Item #204 Vera antique capitolii descriptio. Antonio / SALAMANCA, Antonio LAFRERI.
A 3-Sheet 16th-Century Ideal View of the Capitoline in Rome
Topographical Antiquarianism and the Revival of Ancient Theater
From Lafreri’s Speculum Romanae Magnificentiae
[ROME].
[Rome], Hendrik van Schoel, c. 1550 (the plate) and c. 1610 (the print).

Vera antique capitolii descriptio.

3 folio sheets [88.9 x 41.7 cm for the total composition], 3 ff. numbered at bottom margin. Bold strikes, unobtrusive folds, narrow margins, left edge of left sheet trimmed to platemark, unobtrusive mend to central sheet, all three sheets with watermark of an anchor enclosed in a circle and surmounted by a star.

Rare 3-sheet engraved view depicting the ancient Campidoglio in Rome, an understudied and somewhat mysterious piece first published by Antonio Salamanca (1479-1562) in the middle of the 16th-century and thereafter at times included as part of the Speculum Romanae Magnificentiae, the famed composite atlas of graphic material related to antique and modern Rome most often associated with the name of Salamanca’s business partner Antonio Lafreri (Antoine Laféry) (c. 1512-77).

The view – titled A True Depiction of the Ancient Capitoline – represents an antiquarian imagining of the Campidoglio, a location very much on the minds of Roman scholars during the rise of descriptive topographical archeology in the 1520s and 1530s and especially following Michelangelo’s 1538 design for the reinstallation of the famed ancient bronze equestrian statue of Marcus Aurelius at the center of the Capitoline plaza. The composition also recalls still earlier ‘city-view’ compositions, namely Pietro Perugino’s Delivery of the Keys (1481-82) in the Sistine Chapel, the three ‘ideal-city’ panel paintings sometimes referred to as the “Urbino Perspectives” (c. 1480s; Baltimore Walter’s Art Museum, Berlin Gemäldegalerie, and Florence Uffizi), and even Giovanni Marcanova’s Roman sketches of the 1470s.

The present Vera antique capitolii descriptio, however, unlike the “Urbino Perspectives,” is richly populated with numerous figures (Mercury, Cupid, and others), here acting out a narrative of an uncertain nature which likely suggests that the engraving had its origins not only in burgeoning topographical antiquarianism but also in a renewed interest in ancient theater. Both Colvin and Hülsen (pp. 60 and 495) have suggested that the work may derive from the ephemeral theatrical designs of the architect-painter Baldassare Peruzzi (1481-1536), who was noted by Vasari in his Vite (1550) as having been famed for one staging in particular: “But that which amazed everyone was the prospect or scenery for a comedy, so beautiful that nothing better could be imagined: this because the variety and fine style of the houses, the various balconies of the doorways and windows and other architectural objects seen there were so well conceived and of such extraordinary invention that it would be impossible to describe the thousandth part” (quoted in Pallen, p. 61). Whether theatrical in origin or not, the iconography of the print certainly warrants further investigation.

Salamanca’s cancelled imprint remains partially visible on the left sheet of the present example of Vera antique capitolii descriptio, an engraving which is known to have been included in the composite volumes of Salamanca/Lafreri even before Lafreri gave such atlases the name of Speculum Romanae Magnificentiae in the early 1570s. During their Roman publishing careers, these two foreign publishers, who worked together between 1553 and 1563, began the production of prints recording art works, architecture and city views related to antique and modern Rome. The prints could be bought individually by tourists and collectors but were also purchased in larger groups which were often bound together in an album. In 1573, Lafreri commissioned a title page for this purpose, which is where the title Speculum Romanae Magnificentiae first appears. Lafreri envisioned an ideal arrangement of the prints in seven different categories, but during his lifetime, he never appears to have offered one standard, bound set of prints. Instead, clients composed their own selection from the corpus to be bound, or they collected individual prints over time. When Lafreri died, most of the existing copperplates went to the Duchetti family (Claudio and Stefano). The Duchetti appear to have standardized production, offering a rather uniform version of the Speculum to their clients. The Duchetti then ceded the copperplates to Giovanni Orlandi (d. 1640), who in turn transferred them to Hendrik van Schoel (d. 1662) (see Parshall and Rubach, passim, for this history).

The present example of the Vera antique capitolii descriptio was printed by Hendrik van Schoel (“Henricus van Schoel”), and the cancelled imprints of Salamanca, Claudio Duchetti (“Apud eredes Claudii Duchetti 1592”), and Orlandi (“Ioannes Orlandi formis Rome .1602.”) remain partially visible.

* P. Parshall, “Antonio Lafreri’s Speculum Romanae Magnificentiae,” Print Quarterly, XXII, 2006, pp. 3-28; B. Rubach, Ant. Lafreri Formis Romae: Der Verleger Antonio Lafreri und seine Druckgraphikproduktion; T. A. Pallen, Vasari on Theater; S. A. Strong, “Six Drawings from the Column of Trajan with the Date 1467: and a Note on the Date of Giacomo Ripanda,” Papers of the British School at Rome, vol. 6 (1913), pp. 174-83; C. Hülsen, “Riconstruzioni di Roma nel Quattrocento,” Revista di Roma, vol. 11, no. 15 (1907), pp. 493-5.

 

 

 

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