POZZO, Andrea.
Perspectiva pictorum et architectorum ... | Prospettiva de pittori et architetti ...
Rome, Antonio de Rossi (part 1) and Johannis Jacobi Komarek Bohemi (part 2), 1702 (part 1) and 1700 (part 2). 2 parts in 1 volume. Folio. Part 1 with a large woodcut vignette on both title-pages (one in Latin and one in Italian), an engraved architectural frontispiece dated 1693 (behind the title-pages of part 1), a full-page engraved plate with drawing instruments before the preface, and 102 numbered engraved plates with perspectival and architectural plans and illustrations, including a large folding view of Pozzo's "trompe-l'oeil" fresco on the ceiling of the St. Ignazio church in Rome. Part 2 with a large woodcut vignette on both title-pages (one in Latin and one in Italian), an engraved architectural frontispiece by Teodoro Ver Cruys (behind the title-pages of part 2), an introductory allegorical plate, and 118 numbered engraved plates with perspectival and architectural plans and illustrations, and a full-page engraved plate on fresco painting to the added treatise at the end. Contemporary gold-tooled sprinkled (mottled?) calf, sewn on 6 supports with corresponding raised bands on the spine, with a red morocco title-label lettered in gold in the second compartment, the other compartments with detailed gold-tooled decorations. The boards show a double fillet frame in an ornamental frame with ornamental cornerpieces on the outer corners, all within a double fillet frame, gold-tooled board edges and turn-ins, red sprinkled edges, marbled endpapers.
€ 14,500
Complete edition, the two parts together, of Andrea Pozzo's remarkable richly illustrated architectural work. It is a huge collection of engraved perspectival and architectural plans and designs by the famous Italian artist and architect Andrea Pozzo (1642-1709). The large folding plate with Pozzo's famous design for the anamorphosis painted on the ceiling of the St. Ignatius Church at Rome was first published in the present 1702-edition. The text of the present edition is bilingual throughout, with parallel text in Latin and Italian on the verso of the plates, relating to the facing plates. Also two titles are present for both parts, one in Latin and one in Italian. At the end a short treatise on fresco painting is added, with explanatory text on four additional leaves in Latin and four leaves in Italian. Pozzo was a clergyman, painter, architect and art theoretician. He executed quite a number of anamorphoses or "trompe-l'oeil" paintings in Italian churches. The present work represents a monument of Baroque art and architecture, and helped spread the ideas of the Roman Baroque in Northern Europe. It also is a classic in perspectival literature, offering a complete manual to both painters and architects on the use and delineation of all kinds of perspective, including anamorphoses.
With the blind-stamp of the Theological Institute of Connecticut in some leaves. The binding shows clear signs of wear, with older restorations along the hinges which have weakened again over time. The first quire is loose, internally with some light occasional foxing, but mostly fine and clean. Overall in good condition. Fowler 251; Berl. Kat. 4725; Cicognara 854; Vagnetti EIIIb73; Wiebenson III.B.25; Cf. Kemp, The Science of Art, pp. 137-9, et passim.
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