What does capricci mean?
Capricci are paintings or drawings that depict fantastical architectural scenes, freely mixing real landmarks with wholly invented buildings, ruins, and monuments in settings that never existed. The word is simply the plural of capriccio, borrowed from Italian, where "capriccio" originally suggested a sudden whim or fancy — fitting for images built on imaginative license rather than topographical accuracy. The genre flourished in 18th-century Italy, with artists such as Canaletto, Francesco Guardi, and Giovanni Paolo Panini producing celebrated examples for Grand Tour travelers who wanted picturesque, idealized visions of Italy alongside their faithful views. In modern usage, capricci appears almost entirely in art-historical and museum writing. It carries a refined, scholarly tone, and it preserves the Italian plural form rather than adopting an anglicized ending, signaling its status as a term of art adopted directly from its source language.
nounThe plural of capriccio: a set of artistic works — especially paintings — depicting fantastic, imaginary architectural scenes combining real and invented buildings in whimsical juxtaposition.
- Paintings or drawings depicting fantastical, imagined architectural scenes combining real and invented buildings.
- By extension, any group of works in a fanciful, improvisatory style (plural of capriccio in music contexts).
"The gallery's Venetian room displays several capricci by Guardi, each blending recognizable monuments with pure invention."
"Canaletto's capricci transported viewers to a Venice that existed only in imagination."
"The auction catalogue described the pair of capricci as classic examples of the veduta ideata tradition."
Capricci is itself the standard plural of the singular noun capriccio, following the Italian original rather than taking an English plural form such as *capriccios.
"One capriccio hung in the hall; the rest of the artist's capricci were stored in the archive."
Painters of capricci were the Photoshop artists of the 18th century — rearranging Rome's greatest monuments into dream skylines that never existed.
Reviewed by Deb Chak, Editor. AI-assisted content curated by RJS Tech Solutions LLP.
Etymology of capricci
Capricci is the Italian plural of capriccio, a word formed from capo ("head") and riccio ("curl"), literally suggesting a head full of curls — an image of a mind brimming with sudden fancies. It shares this origin with the English words caprice and capricious, all ultimately pointing to the idea of whim and unpredictability. In art terminology the word was applied from at least the 17th century to imaginative compositions, and it entered English usage through writings on Italian painting, retaining both its spelling and its Italian plural form.
Related word forms
How capricci is actually used
"Capricci" is almost exclusively a term of art history and connoisseurship, used in formal writing about painting, particularly 18th-century Venetian and Roman art. It retains its Italian plural form in English rather than taking an English plural.
Easily confused with capricci
Capriccio is the singular form referring to one fantastical composition, while capricci is its plural.
A caprice is a sudden, unpredictable change of mood or behavior, whereas capricci are artworks depicting imaginary architectural scenes.