CAPITOLII · ROMANII · VERA · IMAGO · VT · NUNC · EST ·

Etching and engraving, 1600, signed at bottom right: "Nicolaus Van Aelst formis" (in the first state only). Inscribed at bottom left: "Superiorum permissu 1600". Work part of the "Speculum Romanae Magnificentiae".

Inscribed at the top: "- CAPITOLII - ROMANII - VERA - IMAGO - VT - NUNC - EST - ".

Exemple of the second state, with the imprint “in Roma Per Gio. Jacomo Rossi alla Pace" that replaces that of Van Aelst and with the date 1650 that follows the indication of the privilege. In addition, the fountain depicted on the left side of the Van Aelst edition leaves space for the completion of the Senatorial Palace.

Nicola Van Aelst was active in Rome between 1585 and the year of his death, 1613. In 1588 he obtained the papal privilege to print the great works of Sixtus V and was in the forefront of the engraving production that was to propagandize Rome for the Jubilee of 1600. The engraving represented here "does not go down in detail: the mezzanine windows do not have stucco festoons, the frieze does not have the feats of Clement VIII, but the portal of the palace is the "rich" one, with the inalveolate columns and the inscription of the Ferrara's capture of 1599-1600. There do not seem to be doubts: the giant order is previous to 1600 and is the work of Giacomo Della Porta. But in this print, dated, the giant order is found only in the center of the facade, not on the towers, and the mirrors are missing; there is, however, a large papal coat of arms that completely closes the central window of the second order of openings, also visible in the engraving of Greuter of 1618 without the emblem being readable. The feat of the pope who had it placed, however, is clearly legible in the 1676 engraving of Falda, the winged dragon of Paul V Borghese (1605-1621). The print by van Aelst, therefore, despite the thousandth, cannot be dated 1600 but later" (cf. Anna Bedon, p. 295).

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). 

Beautiful proof, printed on contemporary paper, with margins, traces of paper folds, glue on the reverse side, otherwise in excellent condition.

Bibliografia
Marigliani, Lo splendore di Roma nell’Arte incisoria del Cinquecento (2016), n. VI.8-9; C. D’Onofrio, 1973, p. 213; C. Marigliani, 2005, p. 45; A. Bedon, 2008, p. 295; C. Witcombe, 2008, pp. 366-67.