Original etching in black ink on laid paper with thin margins. Signed in the plate at lower center, within border, and plate number marked at the top left,"Tav II." (Please note, the illustration above contains a flash reflection from the plexiglass in the lower edge of the image).

Platemark: 16 1/8" x 22 1/2".
Catalogue reference: Wofsy 675, vol. II

Throughout the 1760's Piranesi's archaeological publications were strongly conditioned by his involvement in the Graeco-Roman controversy. In his final treatise of the decade the artist went farther afield to demonstrate the independent technical achievements of the Italic races in Latium.  Selecting Cori, one of the most ancient settlements in Italy and which proudly attributed its foundation to Dardanus of Troy, he concentrated in particular on the massive cyclopean town walls of the 6th century B.C. and on the so-called Temple of Hercules.   This latter structure occupies most of the book, since Piranesi considered that its surviving portico represented an especially early example of the Doric or Tuscan Order, uninfluenced by Greece.   Detailed diagrams were used to illustrate certain idiosyncrasies in the entablature of this temple, as evidence of the indigenous evolution of the Order   (Bib:Wilton-Ely,1978,book,pp.71-72).