View of the Mausoleum of the Emperor Hadrian (now called Castel S. Angelo) from the rear, from Vedute di Roma (Roman Views)

Giovanni Battista Piranesi

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Piranesi's earliest views of Rome, such as the Piazza del Popolo (37.45.3.49), had placed the principal buildings at the back of a vast, tilted space, filled with a diversity of human activity. By the mid-1750s, the monuments fill the space more commandingly, and are seen as if from below and close at hand, as in this view of the Castel Sant'Angelo. Piranesi produced this view at the same time he was working on the Antichità Romane (41.71.1.3.49; 41.71.1.3.53), his four-volume archaeological treatise, and it may have been originally intended for that work. The clear didactic character of the image and the type of lettering are characteristic of the Antichità Romane, although the dramatic view of the castle as it appeared in the eighteenth century is entirely in keeping with the other Vedute. The buildings at the top of the structure served as a gracious and well-fortified refuge for the pope in times of trouble—the corridor that stretches to the right atop huge arches leads all the way to the Vatican Palace.

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Department’s vast collection of works on paper comprises approximately 21,000 drawings, 1.2 million prints, and 12,000 illustrated books created in Europe and the Americas from about 1400 to the present day. Since its foundation in 1916, the Department has been committed to collecting a wide range of works on paper, which includes both pieces that are incredibly rare and lauded for their aesthetic appeal, as well as material that is more popular, functional, and ephemeral. The broad scope of the department’s collecting encourages questions of connoisseurship as well as those pertaining to function and context, and demonstrates the vital role that prints, drawings, and illustrated books have played throughout history.

Metropolitan Museum of Art