The Roman antiquities, t. 3, Plate XXII. View the remains of burial chambers above. 

This is Giovanni Battista Piranesi’s etching, "View the remains of burial chambers above," made sometime in the 18th century. Piranesi was known for his dramatic and romanticized depictions of Roman ruins, reflecting the era's fascination with classical antiquity. Piranesi’s Rome is more than just stone and architecture; it's a stage where the past confronts the present. We see not just the ruins, but the people who inhabit them. The figures are dwarfed by the scale of the architecture, emphasizing a contrast between human impermanence and the enduring nature of history. It's worth pondering, who are these people? How do they relate to the grand history that surrounds them, given that the etching shows the burial chambers of freedmen and servants, not emperors or senators? Piranesi invites us to consider the layers of history embedded in these ruins and consider the stories of those often left out of the grand narratives. There’s a ghostly, melancholic atmosphere, and the longer I look, the more I sense the weight of history and the echoes of voices long gone.