Rome, Giovanni Giacomo de’ Rossi, 1663. Folio engraving [54.5 x 41.2 cm overall; 48.5 x 36.3 cm the platemark], (1) sheet. Some unobtrusive folding, minor occasional edge wear. Generally excellent.

Very rare separately issued print, among the earliest engravings by the printmaker Giovanni Battista Falda (1643-78) – he was 20 years old at the time -- celebrating the contemporary architectural achievements in Rome of Pope Alexander VII (reigned 1655-67), the pontiff renowned for his commitment to ambitious urban planning projects in the Eternal City. Published at the shop of Giovanni Giacomo de’ Rossi in 1663, the engraving depicts 15 locations/structures which today rank among the most famous vedute of Rome and at the time were newly built or newly renovated, including projects by Gian Lorenzo Bernini (1598-1680), Francesco Borromini (1599-1667), and Pietro da Cortona (1596-1669), all of whom were still working when this print came out.

At the center is the print’s largest panel, which depicts St Peter’s Basilica and in the foreground Bernini’s Colonnade, the masterpiece of Alexander VII’s Rome, here shown with the never-built ‘terzo braccio’ in the center (interestingly, Falda himself would later be consulted about how to systematize this connection between the piazza and the Borgo neighborhood outside the colonnade, a project which ultimately was never realized). The remaining 14 smaller panels of the engraving show several of the most important architectural projects or renovations of the Chigi papacy, including the Piazza del Popolo with its twin churches, the Piazza Colonna, Cortona’s church and piazza at Santa Maria della Pace, Borromini’s S. Ivo alla Sapienza, the piazza of Santa Maria in Trastevere, Piazza al Collegio Romano, Sant’Andrea al Quirinale, and the Piazza della Rotonda facing the portico of the Pantheon. Also of note – and a testament to the contemporaneity of this engraving – are some of Alexander VII’s lasting contributions to the urban fabric of Rome which, having not yet been built in 1663, are not depicted here, including the 1667 Piazza della Minerva with Bernini’s famed elephant supporting an obelisk on its back and Bernini’s 1663-67 redesign of the Scala Regia at St, Peter’s.

Falda would again and again return to the newly built architecture of Alexander VII’s, beginning with his suite of engravings Il nuovo teatro of 1665-69.

OCLC locates no U.S. examples of this 1663 engraving. A copy carrying the date 1662(?) is housed at the Folger Library.

* R. Krautheimer, The Rome of Alexander VII, 1655-1667; R. Piccinnini, Giovanni Battista Falda: Vedute di Rome nel ‘600.

Sold