Boissard, Jean-Jacques (1528-1602). Romanae Urbis Topographiae amp; Antiquitatum... Frankfurt, Johann Feyrabend for Theodor de Bry, 1597-1602.
Boissard, Jean-Jacques (1528-1602). Romanae Urbis Topographiae amp; Antiquitatum... Frankfurt, Johann Feyrabend for Theodor de Bry, 1597-1602.
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.
The most influential travel guide of Renaissance Rome
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 work in six parts, bound in two volumes in folio (350x200 mm). complete. Each part with its own engraved pictorial title-page.
I. Collation: *4, **4, A-T4, V6 (fol. V6 blank). [8] leaves (including the title- page, two full-page portraits of J.-J. Boissard, and T. de Bry, and a full-page plate), 161, [1] pages, a blank leaf. One folding double-page map of Italy. In this copy, the double-page engraved plate dated 1558-1560 is bound in Part II.
II. Collation: (:)4, **4, ***4, A-D2, E-Z4, Aa-Ll4. [3] leaves (including the title-page and two full-page portraits of J.-J. Boissard and T. de Bry), 211, 11 pages, [1 leaf]; 42 plates, of which seven are folding.
III. Collation: ♱4 (this issue is lacking the engraved portraits on fol. ♱2 and ♱3; fol. ♱4 is entirely reset, and considered in the foliation as fol. A1), A4 (fols. A1-A3 signed A2 and A4 respectively), B-E6, F-Z4, AA-II4. [9] leaves, 41, [1] pages; 108 engraved plates, numbered 43-150.
IV. Collation: (:)4, A-F4. [3] leaves, 52 pages; 94 full-page engraved plates, numbered 53-146. In this copy, Part IV includes plate no. 125, which belongs in fact to Part VI (see below; all bibliographies agree that a plate numbered 125 was never executed for Part IV). In this copy, plates 147-149 are bound at the end of Part VI (see below).
V. Collation: *4, **6. [10] leaves; 130 full-page engraved plates, of which the first is unnumbered, and the others are numbered 1-129.
VI. Collation: ):(4, A-F4. [4 leaves], 47, [1] pages; 148 engraved numbered plates. In this copy, plate no. 125 is erroneously bound in Part IV. This Part also includes plates 147-149 of Part IV.
Numerous woodcut decorated initials and headpieces.
Contemporary German vellum over pasteboards, with yapp edges. At the center of both covers, the gilt-tooled coat of arms of the d’Aubusson and de Damas families; the inscription ‘M LE PETIT’ lettered in gold on the upper board. Traces of ties, a green fabric tie preserved at the front cover of vol. 1. Smooth spine, title and volume numbering lettered in ink. Pale-blue edges. A very good copy, a waterstain at the bottom margin of vol. 1. Some browning and foxing. Pencilled bibliographical notes on the recto of the front flyleaf of vol. 1; early price notice ‘60 tl’ on the rear pastedown of vol. 2; on the rear pastedown of both volume the early shelfmark ‘C. 29’, number ‘6123’, and the note ‘N° 5870 de Debure’, referring to the entry of the work in the Bibliographie instructive ou Traité de la connoissance des livres rares et singuliers by Guillaume-François de Bure (Paris 1763-1768).
Provenance: the d’Aubusson and de Damas families (their coats of arms tooled in gold on both covers); the front pastedown of vol. I, dated ‘2 jul. 1846’; small paper label bearing the letters ‘ER’ on the title-pages, that on the vol. 1 with the number ‘3646’; from the library of the great Alsatian book collector and tobacco magnate Maurice Burrus (1882-1959), who purchased the copy from Ader in November 1949 (two small paper labels to the rear flyleaf of vol. 1, bearing the inked inscriptions ‘Ader Nov. 49’and ‘from X. Sa’; cf. the sale of Burrus’s collection, Christie’s Paris 15 December 2015, lot 185).
A very good copy, unusually complete with all its parts, 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, presented 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 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.
His 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. Further, the work testifies to the vastness of Boissard’s readings, as he frequently makes use of accounts and inventories compiled by other authors including Flavio Biondo, Pomponio Leto, Bartolomeo Marliani, Onofrio Panvinio, Fulvio Orsini, and Ulisse Aldrovandi. The maps of ancient Rome – such as that mapping Rome under the reign of Romulus – clearly show Boissard’s debt to Marco Fabio Calvo’s Antiquae urbis Romae (1532), while the maps representing modern Rome are mainly based on those engraved by Ambrogio Brambilla
in 1590 for Nicola van Aelst. Of the greatest importance is, in Part II, the map of modern Rome (‘novissima vrbis romae descriptio a° m.d.lxxxxvii.’) engraved by Theodore de Bry himself, and depicting the 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).
Finally, the Antiquitates romanae offers a clear example of the antiquarian taste of the time, as well as the role of learned communication. During his long stay in Rome, and thanks to the protection of Cardinal Pio da Carpi, Boissard was introduced to the most distinguished collectors who – as he states in the preliminary leaves of the first volume – “nihil habeant domi suae, quod non liberaliter peregrinis videndum permittant”, i.e., “have nothing in their residences which they do not generously permit visitors to see” (fol. **2r). This was true even if those visitors happened to be Protestant, as indeed Boissard was; the passion for vestiges of the ancient world was thus even able to overcome confessional boundaries.
Adams-B 2331; Cicognara 3626; Kissner 54; Schudt 715; Rossetti II, 1160; A. Cullière, Bibliothèque lorraine de la Renaissance. Catalogue d’exposition, Metz 2000, no. 100; M. van Groesen, “Boissard, Clusius, De Bry and the Making of Antiquitates Romanae”, Lias. Sources and Documents Relating to the Early History of Ideas, 29 (2002), pp. 193-211; W. Stenhouse, “Visitors, Display, and Reception in the Antiquity Collections of Late Renaissance Rome”, Renaissance Quarterly, 58 (2005), pp. 397-434; R. De Marco, Collections et collectionneurs dans les Trois-Évêchés. Textes réunis par C. Bourdieu-Weiss, Metz 2015, pp. 35-54.
