FACCIATA DE S PIETRO IN VATICANO

Etching and engraving, 1608, signed and dated lower left [Io]annes [M]aggius [R]omanus [In]cideba A. D. [M]. DC. VIII.

Inscribed at center: ANNO DOMINI MDCVII. PAVLVS V BORGHESIVS ROMANVS PONT. MAX. PONT. III.

Inscribed at bottom: FACCIATA DE S PIETRO IN VATICANO.

Example in the third state (of three), with Hendrick van Schoel's imprint added at lower right above abrasion of Giovanni Orlandi's previous address.

Beautiful proof, rich in tone, printed on contemporary laid paper with watermark "shield with kneeling saint" (see Woodward no. 25), with thin margins, slight abrasions on verso, otherwise in excellent condition.

This very rare engraving depicts Carlo Maderno's design for the facade of St. Peter's, which the literature (cf., Hibbard, 1970) dates to about 1607.

In July 1603 Maderno and G. Fontana were called to succeed Della Porta in directing the construction site of the Fabbrica di S. Pietro. In 1605, shortly after his election, Paul V, adhering to the decision of the cardinal's congregation, ordered the destruction of the ancient body, demolition that began on March 29, 1606, and announced the competition by invitation for the transformation to a Latin cross of Michelangelo's design. Among all, Maderno's design was chosen, and a very elaborate wooden model was soon after made by Giuseppe Bianchi da Narni.

The complex construction events related to Maderno's interventions in St. Peter's have been reconstructed by Hibbard through the analysis of drawings and documents. An early set of plans drawn up by Maderno is evidenced by the sheets preserved in the Uffizi; the closest to what was actually realized consists of two sheets, the upper one depicting the Michelangelo plan, the lower one Maderno's design, with the extension of the nave, the side chapels and the portico. The solution outlined in the latter sheet must have been very similar to the one that served as the basis for Bianchi's wooden model, which led Hibbard to suppose that he could consider April 1607 the terminus ante quem for dating the design (the model was in fact executed between April and November 1607; the first payment to Bianchi is dated April 1607).

Of the different phases of the project for the facade, some evidence remains, including a drawing, derived from this engraving by Giovanni Maggi and preserved at the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, in which we see a solution similar to the one actually realized.

https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O735058/facciata-di-s-pietro-in-architectural-drawing-unknown/

After designing the facade, Maderno was commissioned to add the bell towers, not as he had originally conceived them (above the eastern chapels), but as towers on the sides of the facade.

The final elevation is documented in an engraving by Mattheus Greuter, from mid-1613, which restores Maderno's design in a substantially exact manner.

This engraving by Giovanni Maggi seems to be of extreme rarity; apart from the example in the collection of Cassiano dal Pozzo (London, British Library, Templa Diversa Romae, documented by McDonald, lacking the lower part), we have found no other "institutional" examples.

This work is formally part of 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

Nicoletta Marconi, Carlo Maderno in S. Pietro. Organizzazione e tecniche del cantiere per ilcompletamento della basilica di San Pietro in Vaticano, in “Svizzeri a Roma”, a cura di G. Mollisi, “Arte e Storia a Roma”, Lugano 2007. vol. 35, pp. 88-107; M. Mc Donald, The Print Collection of Cassiano da Pozzo, Architecture, Topography and Military Maps, vol. one, p. 69, n. 1725; H. Hibbard, Borromini e Maderno., in Studi sul Borromini. Atti del Convegno promosso dall'Acc. naz. di S. Luca, I, Roma 1970, pp. 499-503; Maria Cristina Loi, Carlo Maderno, in “Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani” - Volume 67 (2006); cfr, D. Woodward, Catalogue of watermarks in Italian printed maps 1540 – 1600 (1996).