Rome: The Piazza Navona

This 1751 view of the Piazza Navona in Rome, now in the Tokyo Fuji Art Museum, is an unusual departure for Canaletto, whose oeuvre was almost entirely devoted to Venice and London. Bernini's Fountain of the Four Rivers (1648–51), dominating the center of the piazza built over Domitian's ancient stadium, represented the pinnacle of Roman Baroque public sculpture — a commission that Bernini secured against the opposition of Pope Innocent X, who had initially favored Borromini for the project. Canaletto had visited Rome around 1719–20 before establishing himself as Venice's premier view painter, and any Roman views he produced were likely based on drawings made during that early sojourn and elaborated in the studio. Rome was in the 1750s increasingly dominated by Piranesi's atmospheric vedute and the antiquarian enthusiasm of the Neoclassical movement crystallizing around Johann Joachim Winckelmann; Canaletto's crisp Venetian manner applied to Roman subjects had a clarity quite different from the Piranesian tradition. The Tokyo Fuji Art Museum holds the only major collection of Western old masters in Japan, assembled by Fuji Television in the 1980s.

The elongated oval of the piazza creates a natural perspectival channel, with Bernini's obelisk fountain providing a vertical focal point. Canaletto captures the baroque architecture and sculptural fountains with his characteristic precision, while animated figures bring the public space to life.