Giovanni Paolo Pannini

The interior of the Pantheon, Rome

Paolo Giovanni Pannini or Panini (June 17, 1691 – Rome, October 21, 1765) was an Italian painter and architect, mainly known as one of the vedutisti or (veduta, or "view painters").

As a young man, Pannini trained in his native town of Piacenza as a stage designer. In 1711, he moved to Rome, where he studied drawing with Benedetto Luti and became famous as a decorator of palaces, including the Villa Patrizi (1718–1725) and the Palazzo de Carolis (1720). As a painter, Pannini 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 the interior of the Pantheon, and his vedute — paintings of picture galleries containing views of Rome. Most of his works, specially those of ruins have a substantial fanciful and unreal embellishment characteristic of capriccio themes.

In 1719, Pannini was admitted to the Congregazione dei Virtuosi al Pantheon. He taught in Rome at the Accademia di San Luca and the Académie de France, where he influenced Jean-Honoré Fragonard. His studio included Hubert Robert and his son Francesco Panini. His style would influence a number of other vedutisti, such as his pupil Antonio Joli, as well as Canaletto and Bernardo Bellotto, who sought to appease the need by visitors for painted "postcards" depicting the Italian environs.