Chiesa di Santa Maria Liberatrice al Foro Romano te Rome 1669 - 1670

This print of the Chiesa di Santa Maria Liberatrice in Rome was made in the late 17th century by Giovanni Battista Falda. It's an etching, a process that involves biting lines into a metal plate with acid, inking it, and then pressing it onto paper. The appeal of etching lies in its relative ease, compared to engraving. An artist could achieve impressive detail without the same level of physical exertion required by burins and other tools. This meant that printmakers, like Falda, could produce images more quickly and in larger quantities, catering to a growing market for visual representations of architecture and urban landscapes. In this image, the lines are very thin, and almost map-like in their precision. This speaks to the social function of prints at the time. While we might see them as art objects, they were then also a form of documentation, capturing the city's transformations for a broad audience. So, when we look at this print, we're not just seeing a church, but also the rise of a new visual culture, made possible by advances in material processes.