Urbis Romae Sciographia ex Antiquis Monumentis Accuratiss Delineata

Vertical projection archaeological map, engraved by Etienne Duperac for the publisher Lorenzo Vaccari. Ideal reconstruction of Ancient Rome carried out by Duperac after a serious examination of the Severian map and the archaeological work by Pirro Ligorio, the greatest scholar of ancient monuments in Rome at the time. Inside the city, each building is outlined with the names of the main ones; these include the Colosseum, the Pantheon, the Baths of Diocletian and the Circus Maximus. Outside the city are marked the country estates (for example, the Gardens of Domitian), the funerary monuments (such as the Mausoleums of Hadrian and Augustus, and the circuses of Nero and Hadrian).

The plate was carved by the Parisian engraver and publisher Étienne Dupérac, who called himself Stephanus during his period of work in Rome (1569-1582). In the dedication to Charles IX, the author himself explains how this work is the result of fifteen years of study of all the ruins and monuments of Ancient Rome and related literary texts. In particular, a detailed account is given of the discovery of the Severian map, the remains of which were discovered in the church of Saints Cosma and Damiano in 1562.

Hülsen reports as the only known original example the one preserved at the British Museum, which bears the name of the printer Francesco Villamena. Furthermore, he adds that the catalogue of the Vaccari print shop includes the "Roma antica d’otto fogli reali, intagliata per mano di Stefano Duperach Parisino”, unknown to him. Frutaz rightly objects that the Villamena's edition is only a reprint, datable to the early 17th century, when the publisher was active in Rome.

In our research, we finally found an original example of the map, hitherto unknown, which is absolutely to be identified with the "Ancient Rome of eight royal sheets" of the Vaccari catalogue, quoted by Hülsen. In fact the exemplar, preserved in the cartographic collection of the Newberry Library of Chicago, bears the imprint of Lorenzo Vaccari, publisher also of the collection I Vestigi dell'Antichità di Roma Raccolti et Ritratti in Perspettiva con ogni diligentia by Stefano Dv Perac Parisino (1575).

Between 1649 and 1660, Gian Giacomo de Rossi published a reprint, using the same plates(presumably acquired from the Villamena workshop), but adding scenes from Ancient Rome and a typographical legend with 159 references to monuments. The work is described in the last catalogue of de Rossi's printing house, edited by Lorenzo Filippo in 1735 (p. 16, n. 1) as "Roma Antica di Stefano du Perac Parigino intagliata a bulino da Francesco Villamena co’ trionfi de Romani antichi, intagliati a bulino da Jacopo Lauro in dodici fogli reali grandi”. So the additional plates of the triumphs are, according to the catalogue, engraved by Giacomo Lauro. This attribution is rejected by Ashby and then by Hollstein, who attributes the plate to Peter de Jode. The de Rossi printing house was sold by Lorenzo Filippo, constituting the main fund of the newborn (1738) Calcografia Camerale (later Regia, then Nazionale and now Istituto Centrale per la Grafica), where the original plates are still preserved, mistakenly under the name of Francesco Villamena.

Example of the third state of four (cfr. Bifolco-Ronca, p. 2359) with the imprint Cura et Tipis Io. Iacobi de Rubeis in Romae ad Templ. Stae. Mae. De Pace cum Privil. Sum. Pont. Excudebat Romae Io. Iacob. De Rubeis.

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). 

Etching with engraving, a very good example of the De Rossi edition, with decorations and the key-numbers on the lower part; minor repairs perfectly realized, otherwise in excellent condition. 

Literature

Bifolco-Ronca, Cartografia e topografia italiana del XVI secolo, pp. 2358-59, tav. 1214, III/IV; Destombes (1970): n. 96; Caldana (2013): n. I.12; Frutaz (1962): n. XXII e tavv. 37-50; Grelle Iusco (1996): pp. 172, 379; Hollstein (1952): IX, p. 202, nn. 403-414; Hülsen (1915): XI, pp. 60-62, nn. 56-59; Mostra Bergamo (2016): n. 72; Scaccia Scarafoni (1939): nn. 18-19; Tooley (1983): n. 491a.