For quite some time this pyramid was the number one resource for artists who wanted to paint Egyptian scenes. The travel cost to Egypt was prohibitive for many artists.

So Cestius’ pyramid with it’s more acute angles features quite a lot in Egyptian scenes in the Renaissance. So if you’ve ever wondered why painters made rather acute pyramids, whilst they aren’t very common in Egypt, this pyramid holds the answer.

Today we could just look up an image but before the invention of photography that was impossible.