Giovanni Battista Piranesi, S Maria del Priorato, Rome, begun 1764

Piranesi expressed the complexity of his perception of ancient Rome in his only architectural work. The exuberant decoration of the wall around the church - with its apparently casual blend of motifs drawn from both imperial Rome and Christianity - contrasts with the distinct clarity of the facade, in which the choice of limpid geometric forms and the flat background surfaces indicate, in a neo-classical style, the overcoming of the predilection for the values of late baroque architecture.