Tommaso Piroli

Born in Rome in 1752 and dying there in 1824, Tommaso Piroli was an Italian engraver and publisher whose career centered on printmaking. He is remembered for clear, disciplined engraving that suited both literary illustration and the reproduction of famous works of art.

His work is closely associated with the designs of the British artist John Flaxman, which he engraved for widely admired illustrated editions. He also worked with Francesco Piranesi and spent periods in Paris in the early 1800s, showing that his career reached beyond Rome into the larger European art world.

Today Piroli is valued less as a solitary celebrity than as a skilled interpreter of images: an artist who turned drawings, frescoes, and classical subjects into prints that could travel, be collected, and be read by many more people.