Templum Antiquum Ad Fontem Aegerium (Sant'Urbano alla Caffarella, Rome)

Anonymous, Italian, 16th century

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Perspectival depiction of a Roman temple with Corinthian columns, transformed into the church of Sant'Urbano alla Caffarelle in the 10th century AD. The sheet was acquired as part of a set of fifteen sheets containing 19 plates with views of ancient Roman buildings and one design for a stage set, likely all from the stock of Antonio Lafreri and/or Antonio Salamanca in Rome. The author of the print has not been identified yet, but is undoubtedly the same as 2016.684.14.

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