Giambattista Tiepolo (1696–1770)
Siege of a City
Drawn for Ludovico Antonio Muratori, Rerum Italicarum Scriptores,
ca. 1725–30
Black chalk on white paper
4 3/8 × 7 1/2 in. (112 × 192 mm)
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
© The Metropolitan Museum of Art / Art Resource, NY
The preparatory drawings Tiepolo made to accompany the medieval texts collected by Muratori in Rerum Italicarum Scriptores represent scenes from Italian history. Many of the events depicted cannot be precisely identified, however, and on more than one occasion, the drawings are used multiple times, to illustrate different events.