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This engraving shows ancient sculptures displayed in the 1530s in the courtyard of the Palazzo of Cardinal Andrea della Valle (later known as Palazzo Valle-Capranica) in Rome. The engraving was executed after a lost drawing by Maerten van Heemskerck, who was in Rome between 1532 and 1537. The Cardinal died in 1534.
It can be seen that almost every available space is filled with figures and reliefs, many of them fragmentary. We can only imagine how artists of the period, including Michelangelo, must have pored over these works and those displayed in the Belvedere Palace. The evidence of the impact of such collections is preserved in the works that Renaissance artists created under their inspiration.
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