A journey back to eighteenth-century Europe: this volume vividly reveals how the two painters Canaletto and Bellotto used the latest optical instruments and analytical observation to create a fascinatingly lifelike image of urban architecture. At the same time, through theatrical staging, they transformed streets and squares into vibrant platforms for human society - populated by aristocrats and street vendors, courtly ceremony and everyday labour. Their pictures offer a wealth of narrative detail in which viewers are only too happy to lose themselves.