View of the Campidoglio as re-designed by Michelangelo from the 'Speculum Romanae Magnificentiae'

Art Historical Context

This etching and engraving by French artist and architect Etienne DuPérac captures Michelangelo’s transformative redesign of Rome’s Campidoglio, or Capitoline Hill, as it appeared in the mid-sixteenth century. Created in 1569 and published in the influential series *Speculum Romanae Magnificentiae* (“Mirror of Roman Magnificence”), the print presents a bird’s-eye view of the newly ordered piazza, with its harmonious trapezoidal layout, grand central palace, and classical statues that turned an ancient, irregular hilltop into a unified civic space. Michelangelo’s project, begun in the 1530s under Pope Paul III, symbolized the Renaissance revival of Rome’s classical heritage and the city’s renewed political and cultural prestige. DuPérac’s precise rendering helped disseminate these innovative designs across Europe at a time when few people could travel to see them firsthand. The combination of etching’s fine detail and engraving’s crisp lines allowed the print to convey both architectural accuracy and atmospheric depth, making complex spatial ideas accessible to a wide audience. Today, the work offers modern viewers a vivid record of how one of the Renaissance’s greatest artists reimagined an ancient Roman site for a new era.

About the Artist

Etienne DuPérac · 1535–1604

Comment on works: architect; painter