Opere varie di architettura, prospettive, grotteschi, antichita; Carceri d'invenzione; Trofei di Ottaviano Augusto; Antichita Romane de' Tempi della Republica.

An outstanding album incorporating much of Piranesi's most extraordinary and finest work. Printed in Piranesi's lifetime under his supervision.

The album contains very good impressions of Piranesi's etchings this is an early Roman edition corresponding to Hind's edition B (1761 or after), and Robison's second edition (produced in 1761). The Grotteschi are in second state (1 plate) or third state (3 plates); the Carceri are second edition, second issue with numbering in Roman numerals; The Trofei di Ottavio Augusto are present in the first edition. The watermarks -where visible - conform to Robison 35, dating to the early 1760s.

The volume opens with the Prima Parte showing imaginary adaptations and reconstructions on classical Roman themes and ranging in scope from designs for a museum of sculpture to the interiors and exteriors of palaces, views of colonnades, architectural ruins and so on. The Prima Parte, when first published in Rome in 1743, was first of Piranesi's collected works and included 12 plates; when forming part of the Opere Varie, Piranesi added five plates while removing another. Following these plates are the Grotteschi, four fantastic scenes published for the first time in 1750 following Piranesi's return to Venice in the late 1740s. In style and subject, the Grotteschi are very much influenced by Tiepolo and his Capricci series, however unlike the Venetian master, Piranesi's fantasies suggest an additional coherence of meaning.

The Carceri is 'probably the best-known of his works, Piranesi produced 14 unsigned plates, the Invenzioni capric di carceri (first issue datable 1749–50), distinguished by an unprecedented imaginative breadth and fluent technique, which derived from his training in both Venice and Rome. These arcane and highly personal works constitute a sequence of brilliant improvisations on the theme of the prison. They are highly disciplined and exploit the mechanics of Baroque stage design to explore new dimensions of architectural expression.

In 1761, having become the leading vedutista in Rome with a growing clientele of foreign patrons, Piranesi set up his own printmaking business and showrooms in the Palazzo Tomati on Via Sistina. The reappearance in 1761 of the Invenzioni capric di carceri, now entitled simply Carceri d'invenzione and issued with two additional plates, marked a significant phase of creative tension in his architectural development. This definitive version, destined to achieve European influence, involved substantial reworking of the plates with stronger tonal contrasts and more specific details of sinister import. Architectural immensity and spatial ambiguity were amplified still further by new structures receding into infinity, epitomizing Edmund Burke's concept of the Sublime.' (Grove Art Online, OUP).

The Trofei di Ottavio Augusto was intended by Piranesi to be of use to artists, painters and architects but it is of more importance as it serves as the starting point for another major area of his oeuvre, antiquity and archaeology and the achievements of the previous occupants of his adopted city the Romans. The trophies depicted are the Trophies of Marius, removed from the fountainhead of the Acqua Giulia and placed on the Capitol in the late sixteenth century, together with several architectural fragments; Piranesi considered that the trophies had been erected by Augustus Caesar to celebrate his victory at Actium.

Of the Antichità Romane de Tempi (which had its name changed to Alcune Vedute after 1761 to avoid confusion with the completely different Antitichità Romane of 1756, Wilton-Ely writes 'These exquisite plates, made during Piranesi's travels in Italy 1743-47, may be considered amongst the artist's graphic masterpieces'.