Campidoglio antico a cui si ascendeva per circa cento gradini ... (The ancient Capitol ascended by approximately one hundred steps ...)

It was at Rome, on October 15th, 1764, as I sat musing amidst the ruins of the Capitol, while the barefooted friars were singing vespers in the Temple of Jupiter, that the idea of writing the decline and fall of the city first started to my mind.

(Edward Gibbon, Autobiography, 1796)

Piranesi imagines the Capitol in its heyday. A great flight of steps leads up the hill, dotted with columns, trophies and other spoils of ancient military triumphs, in amongst lines of statues of senators.

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