Le sette Chiese di Roma con le loro principali Relique, Stationi et indulgenze

Map of the seven jubilee churches of Rome, taken from Seutter's "Atlas Novus".

The map outlines the itinerary of the Christian pilgrimage to the Seven Churches: the four major basilicas, St. John Lateran, St. Peter, St. Mary Major and St. Paul, to which St. Philip Neri added three more basilicas as pilgrimage destinations - St. Lawrence Outside the Walls, St. Croce in Jerusalem and St. Sebastian.

Oriented with the east at the top, like most city maps produced in the 16th century, it lacks a correct perspective view, both in terms of proportions and distances. Moreover, the urban space is occupied, in a completely unreal way, almost exclusively by the churches. The seven main churches are represented considerably larger and show all the facades facing the observer.

Very faithful derivation of the Jubilee map by Giacomo Lauro updated and reprinted by De Rossi in 1660 in which the captions in German have been placed side by side with those in Italian. The colonnade of St. Peter's, at the time of the prototype still under construction, appears more correctly depicted without the third arm closing the square. The coloring is very lively and represents the main characteristic of this work, as of many other works by Nordic publishers, who always copied their images from those of other authors, as the commercial purpose being their only interest (cf. Marigliani p. 618).

Matthäus Seutter (1678 - 1757) was one of the most important and prolific German map publishers of the 18th century. Seutter was born the son of a goldsmith but apprenticed as a brewer. Apparently uninspired by the beer business, Seutter abandoned his apprenticeship and moved to Nuremberg where he apprenticed as an engraver under the tutelage of the prominent J. B. Homann. Sometime in the early 1700s Seutter left Homann to return to Augsburg, where he worked for the prominent art publisher jeremiad Wolff (1663 - 1724), for whom he engraved maps and other prints. Most of Seutter's maps are heavily based upon, if not copies of, earlier work done by the Homann and De L'Isle firms. Nonetheless, by 1731/32 Seutter was one of the most prolific publishers of his time and was honored by the German Emperor Karl VI who gave him the title of Imperial Geographer, after which most subsequent maps included the Avec Privilege designation.

Etching, fine contemporary hand-colored, in excellent condition.

Literature

Arrigoni Bertarelli (1930): n. 761; Marigliani (2007): p. 618, n. 579.