This plate from Le Carceri d'Invenzione stages a massive cylindrical tower wound with spiral stairways and cantilevered walkways, barred windows piercing the drum at irregular heights, the whole structure dissolving upward into a vaulted, half-lit ceiling with no visible source of light. Piranesi trained as an architect before he became a printmaker, and the Carceri series is where that training turns openly speculative — every stair, arch, and beam is drafted with real structural logic even as the overall space defies any coherent floor plan, a building that could never actually stand but reads, plate by plate, as if it could. What to notice: tiny human figures scattered across the stairways — barely more than a few etched lines each — exist purely to establish scale, and it is entirely through their smallness that the architecture around them reads as monumental rather than merely large.

Maker: Giovanni Battista Piranesi
Date: 1761
Medium of the original: Plate
Original held by: Wikimedia Commons
Credit: Wikimedia Commons
Rights: Public domain, verified
Catalogue number: PA-00307

As chosen: 8 x 10 in, art print, classic frame
Picture	8 x 10 in
Outside size	9.6 x 11.6 in
Depth	0.9 in (22 mm)
Weight	[[REAL PROOF NEEDED: shipped weight per size and frame]]
Hanging	[[REAL PROOF NEEDED: hanging hardware Prodigi fits to this frame]]
Material	Enhanced matte art paper, 200 gsm; acrylic glazing
Made in	Charlotte, North Carolina, by Prodigi

Before a size goes on sale, the file is measured against it: pixels per inch at that size, how much of the picture a crop would lose, tone and sharpness. A size that fails is not offered, so there is nothing to choose wrong.

How the print check works

Sizes offered
Size	dpi	Grade	How it fits
8 x 10 in	193	Good	Trimmed 3.1%

Sizes withheld
Size	Why
8 x 12 in	Wrong shape: a 14% crop
11 x 14 in	140 dpi; a historical scan is never enlarged
12 x 16 in	125 dpi; a historical scan is never enlarged
12 x 18 in	Wrong shape: a 14% crop
16 x 20 in	96 dpi; a historical scan is never enlarged
16 x 24 in	Wrong shape: a 14% crop
18 x 24 in	83 dpi; a historical scan is never enlarged
20 x 30 in	Wrong shape: a 14% crop
24 x 30 in	64 dpi; a historical scan is never enlarged
24 x 36 in	Wrong shape: a 14% crop
30 x 40 in	50 dpi; a historical scan is never enlarged
36 x 48 in	41 dpi; a historical scan is never enlarged
40 x 60 in	Wrong shape: a 14% crop

Scanned

2026-10-07

Master file

1,550 x 2,000 px, srgb, Adobe RGB (1998)

Tone

Darks 50, lights 240 of 255; 0% clipped light, 0% clipped dark

Colour

0% vivid

Sharpness

93.23

Notes

Colour profile Adobe RGB (1998), converted to sRGB for the screen and the print
Neutrals lean warm (yellow): the paper and varnish of the original, kept as scanned

Shipping for this piece to a US address is $24.80, the print room’s own rate, charged per piece. Checkout shows the total before you pay.

Every piece is printed after you order it, in Charlotte, North Carolina, and ships from there. For now we ship to US addresses only.

A piece that arrives damaged, misprinted or in the wrong size is replaced at our cost. The details: shipping and returns and replacements.