This print is from a bound volume of etchings, originally published in five separate series, Part One of Architecture and Perspectives, Opere Varie, Imaginary Prisons, Alcune Vedute di Archi Trionfali and Trofei di Ottaviano Augusto, later republished in one volume by his sons Francesco and Pietro Piranesi.

This volume, containing 97 plates (folio and large folio), uniformly bound in red half morocco over marbled boards by Tessier (label in each volume), spines with raised bands gilt, was number 8 of 27 folio volumes of etchings by Giovanni Battista and Francesco Piranesi published in Paris by the Calcographie des Piranesi frères (1800-1807). For the complete set of prints in this volume see accession numbers: E. 4318-4414-1908. The copper plates are now in the Istituto Centrale per la Grafica, Rome.


The first series, Part One of Architecture and Perspectives (Parte Prima di Architetture e Prospettive inventate, ed incise da Gio. Batta Piranesi Architetto Veneziano dedicate al Sig. Nicola Giobbe, Rome, Fratelli Pagliari, 1743), with 33 etchings, is one of the earliest collected works published by Piranesi and is dedicated to the Venetian builder Nicola Giobbe, one of the artist’s most important early patrons in Rome. The dedication was later replated by ‘fra gli Arcadi Salcindio Tiseio’, Piranesi’s poetic pseudonym as a member of the literary society, the Arcadians.

The Opere Varie includes various works of architecture, perspectives, grotesques and antiquities. First published by Bouchard in 1750, it was later expanded in the 1760s to include small architectural fantasies. The Paris edition contains 16 plates from this series.

The Imaginary Prisons firstly appeared in 1750, when Piranesi’s publisher, Giovanni Bouchard, included a group of 14 plates in the combination volume Opere Varie. In 1760, Piranesi reissued the plates as Carceri d’Invenzione with 16 plates.

The fourth group of prints belongs to the series titled Some Views of Triumphal Arches and other Monuments erected by the Romans. First published in 1748 as Antichità Romanae de Tempi della Repubblica, e de' primi Imperatori, disegnate, ed incise da Giambattista Piranesi Architetto Veneziano…Parte Prima (Part I) and Antichità Romanae Fuori di Roma Disegnate ed incise da Giambatta Piranesi Architetto Veneziano. Parte Seconda (Part II). At a date sometime after 1761, the title was altered to Alcune Vedute.. by which the series is generally known. This edition, with 32 etchings, also includes a plate added by Francesco, the Temple of Minerva Medica. Another volume of etchings from the same series but in a different order, published by Piranesi, is in the V&A (accession numbers: E.1409-1438-1959).

The fifth and final series included in this volume is the Trophies of Octavian August (Trofei di Ottaviano Augusto innalzati per la Vittoria ad Actium e conquista dell'Egitto con vari altri ornamenti diligentemente ricavati dagli avanzi più preziosi delle fabbriche antiche di Roma, utili a pittori, scultori, ed architetti, disegnati ed incisi da Giambattista Piranesi, Architetto Veneziano) with ten plates, first published in Rome by Bouchard in 1753. Francesco Piranesi added a title page and five extra plates to the later editions of the volume.