Porta del Castel S. Angelo in Roma

Michelangelo Buonarroti

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Elevation of one of the entrance portals to the Castel Sant'Angelo in Rome. This is not the main entrance through which the fortress is entered from the Ponte Sant'Angelo, but another portal on the east side of the defense wall. This print may have been made by the Swedish architect Carl Harleman, who spent time in Italy as part of his education. The formatting of the print and the calligraphic title suggest that it may have been part of a larger series, but the exact context of its making is unknown.

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