Façade painted in Sgraffito at Rome

“Besides the walls and ceilings of the interior, the façades were frequently decorated with sculptured figures, and the flat spaces between the windows and mouldings underwent ornamentation. This took place either by a manner of painting called sgraffito, in which the undercoating was black, with a thin surface-coating of white laid over it, and then the design or shading was engraved or scraped away down to the black grounding; or similar designs were executed in base-relief, whilst [this image] represents part of a façade painted in sgraffito.”