Dark Brain of Piranesi

In one essay French novelist Yourcenar contemplates Roman decadence. In another she traces one chateau's history through its successive inhabitants, including Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Her title piece concerns Piranesi's Imaginary Prisons, a series of grotesque engravings. PW stated that these seven essays are ""united by the author's astute powers of observation, her forceful writing and her open embrace of life's vicissitudes.'' December