Piranesi (Giovanni Battista)

from the Rome edition of ‘Vedute di Roma’, depicting the Quirinal Palace, located on the Quirinal Hill, the highest of Rome’s seven hills, and once intended as Napoleon’s principal imperial residence, such is the monumental grandeur of its scale, having otherwise been home to numerous popes, kings and presidents of Italy. It was commenced by Pope Gregory XIII in 1583, who chose its elevated site as a suitable residence away from the stench of the Tiber in the heat of the summer,

from the Rome edition of ‘Vedute di Roma’, etching with engraving, on thick laid paper with a fleur-de-lys in a double circle watermark, 2nd state with the artist’s address and price, 405 x 615 mm., a central vertical fold with two parallel stripes of pale oil staining, faint marginal spotting and surface dust, [H.22 II; F.737; WE.175],