The Ancient Walls of Rome
Piranesi's own teacher, etching the ruins that trained him.
- Work
- Veduta delle antiche Mura di Roma, from Delle magnificenze di Roma antica e moderna
- Artist / naturalist
- Giuseppe Vasi
- Origin & date
- Rome, ca. 1754
- Held by
- David Rumsey Map Collection · via Internet Archive and Wikimedia Commons
Format
The full-resolution scan, color-managed to the source — yours to print, study, and keep.
Size
$19.00
The story
Giuseppe Vasi ran the printmaking workshop where a young Piranesi trained before eclipsing him in fame — Vasi's own ten-volume Delle magnificenze di Roma antica e moderna (On the Magnificence of Ancient and Modern Rome, 1747–1761) mapped the city street by street, monument by monument, with a documentary thoroughness Piranesi's more theatrical Vedute never attempted. This plate records a stretch of Rome's ancient defensive walls along the Tiber, boats and fishermen working the river in the foreground while the fortifications — built and rebuilt from the Republican era through the late Empire — stand behind. What to notice: where Piranesi dramatized ruin, Vasi inventoried it — this plate reads closer to a field survey than a stage set, the corrective context for how much invention his more famous student later added.
About this reproduction
- Faithful reproduction of a public-domain work, sourced from David Rumsey Map Collection · via Internet Archive and Wikimedia Commons’s open-access release.
- Printed to order on 200gsm EMA matte art paper: smooth, no glare.
- Color-managed to the source scan.
- Ships in 5–8 business days; satisfaction guarantee.
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