The so-called Villa of Maecenas at Tivoli. Interior with two figures in the opening of an arch above. (Veduta interna della Villa di Mecenate)
ca. 1764
Medium
etching
Classification
Prints
Department
Drawings and Prints
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
Gift of Mrs. David Keppel, 1960
Accession Number
60.591.11
Tags
Art Historical Context
Step into the shadowy grandeur of ancient Rome through Giovanni Battista Piranesi's etching *The so-called Villa ofecenas at Tivoli. with two figures in the of an arch above* (ca. 1764). This veduta interna, or interior view, captures the atmospheric ruins of the Villa di Mecenate at Tivoli, a site long associated—perhaps romantically—with Gaius Maecenas, the patron of poets like Virgil and Horace during Augustus's reign. Piranesi a master of 18th-century Italian vedutismo, immortalized these crumbling structures amid the Grand Tour era, when wealthy Europeans flocked to Italy to marvel at ant...
About the Artist
Giovanni Battista Piranesi · 1720–1778
Giovanni Battista Piranesi (1720–1778) was an Italian printmaker, architect, and antiquarian whose visionary etchings of Rome and imaginary prisons revolutionized architectural representation and profoundly influenced both Neoclassicism and Romanticism. Piranesi stands as one of the most important printmakers of the eighteenth century, fundamentally shaping European perceptions of ancient Rome an...