Palazzi di Roma de più celebri architetti disegnati da Pietro Ferrerio pittore et architetto. Libro primo [-secondo]

Two parts bound in a single oblong folio volume (mm. 370×475). This volume comprises a total of 106 engraved plates accompanied by captions in Italian. Of these, 101 plates (including one folding plate composed of two separate sheets), along with the two engraved title pages, originate from the series I Palazzi di Roma. Five plates, conventionally considered part of the series (the map of the Collegio Romano, the map of Villa Borghese, the palace of Prince Chigi, Palazzo Bolognetti, and one of the two Corsini palaces), are absent and have been replaced by five unrelated folding plates, yet still from the presses of Giovanni Giacomo de Rossi (Colonna Traiana, Colonna Antonina, Obelisco Vaticano, Obelisco Lateranense, and Obelisco di Santa Maria Maggiore). The first part is dedicated to Cardinal Antonio Barberini, while the second part is dedicated to Cardinal Camillo Massimo. The title of the second part reads: Nuovi disegni dell'architettura e piante dei palazzi di Roma dei più celebri architetti, disegnate e intagliate da Gio. Battista Falda. The binding is modern, in hazelnut morocco with gilt decorations on the boards and spine, with ancient speckled edges, preserved in a marbled cardboard slipcase. There are some minor stains and occasional foxing, with the right margin of the last leaf trimmed by approximately 10 mm, yet it remains a beautiful copy, very fresh, with the plates excellently impressed.

Despite the recent binding, the replacement folding plates have been part of this volume from the outset, as evidenced by the ancient edges and the old handwritten numbering of the plates. The plates of I Palazzi di Roma are in the first state before numbering. The first state is also recognizable by the captions on the plates that still attribute the ownership of the palace located in Piazza S. Marco in the Rione della Pigna to the d'Aste family, a palace that would later be acquired by the Marquis Rinuccini; or on the plate of Palazzo Caffarelli, subsequently acquired by G.A. Coltrolini; or again on the plate of Palazzo Mattei, acquired in 1682 by G.F. Negroni. Two of the plates not included in the volume, the map of the Collegio Romano and the map of Villa Borghese (engraved by Antonio Barbey after a drawing by Carlo Quadri), were added to the series by Domenico de Rossi, heir of Giovanni Giacomo de Rossi, only after 1691.

“This is the first publication to provide systematic, measured, and uniformly scaled illustrations of Roman palaces built in the fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth centuries. By focusing exclusively on the palace, this book becomes a compendium of exempla, not only illustrating the great houses of a very special city, but also establishing the typology of the residential palace. Thus the book is of great documentary value, even though the illustrations do not aspire to high aesthetic achievement […] This trendsetting book on Roman palaces is divided into two parts. Ferrerio was the author of most of the illustrations in the first part, except for one sheet engraved by Giovanni Battista Falda, who was also responsible for forty of the sixty sheets of the second part. While Falda's work and successful career as an engraver associated with the Roman publisher Giovanni Giacomo de Rossi have been amply documented, much less is known about Ferrerio, who seems to have practiced as an architect and engraver, and whose principal claim to recognition is this album of palace illustrations. He was a member of the Accademia di San Luca, where he was a registered member in 1634 […] The illustrations in this collection demonstrate that Ferrerio was closely focused upon his work. He uses an unadorned style of representation, showing the chosen palaces in line drawings in plan, section, and elevation. Cross-hatching in the elevations is reserved for window and door openings, while in the sections cross-hatching is used to represent depth of space. An engraved line tightly frames the engraved illustrations, and the regularity and consistency of the representational style is as remarkable as the uniformity with which it presents the palace facades, which are especially striking in the austerity of their disciplined composition. The symmetry and regularity of the facades is not matched by the plans, however; these show mostly the piani nobili, which illustrate less ideal conditions. The irregularities that emerge in the plans show that in many cases the palace had originated as a collection of multiple buildings, rather than newly planned and consistently realized construction. Ferrerio's plans are not always accurate, although the individual cases are difficult to prove with certainty given the constant work and alterations that these buildings were subject to over time. Each of the two parts is dedicated to a high-ranking prelate: part 1 to Cardinal Antonio Barberini and part 2 to Cardinal Gamillo Massimi. The dedication to Cardinal Antonio contains significant references to festival settings and theatrical events. The dedication claims that Roman buildings form a theater of glory that resounds with applause at the happy return of the cardinal. The cardinal had gone into voluntary exile in France after the death of his uncle and protector, Pope Urban VIII Barberini, in 1644 and returned to Rome in 1655, the year of publication of the first part of Palazzi di Roma […] Though all the chosen palaces are represented in elevation, full treatment in section and plan is provided only for a select few. In the first part, Palazzi Farnese, Madama, Medici, Cesi, Alessandrino, Spada, Colonna, and the Collegio Romano are shown in plan. Many of the sheets are endowed with a scale, but the buildings are shown isolated, without any urbanistic context. In the second part, while all palaces are shown in elevation, Palazzo Farnese in Caprarola, the extension of Palazzo Quirinale, Palazzi Nerli, Crescenzi, d'Este, Borghese, d'Aste, Falconieri, Silvestri, Giustiniani, Sacchetti, Lancellotti, Mellini, and Santo Spirito are also illustrated with a plan. In addition, Palazzi Farnese, Quirinale, and Santo Spirito are shown in section, thus illustrated in the three academically correct representational modes. This album is the result of the unprecedentedly ambitious publication policy of the print dealer Giovanni Giacomo de Rossi. The engravings in the second part of the book, by Falda, are part of the younger artist's apprenticeship work for de' Rossi […] A celebratory historical approach, Ferrerio's book effortlessly shows off the copiousness of Roman residential architecture. The work of Renaissance architects receives slightly more attention than that of contemporary designers: there are eleven architects in the first part and seven in the second part with a total of twenty-five buildings; there are eleven mannerist and proto-baroque masters with twenty buildings, and nine baroque masters with thirteen buildings. Nine masters are represented in both parts of the work: Michelangelo, Gian Lorenzo Bernini, Giacomo Barozzi da Vignola, Domenico Fontana, Giacomo della Porta, Francesco Borromini, Baldassare Peruzzi, Carlo Maderno, and Girolamo Rainaldi. The illustration of these palaces would seem to fulfill several interests of architects and patrons of architecture. With its accurate elevations and plans, the book documents the individual palace and suggests models for palace construction. By providing a compendium of Roman palaces, the book illustrates the wealth of the city's patrician families, implicitly lauding the investment practiced by their predecessors” (The Mark J. Millard Architectural Collection, Volume IV: Italian and Spanish Books, Fifteenth through Nineteenth Centuries, Washington DC-New York, 2000, pp. 136-140).

Little is known of the life of Pietro Ferrerio. Active in Rome during the first half of the seventeenth century, between 1634 and 1653, he was listed among the painters and architects of the Accademia di San Luca. Ferrerio is particularly remembered for the first book of the print collection “Palazzi di Roma dei più famosi architetti”. The work was commenced by Ferrerio around 1638. While Falda designed and engraved the second book, the engraver of the first book remains unknown: Ferrerio signed the plates only as a draftsman. He died in Rome on 10 March 1654 (cf. E.M. Stella, Ferrerio, Pietro, in: “Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani”, vol. 46, Rome, 1996, s.v.).

Giovanni Battista Falda was born near Vercelli in 1643. At the age of 14, he was sent to Rome and placed under the care of an uncle who recommended him to G.L. Bernini. However, it was his encounter with the printer G.G. De Rossi, who had a workshop in Piazza della Pace, that marked a turning point in Falda's artistic career. De Rossi directed his talent towards the art of engraving and completed Falda's cultural education by introducing him to many emerging artistic personalities, such as F. Borromini and Pietro da Cortona, from whom Falda learned the rules of perspective and architecture. In De Rossi's workshop, he could also appreciate the work of great engravers like J. Callot, S. Della Bella, and I. Silvestre. At about the age of twenty, after completing his apprenticeship, Falda was warmly received at the papal court, so much so that Alexander VII entrusted him with the task of designing the residence of Castel Gandolfo. In 1665, he published the first book of the Nuovo Teatro delle fabbriche, et edificii, in prospettiva di Roma moderna for the publisher De Rossi, followed by the second and third books between 1665 and 1669. The work aimed to disseminate the new image of Rome, with its palaces, churches, and gardens, according to a planned urban expansion project, in line with the cultured and refined Fabio Chigi's criteria: the pope, in fact, decided to open new roads and embellish the city with fountains and monuments, also as a demonstration of his family's financial and cultural power. Prior to this, engravings of Rome had mainly focused on the ancient city. Only after the completion of the urban renovations and architectural achievements of the popes in the seventeenth century did collections dedicated to the modern city begin to appear. With the Nuovo Teatro and his other collections dedicated to fountains and palaces, Falda became the disseminator of modern Rome. More generally, Falda's work reveals the intention to celebrate papal policy. The specifically informative and commercial aspect of the engraved views was skillfully exploited by the publisher De Rossi, who established an indissoluble and highly profitable partnership with Falda, to whom we owe much of the printed vedutistic production of the century in Rome, with a fortune comparable only to that of G.B. Piranesi's work in the following century. In those years, De Rossi at the Pace, in collaboration with Falda, became the principal publisher in Rome, eclipsing both his relatives De Rossi who worked in Piazza Navona and other actors in the sector. A testament to the effectiveness of the collaboration between Falda and De Rossi is the famous map of Rome from 1676, which enjoyed great success and can be considered a representation of the city at the height of its Baroque period. Even in the posthumous collection I giardini di Roma, which describes the most famous Roman gardens, Falda combines the accuracy of representation with a skilful use of perspective. Falda died of cancer at the age of only thirty-five in Rome in 1678. He worked tirelessly despite the brevity of his career. By the end of his life, he had engraved approximately three hundred works: many of these are preserved in Rome at the Calcografia Nazionale and relate to the complete series of the palaces of Rome, the Nuovo Teatro, the fountains of Rome, Tivoli, and Frascati, and the gardens. Falda achieved great success, and his works were imitated in Italy and Europe until the end of the eighteenth century (cf. A. Margiotta-Simonetta Tozzi, Falda, Giovanni Battista, in: “Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani”, vol. 44, Rome, 1994, s.v.).