evoked the most obsessive vision ever dreamed of any city and cast a spell on man's

imagination that architects have been trying to realize in stone all over the world.
Rome's actual ruins are not impressive enough in themselves to have evoked a de

mand for such massive public buildings in London, New York, New Delhi and
Leningrad. Their tall columns and emphatic façades are Piranesi's most conspicu
ous, though not his most enduring monument. Now that we no longer look at his

etchings for archaeological information, we value them all the more for the splen
dor of their imagination.

Piranesi's epitaph was probably composed by Cardinal Rezzonico, whose last

act of friendship was to give his architect burial in Santa Maria Aventina. The
marble reads, in part, as follows:

CINERIBUS ET MEMORIAE
JOAN . BAPTISTAE PIRANESI
DOMOVENETIIS
SCALPTORIS . LINEARIS AERE . CAELANDO
PLASTAE SIGILLARI . ARCHITECTI

LOCO DATO
AB JOAN BAPT REZZONICO
CARD MAG . PRIOR URBIS
ORD HIEROSOL
PATRONO
INDULGENTISS

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