Tomb of Pope Julius II

Engraving, 1554, dated in plate lower center.

After Michelangelo Buonarroti.

Example in the first state of six, with the address of publisher Antonio Salamanca. Lettered «sepvlchri · marmorei · ivlio · iI · pont · max · divina · mich · angeli / bonaroti · florentini · manv · romae · in · basilica · s · petri / ad · vincvla · fabre facti · graphica · deformatio / ant · salamanca · exc · / romae · ∞ · d · liiiI ·».

Beautiful proof, printed on contemporary laid paper with watermark "hammer and anvil in the circle", trimmed to the copperplate, in excellent condition.

The work is then inserted into the "Speculum Romanae Magnificentiae" by Antonio Lafreri.

Attributed to Beatrizet by Bartsch and other scholars, reproduces the tomb of Julius II, with the famous Moses carved by Michelangelo in St. Pietro in Vincoli, one of the most famous sculptures of all time.

Alessia Alberti: "Proveniente dal patrimonio di matrici di Antonio Salamanca (che vi appone il suo indirizzo dalla prima edizione, 1554), probabilmente in seguito allo scioglimento della società con Lafrery il rame dovette passare al francese. Lo si evince dagli inventari relativi alla dispersione del patrimonio di Lafrery dopo la sua morte: ceduta dal nipote Stefano Duchet a Paolo Graziani (1581; Pagani, 2008a, p. 15, riga 15) e da questi a Pietro De Nobili (1585; Pagani, 2008b, p. 376, riga 99). Infine, allo scioglimento della società di questi con Marcello Clodio e Girolamo Arbotti, toccò al figlio di Pietro De Nobili, Pietro Paolo (1589; Pagani, 2011, p. 133, riga 170). Anche se l’ultimo indirizzo apposto sulla matrice è quello di Giuseppe De Rossi, in seguito deve essere appartenuta a Carlo Losi, risultando l’opera citata nel suo catalogo di vendita del 1790 (Indice, 1790,p. 8, n. 15)".

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

Alberti (2015), Michelangelo nel gusto delle stampe del Cinquecento, n. 327, I/VI; Lafrery, Indice, c. 4v; Heinecken, 1768-1769, i (1768), p. 429, n. 2; Huber, 1801-1810, ii-i (1803), p. 631, n. 2859; Nagler, 1858-1879, iv (s.d.), p. 733, n. 2322.24; Passerini, 1875, p. 27; Bianchi, 2004, p. 9, n. d30; Barnes, 2010, p. 200, n. 118; La Roma del Cinquecento nello Speculum Romanae Magnificentia, p. 120; Huelsen p. 163, 107 a/c.