after the publication the Society of Antiquaries in London made an honorary mem

ber of "II Signor Giovanni Battista Piranesi, a Venetian, resident in Rome, a most
ingenious Architect, and author of the Antiquities of Rome and the Neighbor
hood." Recognition lagged behind at home, for he had to wait four years to be ac
cepted into the local guild of painters, and eleven years to be created a Cavalière. But
for Europe in general the Roman Antiquities made Piranesi into a celebrity that every
cultivated traveller considered as well worth having seen as the Colosseum.

Rarely has a private man accomplished so great a project with so little help. Out
side the windfall of his wife's dowry, he received no aid beyond the remittance of
customs duties on paper, for Lord Charlemont's promised patronage came to
nothing, largely through the ill offices of the English agent who handled his affairs
in Rome. The young Irishman who was twenty-eight when the Roman Antiquities
was published, had already been governing Armagh for two years, and was taking

advantage of the sessions of the House of Lords to throw himself into the London
whirl of the Society of the Dillettanti. He was active and agreeable, but Dr. Johnson
said of him "what did Lord Charlemont learn in all his travels, except that there

was a snake in one of the pyramids of Egypt?"

But poor Piranesi had counted so heavily on Lord Charlemont's help that a year

after the publication of the Roman Antiquities he circulated a pamphlet called Letters

of Justification written to Lord Charlemont and to his Agents in Rome. He illustrated the
booklet with reduced copies of the dedication pages that he had etched for the vol
umes of the Roman Antiquities. Wherever the big plates displayed his patron's name
or coat of arms as though it were carved on an ancient monument, the little copies
showed a cavity as though the honors had been gouged from the marble.
Only two years before, Dr. Johnson had composed his famous letter to Lord
Chesterfield after completing his Dictionary unaided. Dr. Johnson might have been
writing for Piranesi when he said "Seven years, my Lord, have now past, since I
waited in your outward rooms, or was repulsed from your door; during which time
I have been pushing on my work through difficulties, of which it is useless to com
plain, and have brought it, at last, to the verge of publication, without one act of
assistance, one word of encouragement, or one smile of favour. Such treatment I did
not expect, for I never had a patron before."
Piranesi was not more angry, but he spoke out in Latin boldness: "A nobleman
must consider his ancestors, and an artist his descendants. A nobleman is the latest
of his name, and an artist the first of his. Both must act with equal delicacy From
now on I recognize no judge of my work except the public." He signed himself
with his proud new title as Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries in London. The
il