veduta, (Italian: “view”), detailed, largely factual painting, drawing, or etching depicting a city, town, or other place. The first vedute probably were painted by northern European artists who worked in Italy, such as Paul Brill (1554–1626), a landscape painter from Flanders who produced a number of marine views and scenes of Rome that were purchased by visitors.
Among the most famous of the vedutisti are four Venetians. Canaletto (Antonio Canal, 1697–1768), probably the greatest of the vedutisti, painted precise views of Venetian architecture that are found in most of the world’s major art museums. The Guardi family, Giacomo (1678–1716), Giannantonio (1699–1760), and Francesco (1712–93), produced a great number of views of Venice. The most famous member of the family was Francesco, whose style was based on that of Canaletto, though his treatment is freer. Giovanni Pannini (c. 1691–1765/68) was the first artist to concentrate on painting ruins.
To the engraver the attractions of vedute were immense. Canaletto issued his etched vedute in 1741; and Giambattista Piranesi (1720–78)—etcher, archaeologist, and architect—completed what is probably the best known of all the series of vedute, “Le Vedute di Roma.” Allowing for variations of scale and minor additions, these scenes of monumental Roman ruins are essentially factual. His etchings of prison interiors, however, are examples of vedute ideate, which are realistically drawn though completely imaginary scenes. Guardi and Canaletto produced another form of veduta, the capriccio, in which architectural elements, though correct, are combined in a rather strange fashion—e.g., Canaletto’s drawing in which St. Peter’s in Rome is shown rising above the Doge’s Palace in Venice, or the etching by William Marlow (1740–1813) of “St. Paul’s Cathedral in London with the Grand Canal of Venice.”