Roma

Perspective plan of the city by Giovanni Antonio Dosio, engraved by Sebastiano dal Re for the publisher Bartolomeo Faleti

Engraving, 1561, signed and dated on plate.

Magnificent proof, richly toned impressed on contemporary laid paper with "pilgrim in the circle" watermark (see Woodward nos. 4-15), trimmed to copperplate and with coeval margins added, small, in very good condition.

Top center, in a cartouche, is printed the title: ROMA. The cartouche at lower left reads: GAB. PALAEOTIO PONTIFICIO STLITIB IUDICAN DIS DUODECIMUIRO INTEGERRIMO. Expressi iandudum mi Rever. D[omi]ne meis aeneis tabellis Io. Antonij Dosij floren. Manu delineatisUrbem Romam Urbium, ac Terraru[m], gentiumq[ue] omnium, Reginam qualis qualis his temporibus apparet, et, ut ea in lucem prodiret audentius, tuo nomini dicata exit, quod huiusce Urbis te amantissimum fuisse semper accepi: Proinde editam tibi, do, dicoq[ue] ac trado. Vale Barptolaemei Phaletij tui nominis semp[er] observantissimi memor. Romae Calendis Ianuarij MDLXI.  Sebastianus a Regibus Clodiensis in aere incidebat.

Along the lower margin, spread over eight columns, an alphanumeric legend (A-S and 1-50) of references to notable places and monuments. Additional toponymic indications are provided in the plate. Orientation in the four sides in the center with the names of the cardinal points: SEPTENTRIUM, MERIDIES, ORIENS, OCCIDENS; north is at the bottom.

“This is an absolutely original work that depict city from the north, from an unusual and ideal point located on the Via Flaminia, probably on the slopes of Monte Mario. In the foreground is depicted Villa Giulia, where Dosio worked between 1552 and 1555 on some sculptures commissioned by Pope Julius III. In the plan, in the foreground, one can see the papal procession about to cross the Tiber River to reach Villa Gulia itself. Hülsen points out the fact that the plan, although published in 1561, may have been drawn around 1555/57. Indeed, the pentagonal fortification around Castel Sant'Angelo, which was destroyed by a flood in 1557, is present. The plaet is contained both in some examples of Lafreri's Speculum Romanae magnificentiae and in composite cartographic collections of the 16th century. No reprints of the map are known” (cfr. Bifolco-Ronca, Cartografia e topografia italiana del XVI secolo, p. 2392).

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

Bifolco-Ronca, Cartografia e topografia italiana del XVI secolo, 2018, pp. 2394-95, tav. 1232; cfr. Peter Parshall, Antonio Lafreri's 'Speculum Romanae Magnificentiae, in “Print Quarterly”, 1 (2006); A. Alberti, L’indice di Antonio Lafrery (2010), n. A 107; cfr, D. Woodward, Catalogue of watermarks in Italian printed maps 1540 – 1600 (1996); Bevilacqua-Fagiolo (2012): p. 122 e n. 6; Frutaz (1962): n. CXVII e tav. 229; Hülsen (1915): VII, p. 51-52, n. 30; Marigliani (2007): n. 43; Rocchi (1902): cfr. pp. 67-70 e tav. XII; Roma Veduta (2000): n. 10; Scaccia Scarafoni (1939): pp. 85-86, n. 151; Tooley (1939): n. 488; Witcombe (2008): p. 224, n. 4.2.