The Round Tower, plate 3 from the second edition of Carceri d'invenzione (Imaginary Prisons)

In addition to dramatic views of Roman architecture, Giovanni Battista Piranesi created a series of prison interiors that were entirely invented. These vast, entangled passageways and cavernous chambers were first printed around 1750. Ten years later, Piranesi reworked the plates, heightening their ominousstate in an implied critique of social injustice.