Julien David Le Roy was an art historian who detailed what remained of classical Greek architecture in his mid-eighteenth century study Les Ruines dis Plus Beaux Monuments published in Paris in 1758. His engravings were meant to document his theory that classical Greece was the basis of modern civilization. Piranesi, who at the same time was postulaating that Rome was the basis of modern civilization, took great exception to LeRoy's work. In an engraving in Della Magnificenza Piranesi shows an example of a very weak column in Le Roy's work pinned next to a sumptious engraving of a Roman column