Aedium Farnesiarum Tabulae
Rome: Venantius Monaldinus, 1753. First Edition. Oversized folio, 17 1/4 x 12 inches (438 x 304 mm); half title, engraved portrait of Annibale Carracci on frontispiece with tissue guard, rubricated title with large engraved vignette; 10 unnumbered prelim. pages and index, LXXIV pages with wide margins and uncut forty engravings on thirty-three numbered plates —of which 11 are oversized and folding— and over 60 large vignettes and historiated initials. Bound in half calf with orange paper-covered boards, corners bumped, edges and spine rubbed but binding is tight and square, paper supple and clean with only minor discoloration and toning to gutters.
[Cicognara 3376; Bartsch XXI, pp. 103–114, nos.21-64].
The superbly engraved plates by Carlo Cesio (1622 – 1682) reproduce the Palazzo Farnese frescoes that Annibale Carracci (1560 - 1609) began in 1597 and completed in 1608 just one year before his death. The frescoes were commissioned by Alessandro Farnese (1468-1549), later Pope Paul III, ostensibly in honor of his niece's nuptials and located on the 'piano nobile' of the family's palace which today hosts the French Embassy in Rome. They depict "The Loves of the Gods" and were greatly admired at the time, and were later considered to reflect a significant change in painting style away from sixteenth century Mannerism in anticipation of the development of Baroque and Classicism in Rome during the seventeenth century.
"The important cycle of frescoes, trompe-l'oeil, and architectural framework known as quadratura that make up the barrel-vaulted ceiling of the gallery depict the 'Loves of the Gods,' a sophisticated dialogue between the theme of love and allegorical subjects from antiquity." (Quoted from World Monuments Fund website).
Condition: Near fine.
Item number: 1715
Price: $6,500.00
Share: