Frontispiece to the Views of Rome (Vedute di Roma): Ruins with Statue of Minerva

Piranesi is one of the outstanding eighteenth-century Italian artists who worked extensively for British Grand Tourists. His monumental Vedute di Roma, an ensemble of 135 etchings produced over thirty years, responded to tourists’ hunger for images of Rome in all its ancient splendor and ruin. These prints also helped to disseminate knowledge of antiquity for those who could not travel to Italy, at a moment when archaeological discoveries at Herculaneum and Pompeii had greatly increased curiosity on the subject. Characteristic of Piranesi is the grand, fantastical interpretation of the classical past, melding careful attention to archaeological detail with a proto-Romantic sensibility of disorder and decay.