Exhibit just etching to open Jan. 10

A piece from Professor Bruce Frier's collection of Piranesi etchings. (Courtesy Institute for the Humanities)

Erika Naginski, visiting assistant professor in the History of Art Department, will deliver the lecture "Building on History: Piranesi and Vico" at noon.

According exhibit curators, 18th-century master engraver Giovanni Battista Piranesi demonstrated the yearning for classical antiquity felt in an era in search of its own lost greatness among the ruins of Ancient Rome.

Piranesi's later work alludes to the beginnings of modernism and abstraction, and reflects the dramatic shifts taking place intellectually in Europe at the threshold of the modern era, they say.

Frier, chair and professor of classical studies at U-M, will host an opening reception and gallery talk 4:30-6:30 p.m. Jan. 12.

The exhibit, which is open 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Monday-Friday will run through Feb. 18. For more information, call (734) 936-3518.