Plan of the Mausoleum of Caecilia Metella, wife of the Triumvir Marcus Crassus..., tome 3, tavola 49 from "Le Antichità Romane" (Roman Antiquities)

Plan of the Mausoleum of Caecilia Metella, wife of the Triumvir Marcus Crassus..., tome 3, tavola 49 from "Le Antichità Romane" (Roman Antiquities)

Giovanni Battista Piranesi

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

While Piranesi's 'Vedute' record the present appearance of the relics of antiquity, he also dug deeper, investigating the engineering feats of the ancient Romans and attempting to reconstruct the former appearance of the ancient city. His 'Antichità Romane' of 1756, a four-volume work that won him admittance to the British Society of Antiquarians, includes maps of the ancient walls and aqueduct system and a thorough investigation of Roman burial customs. The third volume illustrates the sepulchral monuments of the Via Appia Antica, including six plates devoted to the tomb of Cecilia Metella. In plate 49, Piranesi combines a number of views—an elevation, a plan, a cross-section, details of the masonry construction—to create a handsomely designed and informative page.

Drawings and Prints

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Plan of the Mausoleum of Caecilia Metella, wife of the Triumvir Marcus Crassus..., tome 3, tavola 49 from "Le Antichità Romane" (Roman Antiquities)Plan of the Mausoleum of Caecilia Metella, wife of the Triumvir Marcus Crassus..., tome 3, tavola 49 from "Le Antichità Romane" (Roman Antiquities)Plan of the Mausoleum of Caecilia Metella, wife of the Triumvir Marcus Crassus..., tome 3, tavola 49 from "Le Antichità Romane" (Roman Antiquities)Plan of the Mausoleum of Caecilia Metella, wife of the Triumvir Marcus Crassus..., tome 3, tavola 49 from "Le Antichità Romane" (Roman Antiquities)Plan of the Mausoleum of Caecilia Metella, wife of the Triumvir Marcus Crassus..., tome 3, tavola 49 from "Le Antichità Romane" (Roman Antiquities)

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.