Reprinted from rare, expensive first and second editions, this version of Piranesi's masterwork presents side-by-side renderings of original and extensively revised drawings in a large format. 33 full-page illustrations.

Layers / by Heather Hyde Minor -- Lost and found / by Carolyn Yerkes -- Pages / by Carolyn Yerkes -- Dedicated and sent / by Heather Hyde Minor -- Bound / by Heather Hyde Minor -- Sold / by Carolyn Yerkes.

A new exploration of Piranesi’s work as a draftsman, published to coincide with an exhibition at the British Museum. The Venetian-born artist Giovanni Battista Piranesi (1720–1778) is best known for his dramatic etchings of the architecture and antiquities of his adopted home city of Rome and for his extraordinary flights of spatial fancy, such as Le Carceri (“Prisons”). Published to coincide with an exhibition at the British Museum, this volume explores Piranesi’s celebrated skill as a draftsman. While many studies are concerned with Piranesi’s activities as a printmaker, this beautifully illustrated book examines new dimensions of his art by focusing on his drawings. Curator and author Sarah Vowles establishes a clear relationship between his drawings and prints, discusses the involvement of studio hands in his late works, and examines how his style as a draftsman evolved. Piranesi Drawings reveals the quality and lasting impact of the pen and chalk studies by a remarkably talented draftsman, as demonstrated by the superb collection at the British Museum.

An impassioned plea for a Roman-Style eclecticism that draws freely on all artistic forms and traditions, Piranesi's Observations anticipates the contemporary debate between devotees of a rational, minimal architecture and advocates of an architecture rich in ornament and historical references."--BOOK JACKET.

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.

"Tafuri's work is probably the most innovative and exciting new form of European theory since French poststructuralism and this book is probably the best introduction to it for the newcomer. ..."