Giovan Battista Piranesi, engraving

The mighty architecture of Sallustio's Villa has fascinated for centuries painters and draftsmen such as Piranesi –the author of this evocative engraving.
The whole area was completely changed by late 19th-century construction which wiped out the original site and buried the narrow valley of the Horti Sallustiani under as much as 14 metres of earth.