Giovanni Paolo Panini

Giovanni Paolo, also known as Gian Paolo Panini or Pannini, was an Italian Baroque painter and architect who worked in Rome and is primarily known as one of the vedutisti. As a painter, Panini is best known for his vistas of Rome, in which he took a particular interest in the city's antiquities. Among his most famous works are his view of the interior of the Pantheon, and his vedute—paintings of picture galleries containing views of Rome. Most of his works, especially those of ruins, have a fanciful and unreal embellishment characteristic of capriccio themes. In this they resemble the capricci of Marco Ricci. Panini also painted portraits, including one of Pope Benedict XIV.