Urbis Rome, totius olim orbis dominitricis, situs: cum adhuit extantibus, sacrosancte…

A very rare map of the city, published in Paris in the mid-seventeenth century using the plate made in Rome by Antonio Lafreri.

Example of the fourth state of four, with the Jollain's imprint.

The map is based on that of Pirro Ligorio, 1552, edited by Michele Tramezini in Rome, and its subsequent and numerous variants.

In the upper left the inscription Urbis Rome totius olim orbis domitricis, situs: cum adhuc extantibus, sacrosancte vetustatis monumentis PIRRHO LIGORIO NEAP. INVENTOR. Orientation in the four sides to the center with the name of the cardinal points SEPTENTRIO, MERIDIES, ORIENS, OCCIDENS, the north on the left.

Anonymous map of the city, based on the work byPirro Ligorio, published by Michele Tramezzini in 1552. The ma is inserted in some of the Speculum Romanae Magnificentiae of Antonio Lafreri, to which therefore it is attributed. The great historical interest of this map is not given by the work itself, a simple copy of Ligorio's work, but is represented by the subsequent issues of this plate.

The second state, datable to the second half of the seventeenth century, is completely amended and enriched by toponymy in French. A long description of the city is also included, again in French. It is known that, at the death of Antonio Lafreri (1577), two thirds of the plates were divided between his nephews Stefano and Claudio Duchetti. The remaining third was divided among several publishers. This plate therefore may have taken the road to Paris, where it was reprinted about a century later. 

This edition is described by Hülsen (1915), who lists it among the "Copies and reprints", as "Engraved in the seventeenth century ex.ovvero XVIII. According with Bifolco-Ronca this is the final state of the work, with the address of the French publisher Francois Jollain.

The work belongs to the Speculum Romanae Magnificentiae, the earliest iconography of ancient Rome. 

The Speculum originated in the publishing activities of Antonio Salamanca and Antonio Lafreri (Lafrery). During their Roman publishing careers, the two editors-who worked together between 1553 and 1563-started the production of prints of architecture, statuary, and city views related to ancient and modern Rome. The prints could be purchased individually by tourists and collectors, but they were also purchased in larger groups that were often bound together in an album. In 1573, Lafreri commissioned a frontispiece for this purpose, where the title Speculum Romanae Magnificentiae appears for the first time. Upon Lafreri's death, two-thirds of the existing copperplates went to the Duchetti family (Claudio and Stefano), while another third was distributed among several publishers. Claudio Duchetti continued the publishing activity, implementing the Speculum plates with copies of those "lost" in the hereditary division, which he had engraved by the Milanese Amborgio Brambilla. Upon Claudio's death (1585) the plates were sold - after a brief period of publication by the heirs, particularly in the figure of Giacomo Gherardi - to Giovanni Orlandi, who in 1614 sold his printing house to the Flemish publisher Hendrick van Schoel. Stefano Duchetti, on the other hand, sold his own plates to the publisher Paolo Graziani, who partnered with Pietro de Nobili; the stock flowed into the De Rossi typography passing through the hands of publishers such as Marcello Clodio, Claudio Arbotti and Giovan Battista de Cavalleris. The remaining third of plates in the Lafreri division was divided and split among different publishers, some of them French: curious to see how some plates were reprinted in Paris by Francois Jollain in the mid-17th century. Different way had some plates printed by Antonio Salamanca in his early period; through his son Francesco, they goes to Nicolas van Aelst's. Other editors who contributed to the Speculum were the brothers Michele and Francesco Tramezzino (authors of numerous plates that flowed in part to the Lafreri printing house), Tommaso Barlacchi, and Mario Cartaro, who was the executor of Lafreri's will, and printed some derivative plates. All the best engravers of the time - such as Nicola Beatrizet (Beatricetto), Enea Vico, Etienne Duperac, Ambrogio Brambilla, and others  - were called to Rome and employed for the intaglio of the works.

All these publishers-engravers and merchants-the proliferation of intaglio workshops and artisans helped to create the myth of the Speculum Romanae Magnificentiae, the oldest and most important iconography of Rome. The first scholar to attempt to systematically analyze the print production of 16th-century Roman printers was Christian Hülsen, with his Das Speculum Romanae Magnificentiae des Antonio Lafreri of 1921. In more recent times, very important have been the studies of Peter Parshall (2006) Alessia Alberti (2010), Birte Rubach and Clemente Marigliani (2016). 

Copper engraving, perfect condition. An extremely rare work.

Literature

Bifolco-Ronca, Cartografia e topografia italiana del XVI secolo (2018): pp. 2376-77, tav. 1123, IV/IV; Frutaz (1962): n. XVI e tav. 25; Hülsen (1915): II, p. 42, n. 11 e p. 43, nn. 13-14; Karrow (1993): n. 51/1.1; Marigliani (2007): n. 36; Marigliani (2016): n. XI.5.