from the Rome edition of ‘Vedute di Roma’, depicting the church of St Paul, founded in the 4th century to mark the burial site of the saint, and called ‘outside the wall as it lies on Italian, rather than Vatican soil, though the structure itself belongs wholly to the Vatican and is one of the four principal papal basilicas, along with St John in Lateran, St Peter’s itself, and St Mary Major (Santa Maria Maggiore), this exterior view, with its exaggerated perspective so beloved of Piranesi, shows the beautifully ornate facade before the addition of the present portico in the 19th century,
etching with engraving, on thick laid paper with a fleur-de-lys in a double circle watermark, 4th state with the artist’s address and price removed and replaced with his name, 405 x 615 mm., a central vertical fold, slight surface dust, faint marginal spotting and damp-staining, [H.6 IV; F.723; WE.171],