Tabula I (III) animalium...

Complete series of three engravings by engraving, 1547, signed in plate Formis Ant. Lafrerij.

The first plate bears in the title the date 1547: Ex ueteri hypocausto reperto prope uiuarium anno 1547 in / quo elegantißime omnium animalium pictae effigies uidebatur. Hae tractae sunt et in tres tabellas digestae. Tab. I / Formis Ant. Lafrerij.

The second palte the inscription at the bottom: Tabula II. animalium ex uetustissimis / picturis Romae tractorum. / Formis Ant. Lafrerij.

The third: Tabula III animalium ex uetustissi: / mis picturis Romae tractorum. / Formis Ant. Lafrerij.

The works are attributed by part of the literature to Enea Vico of Parma, and part to Giovanni Battista Franco.

Examples in the first state of three for Rubach (first of two for Alberti), before Paolo Graziani's address. Rubach also describes the issue printed by Graziani in association with Pietro de Nobili; this last edition with the double imprint may date to 1585/86.

Magnificent proofs, rich in tone, impressed on contemporary laid paper with "cardinal's hat" watermark (Tab. I, cf. Woodward nos. 234-236), with wide margins, in perfect condition.

“The three plates were first engraved in the workshop of Antonio Lafréry and replicated by Duchet. As the epigraph says, the animal drawings were taken from the paintings "ex veteri hypocausto reperto propre Vivarium" in 1547. The Vivarium was a structure located in the Porta Prenestina area where animals were kept while awaiting venationes. The three prints give descriptions of most of the animals that were used in fights between men and beasts, between beasts, or simply for less bloody shows that were given in the circus. It is very likely that for the elephant drawings Vico was inspired by drawings by Giulio Romano, preparatory for tapestries commissioned by King Francis I of France between 1531 and 1534. See the Four Studies of Elephants (Oxford, Ashmolean Museum, P.II 590). The same approach, as far as elephants are concerned, can be found in the engraving of the Battle of Zama, published by Lafréry in 1567” (translate from C. Marigliani, Lo splendore di Roma nell’Arte incisoria del Cinquecento).

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).

Bibliografia

C. Hülsen, Das Speculum Romanae Magnificentiae des Antonio Lafreri (1921), nn. 81-83; cfr. Peter Parshall, Antonio Lafreri's 'Speculum Romanae Magnificentiae, in “Print Quarterly”, 1 (2006); B. Rubach, Ant. Lafreri Formis Romae (2016), nn. 344-346, I/III; A. Alberti, L’indice di Antonio Lafrery (2010), n. 89-91, I/II; Marigliani, Lo splendore di Roma nell’Arte incisoria del Cinquecento (2016), nn. V.21-23; cfr. D. Woodward, Catalogue of watermarks in Italian printed maps 1540 – 1600 (1996).