The Round Tower, from "Carceri d'invenzione" (Imaginary Prisons) by Giovanni Battista Piranesi, Poster Print, Available in Two Sizes

Add a wonderful accent to your room and office! Our museum-quality posters are made on thick and durable matte paper.The Round Tower, from "Carceri d'invenzione" (Imaginary Prisons) by Giovanni Battista Piranesi was etched in 1750. A native of Venice, Piranesi went to Rome at age twenty, where he remained for the remainder of his life. Rome was the inspiration for and subject of most of his etchings that number over a thousand. Piranesi studied architecture, engineering, and stage design, and his first plans for buildings reflect his training combined with the tremendous impact of classical Roman architecture. The fourteen plates depicting prisons–Piranesi's best-known series–were described on their title page as ‘capricious inventions.’ These structures, their immensity emphasized by the low viewpoint and the diminutive figures, derive from stage prisons rather than real ones. Actual prisons in Italy were tiny dungeons. Spatial anomalies and ambiguities abound in all the images of the