Giovanni Battista Piranesi is celebrated as a gifted printmaker, designer, architect, and archeologist. He is particularly famous for his remarkable series of etchings of topographical views and architectural fantasies. Probably most extraordinary and enduring among these is his series Carceri d’invenzione (Imaginary Prisons), which was initially published about 1745. These startling images of prison interiors apparently derived from the artist’s imagination, as well as from his knowledge of Baroque stage design.

When the etchings were first issued, there was a certain sense of lightness and delicacy to the fantastic architectural imagery. In a second edition, Piranesi completely reworked the plates, rendering the lines more heavily and creating more emphatic contrasts of light and dark. In addition to the astonishingly vast and perplexing architectural imagery of arches, walkways, and massive stonework, Piranesi included large and small figures, cables, ropes, and instruments of torture. Prisoners on a Projecting Platform, plate ten from the second edition, shows the awesome power and haunting content that has made the prints timeless and relevant to succeeding generations.

from Snite Museum of Art, Selected Works: Snite Museum of Art (Notre Dame, 2005)