Delle magnificenze di Roma antica e moderna

10 parts bound in 5 volumes, oblong folio (282x398 mm). Early 19^th-century marbled half calf, gilt spine with double morocco lettering piece for the title and the volume numbering, blue sprinkled edges (slighlty worn and rubbed, small damages to joints and top and bottom of spines). Some occasional foxing and browning, but a very good, genuine copy.

Part 1 (Le porte e mura di Roma): [6: half title, title, dedication], LXXII, [2: index] pp., [1] engraved allegorical plate (signed by Sebastiano Conca) and 20 engraved numbered plates; Part 2 (Le Piazze principali di Roma con obelischi, colonne, ed altri ornamenti): LII, [2: index] pp. and 27 engraved plates numbered 21-40 plus [7] hors numération; Part 3 (Le basiliche e chiese antiche di Roma): XLII [i.e. L] pp. and 27 engraved plates numbered 41-60 plus [7] hors numération. Plate 58 is slighlty shorter and probably comes from another copy; Part 4 (I palazzi e le vie più celebri di essa): LII pp. and 21 engraved plates numbered 61-80 plus [1] hors numération; Part 5 (I ponti e gli edifizi sul Tevere): XLVIII pp. and [18] engraved plates, of which 14 are numbered between 81 and 100 (plates number 84, 89, 93, 95, 98 and 99 are not actual plates as they are printed in the text) and [4] are hors numération. Lacking 1 leaf (pp. IX/X) with the description of Ponte Nomentano; Part 6 (Le chiese parrocchiali): LIV pp. and 20 engraved plates numbered 101-120; Part 7 (I conventi e case dei chierici regolari): LXXV, [1 blank] pp. and 20 engraved plates numbered 121-140; Part 8 (I monasteri e conservatori di donne): XLVIII pp. and 20 engraved plates numbered 141-160; Part 9 (I collegj, spedali, e luoghi pii): LII pp. and 20 engraved plates numbered 161-180; Part 10 (Le ville e giardini più rimarchevoli): XLVIII pp., [1] leaf between p. [VI] and p. VII with the list of the “Insigni e chiarissimi Mecenati dell'Opera”, and 22 engraved plates numbered 181-200 plus [2] hors numération. The book is also illustrated with ten title-page vignettes and about 30 engravings in the text, including a plan of Rome. With overall 216 engraved plates, of which 194 are numbered (not considering the 6 plates in part 5 which are numbered but are not actual plates as they are printed in the text) and 22 (including the allegorical plate in part 1) are extra plates. The number of these extra plates hors numération seems to considerably vary from one copy to another. Pagination also differs among bibliographies and copies. The present is one of the copies with more extra plates we were able to trace.

First edition of Vasi's masterpiece, extra-illustrated with 22 unnumbered plates, of superb views of ancient and modern Rome. It was reprinted in 1786 and again in 1803.

All the view are engraved by Vasi, with explanatory text that provides historical and documentary information for each of them, written by Vasi himself, Giuseppe Bianchini and Orazio Orlandi. Published between 1747 and 1761, the ten books are arranged by themes devoted to a particular architectural aspect of Rome: 1. Gates and walls; 2. Squares, obelisks, columns &c.; 3. Basilicas and ancient churches; 4. Palaces and streets; 5. Bridges and buildings on the Tiber; 6. Parish churches; 7. Convents and clergy houses; 8. Monasteries for women; 9. Colleges, hospitals and pious foundations; 10. Villas and gardens. Each book has a dedication note by Vasi, a preface and an index. Vasi's Roman vedute became quite popular outside Italy in the second half of the eighteenth century. In the inscription, Vasi describes himself as ‘painter, engraver, architect and Arcadian shepherd', i.e. member of the Accademia degli Arcadi.

“Only ten years older than his main competitor, Giovanni Battista Piranesi, Giuseppe Vasi came to Rome from Palermo in 1736. Of well-to-do family and classically educated, for his entire career Vasi enjoyed the high patronage of the Neapolitan aristocracy, the Spanish monarchs, and a succession of popes. His official commissions included the engraving of the Chinea festivities, a yearly pageant sponsored by the ambassador of Naples in Rome marked by distinguished fireworks and temporary structures. He made numerous illustrations for the publications of the Calcografía Camerale, the papal publishing house established in 1738 by Pope Clement XII. In Rome, Vasi was protected by the Neapolitan ambassador Cardinal Troiano Aquaviva d'Aragona, through whom Vasi met the artists Sebastiano Conca, Luigi Vanvitelli, and Ferdinando Fuga. As chamberlain of Charles III, king of the Two Sicilies, Vasi set up his workshop in the Palazzo Farnese in Rome. This distinguished address (despite the notoriously crowded conditions in the palace, referred to as the Ghetto Farnese, filled with the lower-class retainers of the king), and the fact that he monopolized the Roman visual records of the monarch Charles III, put Vasi in an advantageous position for a graphic artist offering engraved views of Rome to aristocratic visitors on their Grand Tour of the city. In 1747 Vasi was nominated royal engraver, and by 1763 he was knighted by his monarch. Born in Corleone near Monreale, Vasi was the son of a prosperous vase maker (hence the name), brickmaker, and kiln owner. He was educated at the Collegio Carolino, and by the Jesuits in Latin and Greek, then apprenticed as a painter. Teaching at the Collegio included architectural design and engraving in copper, which was considered its indispensable complement […] After the success of [his] early engravings, Vasi went to Rome; later he wrote that he had been drawn to the city by its ancient monuments. Unlike Piranesi, whose brother wrote to him about the exciting opportunities in papal Rome, Vasi's enthusiasm derived from his studies of Roman poetry and history. In Rome he could not have become anyone's student -he was already twenty-six years old- although he enjoyed the friendship of older artists such as Conca, and he set up on his own. He refers to several of these artists (Fuga, Paolo Posi, and Vanvitelli) in the long list of protectors whom he thanks in the last volume of the Magnificenze in 1761. Given the distinguished position he enjoyed in his own lifetime, Vasi has received relatively little critical attention, although his uneasy relationship with Piranesi, the greatest graphic artist of the eighteenth century, has been closely explored and their works compared to Vasi's disadvantage. Piranesi worked for about six months in Vasi's shop immediately upon his arrival in Rome in 1740. According to Henry Millón (1978), the Vedute del Tevere were made with Piranesi's contribution, though Vasi signed all the views; Piranesi may have taken some of the copperplates when they parted after an open argument during which, reportedly, Piranesi threatened to kill Vasi. Vasi found the younger man's etching style too painterly, while Piranesi reproached his teacher for withholding the secrets of his engraving technique. Piranesi then scooped the older artist with his Varie vedute of 1745, which anticipated the first set of Vasi's Magnificenze by two years. The hallmark of Vasi's style is the even handling of the burin and needle, without modulation of line. His ‘single cut' technique is efficient and picturesque but lacks the vigorous tone of Piranesi's work. The acid bath used by Vasi for his etchings -a mixture of Parma vinegar, copper sulphate, ammonia salts, and alum- penetrated less deeply than the traditional (and Piranesi's) nitric acid solution, and produced evenly bitten lines in the copperplate. Thus Vasi's own recipe for the acid was not as violent and ‘adventurous' as the usual nitric acid. This solution respected the design, engraving neatly and scrupulously, without altering the details. Piranesi had chosen Vasi in order to learn this technique from him and then broke with him for the same reason. The result of this etching technique is a topographic image with an atmospheric placidity partly brought about by the undifferentiated middle and background space in Vasi's views, without Piranesi's painterly quality. Although Henri Focillon calls Vasi a poet of ancient and modern Rome, he nonetheless considers his technique poor and monotonous, while Petrucci (1946) finds the second levels in Vasi's engravings somewhat light and disembodied. Vasi has been seen as a follower of the work of Stefano della Bella, Giovanni Battista Falda, and Alessandro Specchi -the seventeenth-century engravers of processions and Roman views- even though Vasi developed a much greater urbanistic horizon and learned from the contemporary Venetian vedutisti Giuseppe Zocchi and Giovanni Paolo Panini. Vasi's production in Rome may be divided into three parts: the illustrations of Charles III's enterprises in Rome, which Vasi performed throughout his career in his capacity as royal etcher; the representation of Rome in the Magnificenze (published 1747-1761), in the great panorama (1765), and in the guidebooks (1763); and other commissions, many for the papal court […] The ten-volume Magnificenze Ai Roma antica e moderna is Vasi's most important and largest work, published between 1747 and 1761. The preparations may have started as early as 1740, and Vasi claims in his introduction that he formed the plan for this immense undertaking immediately upon his arrival in Rome. Although the Magnificenze were announced publicly as ready in 1746, they were published piecemeal over a fourteen-year period. The reason for this delay, and the seemingly small production of original prints in the 1740s, may have been Vasi's official service for Charles III. As royal engraver, Vasi did not merely make the plates but also printed them in his workshop […] Despite the title, Magnificenze di Roma antica e moderna, the emphasis in this series is on views of modern Rome and, in particular, on the buildings of Catholic institutions. Addressing the visitors to the city, Vasi illustrated Rome's buildings, streets, and squares as a placid, elaborate, and richly varied urban environment. The approximately 245 plates of the Magnificenze, a set of calm and detailed illustrations of largely contemporary Rome, form the largest segment of Vasi's oeuvre. The plates are grouped in ten parts, organized by building type and published separately. The first book (1747) illustrates the city's ancient Roman fortifications, its gates and walls. It is dedicated to Charles III, whose army is shown in its bivouac outside the eastern Porta Pia, with a lengthy descriptive and analytic text by Giuseppe Bianchini, an Oratorian in Rome. Bianchini was supposed to provide the text for the subsequent volumes, and his dilatoriness may have been one of the reasons for the delayed publication of the second volume. The second volume, dedicated to Maria Amelia, queen of the Two Sicilies, is focused on Rome's squares (1752), and the short, accompanying text was prepared by Giovanni Orlandi. Subsequent volumes were accompanied by Vasi's own text. The third volume of the Magnificenze (1753), on basilicas, was dedicated to Pope Benedict XIV. The fourth volume (1754), on palaces and streets, was dedicated to Elisabetta Farnese, the king's mother and an important art patron. The fifth volume (1754) illustrates the shores and bridges of the Tiber and was dedicated to Philip, prince of the Two Sicilies. This is a problematic volume: it contains the oldest prints, it was published separately as Vedute del Tevere, and may contain uncredited plates by Piranesi. The sixth volume (1756), on parish churches, is dedicated to Cardinal Henry of York; the seventh (1756), dedicated to Cardinal Vittorio Amedeo delle Lanze, records convents (for men); the eighth (1758), dedicated to Cardinal Girolamo Colonna, illustrates monasteries (for women); the ninth (1759) is dedicated to Cardinal Neri Corsini and shows seminaries and hospitals; the tenth volume (1761), dedicated to Domenico Orsini d'Aragona, illustrates a thorough collection of Roman villas and their gardens. In a further conceit, Vasi presents the first five volumes and volume 10 as illustrating the ‘exterior' of Rome, and volumes 6 through 9 as illustrating its ‘interior'. Although both parts show buildings from the outside, the emphasis varies from one on public space to a focus on more private or cloistered places. An example of what this contrast might be is suggested by the basilicas (vol. 3), which are part of the ‘exterior' of Rome, whereas the parish churches are suggestive of the ‘interior' (vol. 6). Vasi's typology falters occasionally, especially with the introduction of the squares, which are surrounded by palaces, parish churches, and monasteries. Furthermore, in volumes 7-9, the building that gives the title to the individual plate does not necessarily dominate the illustration, and it often has a secondary role in the composition. Critics have seen this tendency in Vasi's compositions as turning the city into the background for papal events and royal processions. But Vasi's intention is to illustrate the institutions of the church and to show their origin, antiquity, function, and use, rather than offer historical reconstruction or artistic evaluation of Rome's architecture. While the plates were pulled in Vasi's own workshop, the text that accompanied them was produced by three different printers. Francesco Chracas printed the text for volume 1, the Barbiellini heirs published volumes 2, 3, and 5, and Niccolo and Marco Pagliarini printed volumes 4 and 6 through 10. On a separate problematic issue, Scalabroni (1981) and Petrucci (1946) concur that the numerical sequence of the plates does not correspond to their stylistic progress or date of production. Though not confirming Millon's attribution to Piranesi, Scalabroni concurs with Petrucci that fifteen of the plates of volume 5 (1754), on views and bridges of the Tiber, are the oldest in the collection. Scalabroni found a copy of Vedute sul Tevere (made up of fifteen plates, with numbers erased), used also in volume 5. The plates in volume 5 can thus be used to propose a history of execution of Magnificenze different from the publication sequence. Plates from volumes 2 and 5 are earlier than those of volume 1. The last volume, on villas and gardens, was also published separately as Raccolte di Ville c. 1763, when Vasi had already been knighted. When the last of the volumes of the Magnificenze was published in 1761, Vasi realized that by serving the Neapolitan and papal courts he had lost to Piranesi the competition for the project to illustrate Rome. In 1763 Vasi published a cross-indexed summary of his Magnificenze titled Itinerario istruttivo, which became one of the most popular pocketbook guides to the city […] This guidebook can be seen as a successful effort to regain some of the popularity in topographical publication that Vasi had lost to Piranesi. The serial publication of the views of Rome was crowned by an immense panoramic view of the entire city published by Vasi in 1765, but announced in the preface of the first volume of the Magnificenze […]” (The Mark J. Millard Architectural Collection, Volume IV: Italian and Spanish Books, Fifteenth through Nineteenth Centuries, Washington DC-New York, 2000, pp. 447-452, no. 141).

Kissner, 449 (201 plates); Feltrinelli sale (203 plates); Cicognara, 3897 (200 plates); Borroni, 8116 (212 plates); Rossetti, G-1193; Schudt, 306; Berlin Katalog, 1880; A. Petrucci, Le magnificenze di Roma di Giuseppe Vasi, Rome, c. 1946; H. Millón, Vasi-Piranesi-Juvarra, in: “Piranèse et les Français”, G. Brunei, ed. Rome, 1978, pp. 345-362; L. Scalabroni, Giuseppe Vasi (1710-1782), Rome, 1981.

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