This page was created by Diem Dao. The last update was by Jeanne Britton.
Pyramid of Caius Cestius
This figure is set off against the white of the banderol and at least twice the size of the men who surround the pyramid’s door, which the first annotation explains was opened during the excavations under Alexander VII. While John Wilton-Ely has argued that this key’s appearance “serves to minimalize human identity in the gesturing figure placed in front of it” (1978, 37), the key and the reclining man are also equalized in their shared act of gesturing. A man who points with his finger reclines in front of and in fact interrupts a key that itself points, with annotations, to the monument, the surrounding wall, and the excavated earth. In this doubling of pointing gestures that are bodily and verbal, the immensity of the pyramid combines with the specificity of the key’s contents—both the pyramid’s physical features and its built environment, details of archaeological rediscovery and restoration. Jeanne Zarucchi has called attention to Piranesi’s titles, observing that his “vedute” and “altre vedute” of certain monuments often suggest different visual and cultural perspectives of the same structure. Perhaps the title of this image, one of a few not to include the word “veduta,” extends from its emphatic gestures so as to suggest a near equivalence with the monument itself. (JB, ZL)
To see this image in the Vedute di Roma, volume 17 of Piranesi’s Opere, click here.