Product Description: Published in 1765, Giovanni Battista Piranesi's Osservazioni is an impassioned defense of the superiority of Roman architectural "invention" over the "beautiful and noble simplicity" of ancient Greece. In this three-part polemical masterpiece, the famed engraver and designer not only contends that the Etruscans-not the Greeks-were the artistic mentors of the Romans but also argues for a Roman-inspired exuberance in design that draws freely on all forms and traditions of ancient art...read more

Catalogs Piranesi's numerous designs for buildings and furnishings as well as his rare figure studies

Reproductions of outstanding architectural etchings by the renowned eighteenth-century Italian architect and contemporary photographs of the same monuments reveal changes that time has and has not produced in Rome

Reproduces both the first and second editions of the eighteenth-century Italian artist's prison etchings, revealing his architectural talents and the cruelty of prison life