Quoting wikipedia:
The Prisons (Carceri d’invenzione or Imaginary Prisons) is a series of 16 prints by the Italian artist Giovanni Battista Piranesi in the 18th century. They depict enormous subterranean vaults with stairs and mighty machines.
Continued:
In the second publishing, some of the illustrations appear to have been edited to contain (likely deliberate) impossible geometries … Piranesi’s dark and seemingly endless staircases and blocked passages prefigure M. C. Escher‘s images with endless stairs such as his 1960 lithograph Ascending and Descending,
![](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/ca/Giovanni_Battista_Piranesi_-_Le_Carceri_d%27Invenzione_-_Second_Edition_-_1761_-_06_-_The_Smoking_Fire.jpg)
![m-c-escher-ascending-and-descending](https://i0.wp.com/totallyhistory.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/m-c-escher-ascending-and-descending.jpg?w=584)
“Piranesi” is the title of Susanna Clarke’s wonderful new book. The novel is populated with mathematicians and scientists — but I don’t want to give too much away. It’s both charming and thrilling, and like these drawings poses questions about prisons and imprisonment that aren’t easy to answer.