A first state printing of Piranesi's view of the Colonnace in Rome, the remaining two columns of the colonnade of the Forum of Nerva, from the Vedute di Roma. The view shows the remains of the ancient structure in the foreground, with post-classical houses, now removed, added to the back of the Forum's original boundary wall. At the end of a narrow street lined with houses, the arches of the Colosseum can be seen. The houses and later additions to the Colonnace were knocked down during the excavation of the Imperial Fora in preparation for the building of Mussolini's Via dell'Impero. The monument now stands beside a public park on the corner of Via Cavour and the re-named Via dei Fori Imperiali. The Forum of Nerva was dedicated in AD 97. Begun in AD 85 by Domitian, it was incomplete at the time of his assassination, and thus named for his successor. The Forum, the second youngest of Rome's Imperial Fora, monumentalised part of the Argiletum, a large thoroughfare popular with booksellers and leatherworkers. Due to the narrow space available, the Forum did not have arcades like its neighbours, but instead adopted a Hellenistic pattern of columns en ressault. The remaining parts of the frieze show the myth of Arachne, an appropriate thematic link to the Temple of Minerva, Domitian's favourite goddess, which was built at the northern end of the Forum. The Temple was demolished at the end of the sixteenth century by Pope Paul V. The monumental marble block of the Temple's architrave was recut as the main altar of St Peters Basilica, below Bernini's Baldachin. The Vedute di Roma was Piranesi's most popular and best known series, celebrating the churches, monuments, ruins, bridges, fountains, and public spaces of the city of Rome. The immense popularity of the series meant that they were in constant demand, and Piranesi continued to reissue and add to the series from the 1740s until his death in 1778. The Vedute were particularly popular with British grand tourists, and had a profound effect on the British neoclassical movement. Demand was such that the series was reprinted numerous times after Piranesi's death, including two Paris editions published by his sons, Francesco and Pietro. Hind 95. i/iv, Wilton-Ely 228, F750, C780.