ars libri ltd.
rare and scholarly books
on the fine arts
ars libri ltd.
rare and scholarly books
on the fine arts
Early Art Literature Exhibited at the International Fine Art Fair
1
ALBERTOLLI, GIOCONDO
Corso elementare di ornamenti architettonici. Ideato e disegnato ad uso de principianti. Engraved title, letterpress leaf of text, and 28 engraved plates (1 folding), by Giacomo Mercoli and Ambrogio Bariolo after Albertolli. Folio. Contemporary marbled boards, 1/4 calf gilt. Giocondo Albertolli (1742-1839), the leading member of the distinguished Swiss-Italian dynasty of artists, architects and teachers, was noted for his refined architectural decorations in stucco, at the Villa Poggio Imperiale outside Florence, at the Palazzo Pitti and the Uffizi, and at the Palazzo Reale in Milano, where he had been brought by Giuseppe Piermarini. His style was based in large part on fifteenth- and sixteenth-century Tuscan stuccowork, and on classical precedents in Pompei and Herculaneum, as well as in Rome and Naples. He held the post of Professor of Design at the Accademia di Belle Arti di Brera until his retirement in 1812. Discussing the present work, Giuliana Ricci writes (in the Dictionary of Art) “His publication s, widely circulated in Italy and Europe, also had a didactic purpose. Containing engravings of his completed works and designs, they laid the foundations for a style based on a mixture of ancient Greek and Roman details with others derived from 16th-century Lombard and Florentine art. In his last volume, published in 1805, the range of motifs is the outcome of endless combinations, governed by the dictates of the architectural form. The book’s teaching method is based on the student copying the designs until perfect before coming to terms with greater difficulties.” A few faint touches in pencil (as well as a traced sheet inserted), from an early student; slight loss at blank corner of text leaf; boards somewhat worn at extremities. .
Milano (L’Autore), 1805. $3,000.00
Cicognara 288; Brunet I.136; Graesse I.54
2
AN ALBUM OF BAROQUE REPRODUCTIVE PRINTS
75 seventeenth- and eighteenth-century etchings and engravings, mounted on 71 leaves. Folio. Mid-nineteenth-century English marbled boards, 3/4 morocco gilt (rubbed). The album includes, among other contents, Agostino Carracci’s “Saint Francis Consoled by the Musical Angel” after Vanni (cf. Bohlin 204) and his “Ecce Homo” after Correggio (cf. Bohlin 143); Michel Dorigny’s “The Academy of Art,” and Cornelis Cort’s “Rest on the Flight to Egypt” after Barocci. There are several partial or nearly complete reproductive series, including Dietrich-Theodor Crüger after Sarto’s Life of the Baptist (17 plates on 15); Pietro Santi Bartoli after Lanfranco (16 plates, including title); and 22 various plates after Vouet by Dorigny, Tortebat, Daret and others. There are also single prints and series by G.B. Mercati, Cornelis Bloemaert, Fr. Aquila and Pietro Testa. Condition of the prints varies greatly, from worn impressions, trimmed and in worn state, to fine impressions with large margins and in fine state.
$5,500.00
3
[ALGAROTTI, FRANCESCO]
Saggio sopra la pittura. 184, (2)pp. Engraved title-page vignette. Contemporary speckled wraps. Uncut. First published Bologna, 1762, and duly translated into English (London, 1764), French (Paris, 1769) and German (Kassel, 1769); a number of editions such as this appeared in Italy before the end of the eighteenth century. Count Francesco Algarotti (Venice, 1712-1764) was internationally esteemed as a connoisseur, particularly in Germany, where he was an agent and advisor to Frederick the Great, Augustus III and Count Brühl. A nice copy.
Livorno (Marco Coltellini), 1763. $600.00
Cf., citing various editions: Borroni I.854; Borroni I.854; Schlosser p. 682; Cicognara 7
4
AMMANATI, BARTOLOMEO.
Autograph letter, signed, to Giovanni Caccini, Provveditore of Cosimo I de’ Medici in Pisa, Florence, 19 January 1571. 8 lines on the recto of a single sheet, with address panel, contemporary endorsement and pen trials on the verso. Oblong 8vo. 130 x 210 mm. (irregular). Ammanati writes to inform of the dispatch to Pisa of the bronze statue from the labyrinth in the garden of the Medici villa at Castello. Reporting that he has sent the ‘fiura’ of bronze to Pisa, as commanded by Signor Montalvo, he explains that he doesn’t know the ultimate destination of the figure; Caccini was to ask His Highness. Neither does Ammanati know who should pay the transport costs. It is not certain to which statue from the labyrinth at Castello Ammanati refers. It appears, however, that the only bronze completed for the labyrinth was Giambologna’s “Fiorenza,” a magnificent Venus symbolizing the city of Florence, which crowns the marble fountain by Tribolo at its center and is thought to be based on Tribolo’s design. If this is indeed the sculpture in question, the present letter may provide evidence to resolve longstanding uncertainty about its date, which has been given as either circa 1560, or 1570-1571, which the document would seem to support. We wonder whether Ammanati’s term “fiura” may possibly be an abbreviated form of “Fiorenza.” Some of Ammanati’s correspondence to Duke Cosimo I has been published in Gaye’s ‘Carteggio,’ but this letter is unpublished, as are others in the substantial group from which it derives, formerly in the Feltrinelli Collection. Slight ink erosion, small tear at upper margin; generally very good.
Firenze, 1571. $3,500.00
5
ARNALDI, ENEA.
Idea di un teatro nelle principali sue parti simile a’ teatri antichi, all’uso moderno accomodato. Con due discorsi, l’uno che versa intorno a’ teatri in generale, riguardo solo al coperto della scene esteriore, l’altro intorno al soffito di quella del Teatro Olimpico di Vicenza, opera dell’insigne Andrea Palladio. (4), xxxii, 82, (2), 58, (2)pp., 6 fine folding engraved plates. Wood-engraved culs-de-lampe, lettrines. 4to. Contemporary heavy wraps. Count Arnaldi’s proposal, based on Palladian prototypes but with noteworthy innovations of his own, was originally prompted by the destruction by fire of Bibiena’s Teatro Filarmonico in 1749. He adds a discussion of Palladio’s original plans for the Teatro Olimpico. A few tears to the plates, well mended; two charming early wash drawings (a soldier, a man’s head) on the last blank leaf; a few plates touched with wash; occasional light foxing; a fine copy.
Vicenza (Antonio Veronese), 1762 $3,000.00
Berlin 2790; cf. Cico 750 (misstating date); cf. Schlosser p. 568 (misstating date); Brunet 9790
6
BORGHINI, RAFFAELLO.
Il riposo. 3 vols. vii, 295, 260, 235pp. Fully engraved title-pages; culs-de-lampe. Sm. 4to. Contemporary mottled calf gilt. The third edition of the work, first published in 1584 and annotated by Bottari in the Florence edition of 1730. “The work is divided into four books, the first two are of a theoretical nature, while the third and fourth contain important information on the artistic and cultural world of Florence. In the ‘Riposo’ Borghini relied for information mainly on Vasari, and he may be considered Vasari’s successor. Although much of the treatise lacks originality, it is useful as a source where it deals with artists contemporaneous with the author, such as those who worked in the studiolo of Francesco I, or Francesco Zuccari or sculptors such as Giambologna, who was also probably a friend of Borghini” (Donatella Pegazzano, in The Dictionary of Art). A handsome set.
Siena (Dai Torchi Pazzini Carli), 1787. $1,500.00
Schlosser p. 373; cf. Arntzen/Rainwater H34
7
CALDERARI, OTTONE.
Disegni e scritti di architettura del Co. Ottone Calderari. Edited by A. Diedo, G. Marangoni, A. Rigato, and A, Vivorio. Elogio by Arnaldo Arnaldi I. Tornieri. 2 vols. (4), 42, (2)pp., 47 engraved plates; 30, (8)pp., 43 engraved plates. Lrg. folio. Publisher’s printed heavy blue wraps. Uncut. The Vicenzan architect and theorist Ottone Calderari (1730-1803), prolifically active in the Veneto, designed a number of grand palazzi in Vicenza, as well as villas and churches. Heavily influenced by Bertotti Scamozzi’s publication of Palladio in 1776-1783, he built a career based on the Palladian style (Quatremère de Quincy called him “a rejuvenated Palladio”), while assimilating contemporary ideas on functional planning. The two volumes of this work were published not long after his death, in 1808 and 1815, by Paroni in Vicenza; the sheets were then reissued in new wrappers in Venezia in 1817, by Alvisopoli. A third volume in quarto, containing Calderari’s writings on architecture, was planned b ut never issued (though a collection of his “Scritture inedite in materia di architettura” was collected by Antonio Magini in 1847). Uncut. Some waterstaining and spotting, predominantly in the second volume; a few marginal mends; wrappers somewhat worn, expertly rebacked.
Vicenza/ Venezia (Tipografia Paroni/ Tipografia Alvisopoli), 1808-1815 [1817]. $8,000.00
The Dictionary of Art: “Ottone Calderari” (unsigned).; Cicognara 457; Brunet I.1470; Graesse II.14
8
CAPRA, ALESSANDRO.
La nuova architettura civile, e militare. Divisa in due tomi, in questa nuova impressione diligentemente corretta, ed accresciuta. 2 vols. in 1. (28), 356, (12), 184pp. Most prof. illus. in woodcut (including 7 folding plates hors texte, 44 numbered plates mostly full-page, and two frontispiece portraits). Stout 4to. Contemporary plain heavy wraps. First collected edition of these two treatises, first published in Cremona in 1678 (as “La nuova architettura famigliare”) and 1683 (“La nuova architettura militare”). Martha Pollak, in the Millard catalogue, points out that these two Capra’s books on architecture are among the few theoretical treatises on architecture published in Italy in the seventeenth century. For the most part, his are quite practical in nature. “Capra, typically, does not take on aesthetic philosophy, since the beautiful has already been linked to taste... and thus relativized. Capra does not consider architecture as the art of building, but as a science with a strong e ngineering aspe ct. In his work, he provides the embryonic theoretical distinction between architecture and building. The singularity of Capra’s works lies in the localized quality of his references and his focus on the technical aspects of architecture; all his precepts are technological.” The first work, “La nuova architettura famigliare” is divided into five books, nominally devoted to the orders (including Tuscan and Composite) but actually concerned with estate management, construction costs and materials, the principles of surveying, geometry and measurement, and, most interestingly, with machinery of all kinds, featuring powerful, full-page woodcut diagrams and illustrations of mills, kneading devices, and ingenious designs for air-conditioning systems, portable perpetual fountains, and an odometer. The second work, “La nuova architettura militare,” is divided into three books, of which Pollak considers the second, in which Capra compares Italian and Dutch fortifications, an original contribution to t he subject, particularly his scheme for an octagonal fortress. One leaf with small clean marginal tear; a fine, bright, unsophisticated copy, with the stamp of the architectural historian Maria Luisa Gatti Perer on the verso of the title-page.
Cremona (Pietro Ricchini), 1717. $4,500.00
Cicognara 462; Cf. (citing first editions of 1678 and 1683): Millard Italian 27-28; Berlin 2752, 3534; Fowler 79-80; Schlosser p. 625; Besterman p. 20; Riccardi I.234-235; Brunet VI.583
9
CARASI, CARLO.
Le pubbliche pitture di Piacenza. 158, (6)pp. Handsome engraved title-page vignette. Sm. 4to. Early nineteenth-century boards.
Piacenza (Giuseppe Tedeschi), 1780. $750.00
Schlosser p. 577; Cicognara 4307; Fossati Bellani 2857
10
CELLINI, BENVENUTO.
Vita di Benvenuto Cellini orefice e scultore fiorentino, da lui medesimo scritta, nella quale molte curiose particolarità si toccano appartenenti alle arti ed all’istoria del suo tempo, tratta da un’ottimo manoscrito, e dedicata all’eccelenza di Mylord Riccardo Boyle, Conte di Burlington.... xvi, 318pp. Woodcut title page vignette and lettrines; title set in red and black. 4to. Contemporary speckled boards, 1/4 green leather gilt. The famous counterfeit issued by Bartolini in Florence in 1792, of the true first edition, which had been published in Naples by Pietro Martello in 1728. The present issue is distinguishable from the proper first edition in the design of the woodcut mask on the title-page, the number of lines on the first page of the dedication, and the pagination of the index; the paper, too, is different. Cellini’s autobiography is both a major literary text of the Renaissance and one of the crucial art-historical sources of its time; its survival, unpublished, until the ea rly eighteenth cent ury, is in itself remarkable. An attractive copy.
Colonia [vere Firenze] (Pietro Martello [vere Bartolini]), n.d. [1792]. $1,500.00
Cicognara 2232; Brunet I.1725; Graesse II.99; Cf.: Schlosser p. 375f., Gamba 337
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