Interior of the Church of Our Lady of the Angels called the Charterhouse, which was once the principal room of the Baths of Diocletian 

This print by Giovanni Battista Piranesi captures the interior of the Church of Our Lady of the Angels. The image was achieved through the laborious process of etching, where lines are incised into a metal plate with acid, then inked and pressed onto paper. Here, the material qualities of the print - its stark contrasts of light and shadow - serve to highlight the imposing scale of the architecture. Note the figures scattered throughout the scene: they underscore the overwhelming monumentality and the vastness of the former baths of Diocletian, now transformed into a sacred space. Piranesi’s expert technique captures the texture of the stone, the weight of the columns, and the overall grandeur of the church, demonstrating the skilled traditions that blur the boundaries between fine art and craft. The intense labor involved in creating the etching, mirrored in the monumental labor of constructing the building itself, speaks to the social and political context of the time. It’s through understanding these materials, processes, and contexts that we can fully appreciate the rich layers of meaning in Piranesi's work.