ABOVE

These selections try to reflect Piranesi astonishing graphic invention, being freshly minted ways of conveying information in ways that avoid the cliché and the expected. With such heaps of rocks, rubble and inscriptions at his disposal it is not just his great ability in representing scale that carries the day but also his use of lettering, visual puns,with unremitting textures with sudden changes and contrasts. Every image has some new challenge to the material, to the graphic mode chosen, and usually to the restraining influence of the frame itself. A particular favourite is the little known guide to the various nozzle sizes in the flow of water.

ROW A 01 The Smoking Fire from 'Carcer'i series ; 02 The Letter V from the 'Ornamental Graphics' set; 03 The Grand Piazza from 'Carceri' series

ROW B 01 Frontespiece to' Vedute di Roma'; 02' Le Antichite Romane II', Plan of the Tomb of Alexander Severus; 03 Frontespiece to 'Le Antichita Romane', the intersection of the Via Appia and the Via Ardeatina;

ROW C 01 'Le Antichite Romane IV', entrance to the upper room of a mausoleum; 02 'Le Antichite Romane III', the Via Appia Antica, road surface;03 nozzles and nmeasures for the regulation of water from'Ruins of the Fountainhead' 1761

ROW D 01 Vignette 'Work conquers all', from' Lapides Capitoline' 1761 02 the emissarium of Lake Albano ; 03 How the drums of a column are connected, from 'The Trophy' c1774.