Rossini (Luigi)

a contemporary depiction of the ongoing excavations of the tremendous engineering feat, the system of aquaducts that supplied ancient Rome with water from the surrounding hills. Figures can be seen resting on their shovels at the base of the terminal ‘castellum’. The Aqua Giulia was constructed around 33 BC, and augmented in 11 BC, some of it running along the route of the Aqua Marcia, built over a century earlier. It was estimated to carry around 48,000 cubic metres of water a day . 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, 350 x 450 mm. (13 3/4 x 17 3/4 in), a few short tears, surface dirt and minor handling creases at sheet edges of the wide margins,