the temple in a timeless pastoral setting. Its monumentality is emphasised by the large, broken Doric column in the foreground, which seems to dwarf the three surrounding figures. Foliage sprouts from the top of the temple, indicating its age and its unaltered, untouched state. Bathed in rose-golden light, the temple’s deteriorated grandeur evokes a lost, golden era, prompting nostalgia and awe.

1. Costabile Ceroni, Abraham Louis Rodolphe Ducros: Le incisioni colorate di Paestum, Paestum in Arte, I Quaderni, 2022, p 8.

To find out which artworks are available for print requests and reproduction please enquire here. This service only applies to select artworks in the Gallery's collection.