Rossini (Luigi)

a view of the circular Temple of Romulus in the Roman Forum, the rotunda now forming the vestibule of the Church of Saints Cosma and Damiano, which has helped to preserve it so well. It was dedicated to the son of the emperor Maxentius, who died in childhood in the 4th century, rather than the founder of Rome. This is one of 101 plates produced by Rossini (1790-1857) for his great work ‘Le Antichitá Romane’ (1819-1829), which followed very much in the tradition established by his 18th century predecessor, Giovanni Battista Piranesi, in recording the increasingly rediscovered remnants of ancient Rome being unearthed by archaeologists in amongst the grandeur of later baroque Rome. Rossini’s plates are distinguished by the greater presence of contemporary figures going about their daily lives at all levels of society,

engraving on wove paper, 360 x 450 mm. (14 1/8 x 17 3/4 in), a few repairs to the sheet edges of wide margins, well outside the plate,