Veduta di Campo Vaccino

View of the Campo Vaccino in Rome, the remains the Temple of the Giove Statore dominating the composition at right.

Etching, circa 1660, lettered key along bottom in the middle of which Veduta di Campo Vaccino / Gio. Jacomo Rossi le stampa in Roma alla Pace co Priu del S.P.

Belongs to a series of 8 large views of Rome, unsigned, attributed to Falda by Maria Catelli Isola and Beltrame Quattrocchi; this rare group of views of Rome, nevertheless, differs from Falda’s classical style.

Giovan Battista Falda, a native of Valduggia, was sent to Rome at the age of 14 and entrusted to the care of an uncle who pointed him out to Gian Lorenzo Bernini. But it was his meeting with printer Gian Giacomo De Rossi that marked a turning point in Falda's artistic career: in fact, his talent was directed by the publisher to the art of engraving. In De Rossi's workshop he could also appreciate the work of great engravers such as J. Callot, S. Della Bella and I. Silvestre; having completed his apprenticeship, he was benevolently received at the papal court, so much so that Alexander VII commissioned him to design the factories of the Castel Gandolfo residence. In 1665, Falda gave to the presses for the publisher De Rossi his masterpiece: the plates of the first book of the Nuovo Teatro delle fabbriche, et edificii, in prospettiva di Roma moderna sotto il felice pontificato di n. s. Alessandro VII, which was followed, between 1665 and '69, by the second and third. The work was intended to popularize the new image of Rome: the Pope, in fact, decided to open new streets, to embellish the city with fountains and monuments, also as a demonstration of the financial and cultural power of his family. With the Nuovo Teatro, as with the later collections devoted to fountains and palaces, Falda became the popularizer of these aspects; his engraved views, characterized by attention to both perspective rules and scenographic effects, skillfully exploit the vigor of line and the richness of the contrast between black and white, in keeping with the spatial criteria of Baroque art. The specifically popular and commercial aspect of the engraved views was skillfully exploited by the publisher De Rossi, who established an inseparable and effective partnership with Falda, to whom much of the printed production of the century in Rome was owed, with a fortune comparable only to that which would be paid to the work of Giovan Battista Piranesi. Falda's activity was tireless despite the brevity of the time span in which he worked (he died at the age of 35 on August 22, 1678 and was buried in S. Maria della Scala in Trastevere).  By the end of his life he had engraved about 300 plates: many of these are preserved in Rome at the Calcografia nazionale.

A fine, strong, impression on contemporary laid paper, with margins, very good condition.

Bibliografia

The Illustrated Bartsch (4725.319); M. Catelli Isola, I Ponti di Roma nn. 92/96; E. Beltrame Quattrocchi pp. 66-67, nn. 92/96.