Il Natale di Roma: Celebrating the Eternal City on its 2,775th Birthday
Buon Compleanno Roma!
On 21 April, Rome celebrates 2,775 years since its legendary founding in 753 BCE. In honour of il Natale di Roma, we have compiled a selection of works showcasing the Eternal City and its literary legacy.
The complete catalogue is available to view here.
Selected entries are also presented below with excerpts from the catalogue.
Albertini, Francesco (ca. 1469-1510/1520).
Opusculum de mirabilibus nouæ & ueteris vrbis Romæ. Rome, Giacomo Mazzocchi, 1510.
Rare first edition of the first modern guide to the Eternal City, as well as the first topography of both ancient and new Rome, a division that characterized depictions of Rome in books and maps thenceforth.
“[T]he first, and perhaps only, true Renaissance guidebook realized on principles that also governed the renewal of art and architecture around 1500.”
Around 1505, the Florentine priest and antiquarian Francesco Albertini left his post as canon of the Basilica of San Lorenzo to move to Rome and join the circle of Pope Julius II, to whom the present work is addressed. The guide was commissioned by the pope’s nephew, Cardinal Galeotto Franciotti Della Rovere, with the aim of breaking from the tradition of the Medieval Mirabilia Urbis Romae – anecdoctal guides that blurred history with legend.
Divided into three parts, the first two books of the Opusculum address ancient Rome and its monuments. Presenting Roma vetus as a separate, immutable and venerable witness of the past, Albertini’s account aligned with the need for a methodical approach to the registration of historical monuments espoused in Raphael’s famous letter to Pope Leo X of some years later, thus laying the foundation for the protection and conservation of Italy’s historic and artistic heritage.
In the third book, Albertini turns to contemporary Rome – the Rome formed by the Della Rovere family – and is entirely devoted to the buildings and artistic programs promoted by Pope Julius II. Here the author’s proximity to the latest archaeological sites and discoveries, and to the building of Renaissance monuments, is striking, with remarkable passages including one of the earliest descriptions of the Vatican Library, a reference to Vespucci’s discoveries in the New World, and the first printed reference to Michelangelo’s Sistine ceiling as well as the earliest printed notice of that artist overall.
Descrittione di tutta Italia... nella quale si contiene il sito di essa, l’origine, & le signorie delle città , & delle castella, co i nomi antichi e moderni... Et piu gli huomini famosi che l’hanno illustrata, i monti, i laghi, i fiumi... Bologna, Anselmo Giaccarelli, January 1550.
First edition of this important historical, artistic, and geographical guide was composed by the Bolognese Dominican Leandro Alberti, who travelled widely throughout Italy and in 1536 was named vicar of Santa Sabina in Rome. Despite its great size, the work became immensely popular, and was read and referenced until the late eighteenth century by many foreign travellers embarking on the Grand Tour.
Alberti's Descrittione has an encyclopaedic character, and its reliance upon earlier antiquarian works – above all Flavio Biondo's influential Italia illustrata – is profound. At the same time, the Descrittione also reflects its author’s individual experience as a traveller across Italy and contains numerous personal reflections and observations, including a brief reference to Vespucci's voyage to the New World. Furthermore, Alberti consulted Biondo's remarkable library and requested information from all major Italian scholars of his time who in turn answered enthusiastically; among his correspondents, the names of Paolo Giovio and Andrea Alciati particularly stand out. Alberti's work quickly found an eager audience all over Europe, as evinced by its early presence in the majority of academic libraries across Northern Europe, while its enduring international impact is reflected in its use by cartographers like Ortelius and Quad in their mapping and description of the Italian peninsula.
Boissard, Jean-Jacques (1528-1602).
I. [-VI] Pars Romanae Urbis topographiae & Antiquitatum, Qua succincte & breviter describuntur omnia quae tam publice quam privatim videntur animadversione Digna Iano Iacobo Boissardo Vesuntino autore… Frankfurt, Johann Feyrabend for Theodor de Bry, 1597-1602.
A very good and unusually complete copy of the rare first edition of this summa of Roman topography and statuary, profusely illustrated by the outstanding antiquarian, poet and draughtsman from Besançon Jean-Jacques Boissard on behalf of the Frankfurt-based publisher and engraver Theodor de Bry (1528-1598). De Bry was responsible for many of the high-quality copper-engravings included in the work, included here in their first state. The present copy is in the rare issue lacking the engraved portraits in Part III, and with the letter to the reader reset. Furthermore, Part II also contains three plates that are unrecorded in standard catalogues and bibliographies.
The Antiquitates romanae were intended to offer scholars and visitors to Rome a guidebook of the city’s ancient monuments while also highlighting its Renaissance glory with information on its spectacular archeological collections. Boissard stayed in Rome between 1556 and 1559, sketching drawings of the Eternal City’s numerous antiquities, and taking precious notes on the collections of antique statues, steles, bas-reliefs, and inscriptions displayed by cardinals, princes and aristocrats in their Roman palaces and gardens.
Biossard’s monumental work is therefore considered not only a valuable primary source, but also the most influential travel guide of Renaissance Rome, since Part I offers an itinerary for a four-day tour around the city. It also testifies to the vastness of Boissard’s reading, with his frequent use of accounts and inventories compiled by other authors including Flavio Biondo, Pomponio Leto, Bartolomeo Marliani, Onofrio Panvinio, Fulvio Orsini, and Ulisse Aldrovandi.
Of the greatest importance is, in Part II, the map of modern Rome engraved by Theodore de Bry himself and depicting the new façade of Saint Peter’s Basilica intentionally oriented toward the reader and not toward the Obelisk and the Vatican Gardens, as they are in reality (see Frutaz, cxxxviii, pl. 278).
Falda, Giovan Battista (1643-1678).
I Giardini di Roma. Con le loro Piante Alzate e Vedute in Prospettiva... Roma, Giovanni Giacomo De Rossi, [ca. 1680].
First edition – offered here in its first issue with the plates unnumbered – of the most beautiful garden book produced in the Roman Baroque. Falda's work illustrates the layout and embellishment of nine of the finest gardens of Rome dating from the mid-sixteenth to the mid-seventeenth century. The publication includes bird's-eye views and plans of the Vatican Gardens, those on Quirinal Hill, and, among others, the Villas Mattei, Pamphili, Borghese, Ludovisi, and Montalto. The gardens were designed by Alessandro Algardi, Carlo Maderno, Ottavio Mascarini, Annibali Lippi, Cavalier Rainaldi, Domenico Fontana, Flaminio Pontico, and Giacomo Del Duca. The book is of particular importance as it shows the gardens before they were destroyed or underwent extensive alterations.
As a boy, Falda was sent to Rome to work in the studio of Gian Lorenzo Bernini. His skills attracted the attention of the publisher Giovanni Giacomo De Rossi, for whom Falda engraved the series Le fontane di Roma ('Fountains of Rome'), Palazzi di Roma ('Palaces of Rome'), and the present Giardini. His work became very popular among participants of the Grand Tour and tourists in the second half the seventeenth century and sold very well.
Nuovi ritrovamenti divisi in due parti con trè Tavole in lingua Latina, Francese, & Ollandese. Parte prima. Delli ordegni per cavar pali. Armature della calamita. Del modo di levare i sassi sott’acqua, e trovar la lega dell’oro, e dell’argento... Rome, Giovanni Giacomo Komarek, 1696.
(bound with:) Idem. Alla Santità di N.S. Papa Innocentio XI. Beatissimo Padre. [Rome, Giacomo Antonio de Lazzeri Varese, 1679].
(bound with:) Idem. Nuovi ritrovamenti dati in luce dall’Ingegneiro [sic] Cornelio Meyer per eccitare l’ingegno de’ virtuosi ad aumentarli, ò aggiungervi maggior perfettione... Rome, Giovanni Giacomo Komarek, 1689.
(together with:) Idem. L’Arte di restituire à Roma la tralasciata Navigatione del suo Tevere. Divisa in tre parti... Rome, Giacomo Antonio de Lazzari Varese, 1685.
Two-volume set containing four rare first editions by Cornelius Meyer (Cornelis Meijer), both volumes bearing the author's inscription 'Ex dono Auctoris'. Dedication copies of these already rare works are extremely hard to come by separately, and even more so bound together, and in copies complete with all their parts. This is the case with the present set, in which the first volume also bears the ex-libris of the Odescalchi family, and it is especially noteworthy that Pope Innocent XI Odescalchi was the patron of Meyer as well as the dedicatee of the second edition bound in this volume.
The first work bound – Nuovi ritrovamenti divisi in due parti... Parte prima and Nuovi ritrovamenti dati in luce gather some of the author's technical inventions and scientific experiments. The plates show inventions and experiments undertaken by Meyer in Rome and other places like Livorno and Civitavecchia: among others, the large magnet of the Grand Duke of Tuscany, instruments and technical tools to raise cannons and poles from below the sea and to break stones underwater, methods for melting metals, canalization and other hydraulic works, a plan of the harbor of Livorno, fortification works, spectacles, games and curiosities including how to break a glass with a musical instrument, the eclipse of Jupiter's first satellite, a map of the mouth of Po river, chariots, the design of a room, the orbit of a comet, and fountains. One of the plates included here shows the Civitavecchia harbor, where the author recovered the hull of a sunken vessel.
The third work included in the first volume – the one bound in the middle – is the rarest of all three and, as stated in the notice to the reader, with this publication Meyer intended to show to the general public how he so brilliantly completed the first task assigned to him by Clement X upon his arrival in Rome. Born in Amsterdam, Cornelius Meyer left his country in 1674 for Venice, then a popular destination for Dutch engineers seeking employment, and he moved to Rome a year later. Pope Clement X placed Meyer in charge of a major project aimed at protecting Via Flaminia against the flooding of the Tiber. Meyer, whose plans were less expensive than those proposed by the project's former head engineer, Carlo Fontana, constructed a passonata, i.e., a row of piles, in the Tiber, which deflected the river's current away from the Via Flaminia.
After this first successful work on the Tiber, Clement X and his successor Innocent XI hired Meyer to improve navigation on the river with the purpose of increasing commerce. Meyer came up with revolutionary solutions to expedite travel along the river and in 1683, with the help of artist Gaspar van Wittel, he published his projects in the second bound work presented here, L'arte di restituire a Roma la tralasciata navigatione del suo Tevere. Considered Meyer’s masterpiece, this treatise on the restoration of the Tiber River for navigation is divided into three parts, and acts as both a record of Meyer's engineering skills as well as a form of self-promotion for seeking further commissions. It includes a beautiful series of etchings by Meyer himself as well as by Giovanni Battista Falda, Gaspar van Wittel, Jacques Blondeau, Barend de Bailliu, Balthasar Denner, Gomar Wouters, Johannes Collin, and Ioannes Baptista Honoratus Polustinus. It was with his designs in L'arte di restituire that Meyer consolidated his reputation among the artistic and scientific elite of Rome.
Victoria, Vicente (1658-1712).
Osseruazioni sopra il libro della Felsina pittrice per la difesa di Raffaello da Urbino, dei Caracci, e della loro scuola. Publicate, e diuise in sette lettere... Rome, Gaetano Zenobi, 1703.
A handsome blue-paper copy of this work by the Spanish painter, printmaker, and canon Vicente Victoria y Gastaldo. Born in Valencia, Victoria was primarily active in Rome, and known under the Italianised name of Vittorio Vincente. A protégé of the Albani family, in 1703 he was appointed as antiquarian to Pope Clement XI, whose coat of arms is engraved on the title-page of this edition, which was likewise printed in 1703. Victoria amassed a notable library and a large collection of classical antiquities.
He published the Osservazioni in defence of Raphael and Annibale Carracci, whose styles had been criticised as ‘dry and lifeless’ by Count Carlo Cesare Malvasia (1616-1693) in his Felsina Pittrice of 1678, the biographical work on Bolognese painters and one of the most important sources for the history of Italian painting. Victoria had perceived an anti-Roman bias in Malvasia’s treatise: as is well known, in a few copies of the Felsina Pittrice Malvasia had referenced Raphael – in a passage related to the Vatican Stanze – as the boccalaio di Urbino, i.e., the ‘potter from Urbino’, an expression which was later changed to ‘the great Raphael’ in the definitive issue.
The 1703 publication is famous for its inclusion of a full-page engraving, executed after a drawing of Victoria himself, depicting a hand sharpening a quill close to a copy of Malvasia’s treatise, and surmounted by the caption ‘vt scribat non feriat’, i.e., ‘May it write, not strike’.
Borromini, Francesco (1599-1667).
Opera del Cav. Francesco Boromino Cavata da suoi Originali cioè La Chiesa, e Fabrica della Sapienza di Roma Con le Vedute in Prospettiua e con lo Studio delle Proporz.ni Geometriche, Piante, Alzate Profili, e Spaccati Dedicata alla Santità di N.S. Papa Clemente XI. Rome, Sebastiano Giannini, 1720.
(bound with:) Idem. Opus Architectonicum Equitis Francisci Boromini ex ejusdem exemplaribus petitum; Oratorium nempè, Aedisque Romanae RR. PP. Congregationis Oratorii S. Philippi Nerii, additis Scenographia, Geometricis proportionibus, Ichnographia, prospectibus integris, obliquis, interioribus, at extremis partibus lineamentis. Accedit Totius Aedificii Descriptio, ac ratio auctore eodem Equite Boromino nunc primum edita, Dicatum Eminentissimo, et Reverendissimo Principi Josepho Renato S.R.E. Card. Imperiali. Rome, Sebastiano Giannini, 1725.
First edition of the work of celebrated pioneering Baroque architect Francesco Borromini: the finest edition of architecture ever to appear in print.
Born Francesco Castelli in the village of Bissone, in the southernmost canton of Switzerland, Borromini moved first to Milan, where he studied masonry and sculpture, and then to Rome, where he made his career as one of the most important architects of the seventeenth century. His influences ranged from Michelangelo to classical antiquity, nature and mathematics, but he was above all committed to originality and re-envisioned each of these sources, along with many others, to create some of the most ingenious and breathtaking examples of High Baroque architecture.
Borromini was also an outstanding draughtsman and unusual for his time in his preference for using fine, sharply pointed graphite pencils for his drawings, which allowed him to create remarkably clear renderings. Around 1659/1660 he decided to present several of his drawings in a publication and to this end had them engraved by Domenico Barrière (ca. 1615-1678), a former student of Claude Lorraine. The project was left unfinished at Borromini’s suicide in 1667, shortly before which he had also burned many of the drawings and prints. A number of them did, however, survive and were passed onto his nephew Bernardo Borromini; after Bernardo’s death in 1709, they were then acquired by the Roman editor Sebastiano Giannini, who set out to finish what Borromini had started and publish his work for a broader audience to appreciate and enjoy.
The first work presented here is dedicated to the church of Sant'Ivo alla Sapienza (1643-1664), the chapel of the Roman university and arguably Borromini’s most iconic and complex design, which Giannini represents in 46 plates. Some of these come from the acquired copper plates etched by Barrière, as with pl. VI, showing the building’s myriad juxtapositions of convex and concave forms – a hallmark of Borrimini’s architecture – and fantastic lantern and spiral, added by the architect under the pontificate of Innocent X.
The second work, Opus Architectonicum, is devoted to the Oratorio dei Filippini, the oratory and residence quarters of the Congregation of St. Philip Neri. It includes 67 illustrations and a 31-page text based on a manuscript written by Borromini and the Oratorian father Virgilio Spada (1596-1662) between 1646 and 1647. This text, titled “Piena relatione della fabbrica”, offers a detailed account of the design and construction phases of each room, along with insight into Borromini’s creative process and the relationship between patron and architect.
Svetonius Tranquillus, Gaius (70-126).
Le vite de’ dodici Cesari... Tradotte in volgar Fiorentino da F. Paolo Del Rosso Cavalier Gerosolomitano. Nuova edizione con le vere effigie de’ Cesari Ed altre illustrazioni... Venice, Francesco Piacentini, 1738.
A superb copy, printed on strong blue paper, of this famous historical work, divided into eight books and containing the biographies of twelve Roman emperors, from Julius Caesar to Domitianus. The well-known artist John Baptist Jackson (1701–ca.1780) is responsible for the fine border framing the half-title.
The portraits of Roman Emperors, or “le vere effigie dei Cesari” – as the Venetian printer Piacentini states in his preliminary address – are by anonymous designers and engravers and closely reproduce the outline of Hubert Goltzius’ series of medallions, originally executed in chiaroscuro, which first appeared in the volume Vivae omnium Imperatorum Imagines, published in Antwerp in 1557.
The volume has a very distinguished provenance, having once belonged to Joseph Smith, a great lover of paintings and books, and patron to the famous artist Canaletto. Smith spent his life in Venice, and in 1744 was named British Consul of the city. Smith’s library was sold at auction in 1755, while his celebrated art collection was purchased by King George III in 1762.
Prior to Smith’s ownership, this fine copy of the Le vite de’ dodici Cesari had been in the possession of the Venetian patrician and senator of the Serenissima Giacomo Soranzo, one of the greatest collectors of books printed on blue paper.
For an extended description of this work, see Margherita Palumbo’s post, Twelve Blue Caesars and Numismatic Imagery in Venice.
Nolli, Giovanni Battista (1701-1756).
Nuova Pianta di Roma data in Luce. Nuova Pianta di Roma Data in Luce da Giambattista Nolli l’Anno MDCCXLVIII. [Rome], Giambattista Nolli, 1748.
The finest eighteenth-century plan of Rome, a landmark in the history of cartography and the first plan of the city to use the north-south geographical convention. The “Nolli Map” is widely celebrated for its remarkable detail and accuracy, presenting a definitive record of the Eternal City, including a complete survey of its antique remains, at the height of its cultural and artistic developments.
The map consists of twelve double-page etched and engraved plates accompanied by four double-page indexes (one alphabetical and one numerical), an engraved title page, and an “Avviso al lettore.” A bound publication was originally intended, hence the pagination in the upper corner margins of each plate, but never materialized; the sheets are therefore presented loose as published and can be assembled to make a large wall map of approximately four square metres.
The surveyor and architect Giovanni Battista Nolli began work on the map in 1736, following a commission by its dedicatee Pope Benedict XIV, with the goal of demarcating Rome’s fourteen traditional rioni. It proved enormously useful in this regard: Count Bernardini used the original drawing of the plan from 1744 in his redefinition of the rioni borders, while the large pianta, published in 1748, continued to be used in governmental planning until the 1970s.
Revered for its comprehensiveness and attention to detail, the plan represents Rome’s ancient walls and urbanized centre, as well as the disabitato, ie., the uninhabited area in between. Across these areas the viewer finds an exhaustive number of monuments, churches, theatres, courtyards, stairs, etc., even ferry boats and cargo crafts. In total 1,320 doubly indexed sites are included, each represented with meticulous care, noting, for example, the direction of river flows, which drains were open and closed, and the otherwise imperceptible asymmetry in the Spanish Steps.
The way Nolli presents this information is central to the map’s historical importance and continued legacy. As opposed to the prevalent bird’s-eye-view model, Nolli was among the earliest Roman cartographers to use an ichnographic mode of representation, in which built space is shaded and unbuilt space left white (or void). The result was a landmark in city planning that presented viewers with a continuum of generally accessible space, and thus a new way to engage with the city.
Piranesi, Giovanni Battista (1720-1778). Prima Parte di Architetture e Prospettive inventate ed incise da Giambatista Piranesi architetto veneziano, tra gli Arcadi Solcindio Tiseio. [Rome, late 1760s-early 1770s].
(bound with:) Idem. Antichità Romane de’ tempi della Repubblica, e de’ primi Imperatori, disegnate, ed incise da Giambattista Piranesi architetto veneziano: e dallo stesso dedicate all’Ill.mo e Rev.mo Sig. Monsig. Giovanni Bottari Cappellano segreto di N.S. Benedetto XIV. Uno de custodi della Biblioteca Vaticana, e canonico di S. Maria in Trastevere. Parte prima. Roma, si vende dall’Auttore dirimpetto l’Accademia di Franzia, [1748, but late 1760s-early 1770s].
I. Second edition, fifth issue of Piranesi's first work: a record of the young engraver's first encounter with the antiquities of Rome and of his difficulty in giving visual form to its immense grandeur. The series presented here, according to Robison, represents the second of six editions and it is in the fifth of eight issues.
“Piranesi's first published work. As such, it is a remarkable production. Granted that some of its thirteen plates are little more than pleasant exercises in a set tradition, others are strikingly inventive, extraordinarily successful in their complex compositions, and remarkably sophisticated in their harmonious technique. Clearly, Piranesi learned and developed further, but the level of the first publication at age twenty-three shows he already had the talent of a genius” (Robinson, p. 12).
“From the purely artistic side there is scarcely anything more attractive in Piranesi’s work than this early series”
II. First edition, a later issue probably printed in the late 1760s and early 1770s, of the complete series, in first state, of this precocious manifesto of Piranesi's historical study of the antiquities of Rome. The series is divided into two parts, each opening with its own title-page: the first shows Roman antiquities in Rome; the second Roman antiquities outside Rome. The series was reprinted around 1765, with the addition of two plates, under the title Alcune vedute di archi trionfali et altri monumenti.