For the first time, this volume makes the Roman drawings in the Department of Prints and Drawings at the Statens Museum for Kunst accessible to a professional as well as a general audience, and gives them the historical attention and scrutiny they deserve. For more than 200 years - from c. 1520 to c. 1750 - the Popes and their court made Rome the unchallenged centre of artistic activity in Europe. The generally rapid succession of the Popes and their preference for employing artists from their own native towns created a discontinuity in patronage. On the one side this inhibited the development of a consistent local school, on the other it promoted an exceptional variety of artistic expression which is well illustrated in this catalogue