Carceri d’Invenzione
Artist Giovanni Piranesi spent his days making etchings of Roman ruins, but apparently he had a darker side. In the mid-1700s he published 14 prints of "imaginary prisons" — hellish vaults, machines and staircases taken from no earthly subject.
It's not known for certain what inspired them. Coleridge told Thomas De Quincy they record Piranesi's visions during a fever.
