Hesburgh Libraries

Giovanni Battista Piranesi (1720-1778) was one of the eighteenth century's most famous artists. His preferred medium was the illustrated book. He produced twelve mammoth folios over the course of his career, bursting with more than a thousand printed images and over six hundred pages of letterpress in Latin, Greek, Italian, French, and English.

In this talk, Professor Hyde Minor will illuminate Piranesi's work as a producer of books by reconstructing his waste paper pile.