Egyptomania in Piranesi's Rome

Egyptomania in Piranesi’s RomeSusan Petty MoneyhonDecember 9, 2014Page 1 of 61

Egyptomania in Piranesi’s Rome

Susan Petty Moneyhon

Piranesi and Perspectives of Rome

ARHA 5310-03

Drs. Jane Brown and Floyd Martin

December 9, 2014


Contents

Introduction....................................3

Egyptomania.....................................5

The Caffè degli Inglese........................11

Egyptian Objects Referred to in the Caffè degli

Inglesi........................................15

Conclusion.....................................18

Bibliography...................................20

Figures........................................23


Introduction

The goal of this paper is to explore the sources

and meanings of Giovanni Battisti Piranesi’s Caffè

degli Inglesi in light of the long Roman history of

Egyptomania as expressed particularly in the

eighteenth century. The Egyptianizing prints in the

Divers Manners of Ornamenting Chimneys and all other Parts of

Houses Taken from the Egyptian, Tuscan, and Grecian Architecture,

Rome, 1769, reveal a neo-classical approach to

Egyptian decorative elements,1 and Piranesi’s

preface to Divers Manners, “An Apologetical Essay in

defense of the Egyptian and Tuscan Architecture,”2 1 Kevin M. McGeough, “Imagining Ancient Egypt as the Idealized Self,” Eighteenth-Century Thing Theory in a Global Context: From Consumerism to Celebrity Culture, Ileana Baird and Christina Ionescu, eds. (Burlington, VT: Ashgate Publishing Limited, 2013): 96.2 Giovanni Battista Piranesi, “An Apologetical Essay in defense of the Egyptian and Tuscan Architecture.” Preface toDivers Manners of Ornamenting Chimneys and all other Parts of Houses Taken


defends his belief in the historicizing approach to

architecture advocated by his early mentors, Carlo

Lodoli (1690-1761) and Giambattista Vico (1668-

1744), in which Egypt is seen as the source of

early Roman architecture, not Greece.3

The definition of Egyptomania and its Roman

origins will be briefly discussed, followed by an

exploration of how that concept is carried out in

the decorative program for the Caffè degli Inglese.

A comparison of motifs in the etchings with

Egyptian or Egyptianizing artifacts available to

Piranesi in Rome will follow. Through this manner,

from the Egyptian, Tuscan, and Grecian Architecture. Rome, 1769.3 Gian Paolo Consoli, “Architecture and History: Vico, Lodoli, Piranesi,” in Mario Bevilacqua, Heather Hyde Minor, and Fabio Barry. The Serpent and the Stylus: Essays on G.B. Piranesi. (Ann Arbor, MI: The University of Michigan for The American Academy in Rome, 2006): 195-210.


the author hopes to prove that by Piranesi’s time,

most of the meaning of Egyptian objects had been

lost, and that Egyptianzing works referred only to

the exotic and the decorative used in innovative

ways to express neo-classical aims. Perhaps they

also reinforced the majesty and power these works

once claimed for the Empire and now represented

Christian Rome as a European capital city and

center of commerce.

Egyptomania

The authors of a definitive exhibition catalogue on

Egyptomania define the term as “borrowing the most

spectacular elements from the grammar of ornament

that is the original essence of ancient Egyptian

art; these decorative elements are then given new


life through new uses.4 Certainly the love for all

things Egyptian, particularly in Italy, knows no

bounds. One source complained that when she was in

Italy researching the terramare, the Po Valley’s

Bronze age settlement, materials on that subject

were in short supply, even though local museums

featured objects from the settlement, but reported

that she could find materials on l’antico Egitto

everywhere.5

One might see the visual definition of the term

in Piranesi’s dedication page of Diverse Maniere

(Figure 1), which brings together a variety of

4 Jean-Marcel Humbert, Michael Pantazzi, and Christiane Ziegler, eds., Egyptomania:Egypt in Western Art 1730-1930. (Ottawa: National Gallery of Canada, 1994): 21. 5 Helen Whitehouse, “Egyptomanias,” Review of Egypt in Western Art, 1730-1930, by Jean-Marcel Humbert, Michael Pantazzi, and Christiane Ziegler. American Journal of Archaeology 101, no. 1 (Jan. 1997): 158-161.


Egyptianizing elements, including Artemis of

Ephesus and the female figures with the obelisks

known as naophorii. Piranesi wasn’t the first to

explore the delights of Egyptian art and

architecture in his work. The fashion for Egypt has

a long history in Rome, perhaps beginning with

Alexander the Great (356-323 BCE). Early emperors

had a hand in building temples dedicated to Isis in

Egypt. The temple of Hathor, the cow-goddess

associated with Isis, at Dendera, has reliefs

depicting Roman emperors in Egyptianizing style.

Certainly Emperor Augustus, 27 BCE-14 CE

(Figure 2), is depicted in Egyptian style with the

nemes headdress, the crown of Lower Egypt, and a

variety of plumes and discs which clearly


represents the deification of a Roman emperor in

Egyptian terms. Augustus is presenting the sun to

Hathor, who is wearing the solar crown—the sun

surrounded by cow’s horns. This image also points

up the odd status of Egypt in the Empire’s realm.

Egypt was governed from Rome, yet was considered

part of the emperor’s personal estates.6 Depicting

a conquering emperor as an Egyptian deity, wearing

the crown of Egypt, demonstrated not only the

deification of Roman emperors, but also their

association with the conquered Egyptian deities.

Emperor Hadrian, 117-138 CE (Figure 3), was one

of the first emperors actually to visit Egypt and

bring back hundreds of artifacts. The tragic story

6 James Stevens Curl. The Egyptian Revival: Ancient Egypt as the Inspiration for Design Motifs in the West. (London and New York: Routledge, 2005): 7.


of his lover Antinous (Figure 4) drowning in the

Nile, brought a new wave of Egyptomania to Rome;

one of the results being the Egyptianization of

Hadrian’s Villa at Tivoli. Another representation

of the importance of Egyptian taste can be found in

the Villa Albani Casino, 1763 (Figures 5 and 6),

where Hadrian’s sculpture of Antinous as Osiris was

placed when it was excavated in 1735.7 Hadrian also

cemented a growing fashion for the cults of Isis

and Serapis in Rome, building temples to these two

Egyptian gods all over the city. One of the main

temples he was associated with was the Temple of

Isis complex (Isaeum Campense) in the Campus

Martius, which Piranesi published in 1762.

7 Anna Ottani Cavina. Geometries of Silence: Three Approaches to Neo-Classical Art. (New York: Columbia University Press, 2004): 66.


Piranesi’s view of the Campus Martius (Figure

7) depicts Egyptian ruins bearing hieroglyphs in

the foreground. At the right there is a portion of

Trajan’s Column, next to an obelisk. At the far

left is an inscription dedicating the engraving to

Robert Adam. In the background is a U-shaped

structure that compares with the actual structure

of the Temple of Isis (Figure 8). This figure

displays the entire Isis complex, or Isaeum

Campense, in the Campus Martius. The Temple of Isis

is just one part of the complex. In 50 CE Pompey

built a temple to Minerva, the Roman goddess of

wisdom and art, among other characteristics, next

to the entrance to the Temple of Isis. Minerva’s

attributes also encompassed fertility, an attribute


shared with Isis. As the foundations of Sta. Maria

were built directly over part of the Isis temple,

demonstrating the triumph of Christianity over

pagan antiquity, so this church can be understood

as St. Mary over Isis.8

Figure 9, an engraving by Athanasius Kircher,

depicts the plan of the entire complex and shows

some of the most important monuments that were

excavated from the Iseum. The obelisk at lower left

was uncovered in 1374 on the site of Sta. Maria

sopra Minerva. The obelisk at the top was brought

to Rome by Augustus in 10 BCE and served as a

sundial for a short time. It was partially

8 Anne Roullet. The Egyptian and Egyptianizing Monuments of Imperial Rome. (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1972): 34; James Stevens Curl, The Egyptian Revival: Ancient Egypt as the Inspiration for Design Motifs in the West. (London and New York: Routledge, 2005): 443.


excavated in 1587 when Sixtus V had some hasty

sketches done of the monument, and again from 1654-

1666 when Kircher excavated the Iseum, but not

until 1748 was it fully excavated, when Piranesi

could possibly have seen it.9

According to James Stevens Curl, the Iseum lay

on a north-south axis; the Serapeum at the south,

the Iseum at the north. Between the two temples was

a long corridor, or dromos, that was lined with

sphinxes, obelisks, lions, etc.10 Figure 10 is a

Vespasian coin that possibly depicts the entrance

to the Iseum.11 It shows a segmental or half moon

arch over the entrance with the cult statue of Isis

revealed in the middle. This segmental arch

9 Roullet: 79. 10 Curl: 31.11 Roullet: 160.


resembles the crescent moon associated with

Artemis/Diana, with whom Isis is identified,

according to Curl.12 The segmental arch had strong

Egyptian/Isiac connotations and were a feature in

Pompeiian houses.13

Pyramids were also a feature of Roman

Egyptomania. The pyramid of Caius Cestius (Figure

11) was a Roman structure built in the time

Augustus, about 12 BCE. It was later incorporated

into the Aurelian wall. Piranesi’s etching from

1755 emphasizes its tall, narrow, Nubian qualities.

A pyramid no longer extant, known as the “Meta 12 Curl: Ibid.13 The segmental arch was recorded at Pompeii by Charles Heath (1785-1848) and published as Plate LX in Pompeiana: The Topography, Edifices, and Ornaments of Pompeii by Sir William Gell, (1777-1836). Although these recordings were after Piranesi’slifetime, it is certain he knew of their “exotic” significance, but perhaps not why they were considered exotic. Curl: 33.


Romuli,” stood between the Castel Sant’Angelo and

the Vatican basilica. Alexander VI partially

destroyed it to make way for the avenue from Castel

Sant’ Angelo to the Vatican in 1500, but it was

known in engravings, such as the Nuremburg

Chronicles.14

As we have seen, Egyptian or Egyptianizing

objects became part of Rome’s cultural and social

fabric. The cults of Isis and Serapis in Hadrian’s

time helped to secure the fashion for all things

Egyptian. By Piranesi’s time the true meaning of

the cults’ rituals and rites were unknown, but a

brief examination of Isis’s attributes and

contemporary meaning is in order.

14 Roullet: 84-85.


Once Egypt had been subsumed under the Roman

Empire, its cults and artifacts began to be

fashionable within the empire. Their significance

grew until Egyptiana became firmly associated with

the power and might of the empire and hence future

Rome. Isis became the favorite deity of elite

Romans. She is considered the ruler of heaven, of

shelter, and of life itself. Her powers included

knowledge of the eternal wisdom of all the gods.

The tears she shed for her brother and consort

Osiris caused the waters of the Nile to flood, so

she was associated with resurrection. Figure 12 is

a photograph of an Isis statute that was found at

Hadrian’s Villa in Tivoli, with which Piranesi was

very familiar. The sistrum, the musical instrument


raised in Isis’ right hand is symbolic of

resurrection, and the situla or hydreion in her left

hand contains the eternal waters of the Nile. The

peculiar knot of fabric at her breast is a symbol

of fertility. Figure 13, a seated Isis also from

Tivoli, depicts Isis as the Great Mother, seated

with her son Horus in her lap, offering the breast

to him, clearly a symbol of fertility and

motherhood, but in a familiar pose—that of

countless Madonnas and Child. Isis wearing the

solar crown, the sun embraced by Hathor’s cow

horns, emphasizing her association with the life-

giving properties of the sun.


Now let’s look at the decorative program of the

Caffè degli Inglesi itself and see how Piranesi

used the objects available to him.

The Caffè degli Inglesi

What do scholars know about the real Caffè degli

Inglesi, other than it is represented in two plates

in Giovanni Battista Piranesi’s Divers Manners of

Ornamenting Chimneys and All Other Parts of Houses?15 (Figures

14 and 15.) Not much, apparently. Even the date it

was in operation is in question. Most sources date

its founding to the time of the publication of the

Diverse Maniere—1769. A few sources date it from

1760, but Rudolf Wittkower finds that date to be

15 Giovanni Battista Piranesi, “An Apologetical Essay in Defence of the Egyptian and Tuscan Architecture,” Diverse Manners of Ornamenting Chimneys and All Other Parts of Houses Taken from the Egyptian, Tuscan and Grecian Architecture. (Rome: Generoso Salomoni, 1769).


too early.16 I just recently discovered that Denys

Sutton published An Italian Sketchbook by Richard Wilson

which features drawings inscribed “ Studies and

Designs…done at Rome ye year 1752, Caffè delle

Inglesi,” but was unable to obtain the image in

time for this paper.17 It was operating as late as

1776 because we have Welsh painter Thomas Jones’s

description of it as:

…a filthy vaulted room, the walls of

which were painted with sphinxes, Obelisks

and Pyramids, from capricious designs of

Piranesi, and fitter to adorn the inside

16 Rudof Wittkower, “Piranesi and Eighteenth-Century Egyptomania,” in Studies in the Italian Baroque. (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1975): 271.17 Denys Sutton. An Italian Sketchbook by Richard Wilson. (


of an Egyptian-Sepulchre than a room of

social conversation.18

We know where it was located: on the Piazza di

Spagna at the corner of Via delle Carroze.19 We even

have a drawing of the street view of the Caffè by

David Allen (Brit., 1744-1796), showing a most

unprepossessing entrance (Figure 16). We know it

was a gathering place for young Englishmen on the

Grand Tour. One source dates its founding to a

split between the German and English patrons of the

Caffè Greco, the first coffee-house in Rome, and

states that the English community established the

18 Ingrid Drake Rowland. From Heaven to Arcadia: The Sacred and the Profane in the Renaissance. (New York: New York Review Books, 2005): 218.19 Matthew Sturgis. When in Rome: 2000 Years of Roman Sightseeing. (London: Frances Lincoln Publishers, 2007).


English Coffee House in 1752.20 In addition to the

three requirements of a coffeehouse: coffee,

conversation, and communication, it was a place

they requested their mail be sent. James Boswell

particularly used the caffè as a place to receive

his mail, asking John Wilkes, an acquaintance, to

send mail to Boswell “al Caffè Inglese.”21Anna Ottani

Cavina provides a listing of some of the other

Englishmen who frequented the café: “Ozias Humphry,

James Durno, James Jefferys, Jacob More, Henry

Tresham, Alexander Runciman, George Romney, and of

course Fuseli, plus the Dane Abildgaard and the

Swede Tobias Sergel. The only Italian artist who

20 Markman Ellis. The Coffee-House. London: Weidenfeld & Nicholson, 2004: (ebook, location 1793 of 7491).21 James Boswell. Boswell on the Grand Tour: Italy, Corsica and France 1765-1766, Frank Brady and Frederick Pottle, eds. (New York and London: McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1955): 71.


frequented the coffeehouse was that eccentric

genius Piranesi.”22

Even the nature of the paintings themselves is

in question. Ingrid Rowland says it was frescoed,23

while the majority of references merely describe to

it as “painted” decoration, as Jones does, above.

We have no idea of the color scheme. Christopher

Grafe and Franziska Bollerey, editors of Cafés and

Bars: The Architecture of Public Display, declare that it was

commissioned from a drawing done by Piranesi, but

don’t cite by whom it was commissioned or the

source of the drawing.24 They go on to say that the

22 Anna Ottani Cavina. Geometries of Silence: Three Approaches to Neoclassical Art. (New York: Columbia University Press, 2004): 3423 Ingrid Rowland. From Heaven to Arcadia: The Sacred and the Profane in the Renaissance. (New York: A New York Review Book, 2005): 217.24 Christopher Grafe, and Franziska Bollerey, eds., Cafés and Bars: The Architecture of Public Display (London: Routledge, 2007): 59.


Caffè was a headquarters for antique dealing among

the English. Matthew Sturgis supports this idea of

antique dealing from the Caffè in his description

of the Grand Tour in the eighteenth century.25

According to Markman Ellis, over the course of the

seventeenth and eighteenth centuries coffee-houses:

came to be ubiquitous features of the

modern urban landscape, indispensable

centres for socializing, for news and

gossip, and for discussion and debate. In

the coffee-houses, men learnt new ways of

combinational friendship, turning their

discussions there into commercial

25 Matthew Sturgis. When in Rome: 2000 Years of Roman Sightseeing. (London: Frances Lincoln Publishing, 2011): 59.


ventures, critical tribunals, scientific

seminars and political clubs.26

And at the Caffè degli Inglesi, in addition to

coffee, companionship and antique trading, one of

the premier features was the presence of Giovanni

Battista Piranesi.

Egyptian Objects Referred to in the Caffe degli

Inglesi

What first interested me in the Egyptianizing

qualities of Piranesi’s art were the prints of the

painted or stuccoed decoration of the Caffe degli

Inglesi, which opened ca. 1752. Figure 17 depicts

long wall of the café, and we immediately see the

use of Egyptian motifs, such as the Apis bull at

26 Ellis. The Coffee House. (ebook, location 85 of 7491)


the top; the telamones (standing male figures

supporting a lintel) at either end of the wall; and

the scarab beetle in the far left arch.

Figure 18 depicts the end wall of the painted

decoration and also clearly shows Egyptian themes.

Through the pillars is a field of pyramids in the

background. Note the tall narrow profile of the

pyramid at the right; it is reminiscent of

Piranesi’s view of the pyramid of Caius Cestius

(see Figure 11) from the Vedute de Roma, 1755. Much of

eighteenth century Roman Egyptomania was based on

extant structures like the Cestius pyramid,

obelisks, and the remnants of the Isis and Serapis

cults, the temples of which were being excavated,

as already discussed.


What other Egyptian monuments were in Rome at

the time Piranesi lived and how do they compare

with his depictions? In Figure 19 you can see

fairly clearly the telamones as the statue of

Antinous as Osiris, shown at left. Another deity

very often found at temples of Isis was Sobek, the

crocodile, at upper left. The comparison Sobek was

unearthed at the Isaeum Campense in 1883, after

Piranesi’s time, but it must have been similar to

others he would have seen in Rome at the Capitoline

Museum and other locations. At the right is an

Egyptian statute of Thutmosis III that Piranesi

actually owned. Given the history of the Caffè

degli Inglesi, this statute could have been

acquired and/or sold there. It could also have been


a choice for the seated figure in the café

decorative program.

Another prominent Roman Egyptianizing object is

the Mensa Isiaca, also known as the Bembine Tablet

of Isis, Figure 20. Piranesi knew of the Bembine

Tablet and mentions it in his Preface to the Diverse

Maniere.27 In Piranesi’s lifetime, the Bembine Tablet

was thought to be an actual Egyptian artifact, but

later research found it to be of Roman origin and

dates to about 50 CE. For centuries it was thought

to be the most accurate rendering of Isis rites and

Egyptian hieroglyphs, but later research has found

that the hieroglyphs in most instances are clumsy

27 Giovanni Battista Piranesi, “An Apologetical Essay in Defence of the Egyptian and Tuscan Architecture,” Diverse Manners of Ornamenting Chimneys and All Other Parts of Houses Taken from the Egyptian, Tuscan and Grecian Architecture. (Rome: Generoso Salomoni, 1769): 9.


and incorrect and the rites depicted, meaningless.

It has been reproduced in engraved books since

1601. Jean-Francois Champollion (1790-1832), the

man who cracked the code of the Rosetta Stone,

declared that it was the work of an artist who had

no esoteric acquaintance with the mystic rites of

the goddess and ever since that time the Mensa

Isiaca hasn’t maintained the interest of scholars

it once had.28

Figure 21 is Bernard Monfaucon’s engraving of

the Mensa Isiaca, depicting a little more clearly

the motifs used in the table. Of interest is the

use of registers for organizing the figures,

particularly the Apis bull in the middle range,

left side. Compare this image to how the Apis bull 28 Roullet: 144.


is depicted in Piranesi’s painted wall decoration

for the Caffè degli Inglese, Figure 22.

A detail of the 1622 publication of the Mensa

Isiaca (Figure 23) shows various headdress styles,

none of which is an actual Egyptian headdress. This

points out how until the nineteenth century the

Egyptian material available to artists like

Piranesi was stripped of its original meanings

rooted in the cult of Isis.

Piranesi’s Egyptian fireplace, plate 24 from

Diverse Maniere, shows a disjointed association of

Artemis of Ephesus, sphinxes, and a version of the

Egyptian god Bes, a beloved prankster (Figure 24).

Often called the many-breasted, Artemis is in fact


wearing a necklace made of testicles to emphasize

her associations with fertility.

Conclusion

The café itself was a gathering place for English

visitors to drink coffee and exchange ideas. It was

also a headquarters for trading antiquities. Many

artists hoped to meet Piranesi, and it was just a

hop around the corner to visit his print shop. In

the tradition of most eighteenth century

coffeehouses, the exotic decorative motif cemented

the association of coffee with the foreign. It

became an institution of cultural transfer: English

gentlemen in an Italian coffeehouse decorated with

Egyptian motifs. A global phenomenon, one might

say.


The long association of Rome with its Egyptian

colony mixed decorative and architectural elements

that ultimately became conflated in the Roman mind

as representative of the majesty and power of Rome

and the empire. In the work of an artist like

Piranesi, they were part of the vocabulary he used

to create an Egyptian capriccio for an establishment

that catered to the growing international taste for

the newly fashionable beverage—coffee (Figure 25).


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Figures


Figure 1. Giovanni Batittsta Piranesi, Dedication page of Diverse Maniere d’Adornare I Cammini, 1769


Figure 2. The Roman Emperor Augustus (27 BCE-14 CE)in his Birth- or Incarnation House (Mammisaeum) atDendera, Egypt.


Figure 3. Emperor Hadrian. Roman, first century CE, Vatican Museums, Rome.


Figure 4. Antinous as Osiris. Roman, first century CE, Louvre, Paris.


Figure 5. Giuseppe Vasi “Casino di Villa Albani fuori di Porta Salara (Villa Albani Coffeehouse),”Plate 190, Sulle magnificenze di Roma Antica e Moderna, Book10, 1761.


Figure 6. Giovanni Battista Piranesi. “Villa AlbaniCoffeehouse,” 1769, Vedute di Roma, 1745-1778.


Figure 7. Giovanni Battista Piranesi, Scenographia Campi Martii (View of the Campus Martius), Dedication page,1762.


Figure 8. Plan of the entire Iseum Campense. From Anne Roullet, The Egyptian and Egyptianizing Monuments of Imperial Rome, 1972. Pull-out map at end of book.


Figure 9. A seventheenth century reconstruction of the Iseum Campense. Engraving from Athanasius Kircher, Obelisci aegyptiaci nuper inter isaei romani rudera effossi interpretatio hieroglyphica Athanasii Kircheri, 1666.


Figure 10. The façade of the Iseum Campsense as shown on a Vespasian coin, 9-79 CE. Berlin, Munzkabinet.


Figure 11. Giovanni Battista Piranesi, Veduta del Sepolcro di Cajo Cestio…, from Le Vedute di Roma (Viewof the Pyramid of Caius Cestius), etching, 1755. Arkansas Arts Center Foundation Collection: Gift ofthe Brown-McAllister Fund.


Figure 12. Standing Isis from Hadrian’s Villa. Greco-Egyptian. Note sistrum in her right hand; lotus bud headdress, and situla in her left hand, denoting waters from the Nile. The knot at her breasts is a symbol of fertility.


Figure 13. Isis from Hadrian’s Villa, Tivoli. Roman, date unknown (Alexandrian?). Found 16th century in the Palaestra of Hadrian’s Villa. Museo Gregoranio Egizio, Rome.



Figure 14. Giovanni Battista Piranesi. Long wall ofthe Caffè degli Inglesi, plate 45 of the Divers Manners of Ornamenting Chimneys and All Other Parts of Houses, 1769.


Figure 15. Giovanni Battista Piranesi. Short wall of the Caffè degli Inglesi, plate 46 of the Divers Manners of Ornamenting Chimneys and All Other Parts of Houses, 1769.


Figure 16. David Allen (Brit., 1744-1796), The arrival of a young traveller and his suite during the Carnival, in Piazza de’ Spagna, Rome, ca. 1775. Pen and brown wash over pencil, 40 X 54 cm. Royal Collection Trust / © HM Queen Elizabeth II.




Figure 18. Giovanni Battista Piranesi. Painted decoration of the end wall of the Caffè degli Inglesi, Rome. Plate 46 of Diverse maniere d’adornare i cammini ed ogni altra parte degli edifizi, 1769.



Figure 20. Mensa Isiaca or Bembine Table of Isis, Roman era, 1st century CE. Inlaid bronze altar-table. Fondazion Museuo delle Antichità Egizie, Turin.


Figure 21. Bernard de Monfaucon, Mensa Isiaca of Turin. Plate 138 from L’Antiquité expliquée et representee en figures,1722-24, Vol. II.




Figure 23. Detail, The Mensa Isiaca, Engraved Plate No. 4, Thesaurus Hieroglyphicorum, by Johann Georg Herwart von Hohenburg, 1622.




Egyptomania in Piranesi's Rome

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