Piazza e Portici della Basilica Vaticana from: Il Nuovo Teatro delle Fabbriche, et Edificii, in Prospettiva di Rome Moderna (...)

Giovanni Battista Falda

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Bird's-eye view of the square and arcade in front of Saint Peter's Basilica in Rome. The arcade is depicted in a stage of the plans that was never realized with a third part of the arcade on the far side, leaving only two narrow entrances to the square. Numbers are added near several notable buildings and monuments which are identified below the image.

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