Drawn to the Eternal City: Marie-Joseph Peyre’s European Circle in Rome and the Origins of Neoclassicism, 1753–1756

This paper explores the European artistic circle in Rome of the French architect Marie-Joseph Peyre (1730-1785), a little known yet important figure of the first generation of Neoclassical French architects. He occupies a central place in the genesis of Neoclassicism, notably through the publication in 1765 of his book Oeuvres d’architecture, explicitly as “the fruit of [his] studies in Italy”. The purpose of the article is to provide a more detailed account than previously published on Peyre’s three-year sojourn at the French Academy in Rome and his acquaintance with French, Italian (in particular Giovanni Battista Piranesi) and British artists and architects. The European group of artists and architects in Peyre’s circle shared a common taste and architectural culture, which constituted what might be called the Avant-Garde of the middle of the mid-eighteenth century and which was characterized by a renewed interest in the art and architecture of the classical past. Indeed the detailed and measured surveys of some of the major Roman monuments (notably Hadrian’s Villa and the Roman Baths) and other antiquities by this collective of artists indicate an artistic and architectural practice similar to the Renaissance, but which eventually led to the creation of Neoclassical art and architecture.