SUPERB ARCHITECTURAL PLATES
BORBONI, Domenico.
Architectura Dominici Borbonii celeberrimi architecti, et pictoris Bononiensis.
[Bassano,] ‘ex typographio Remondiniano Veneto’, [c. 1670?].
Folio, ff. 21 (without final blank), comprising engraved architectural title-page and 20 engraved plates (numbered A1–A10, B1–B11 and continually 1–21); title leaf cropped to edge of plate and mounted, dusty with a few small stains, small wormtrack to lower margins of A1–A7, occasional small marks; very good in modern drab boards; ink inscription at foot of f. 3 ‘Adi 7 Lugli 1792 questo libro sono stampe di div[er]si autori, e di Ma. Gi.ni Battista Petri di l’orno'.
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Architectura Dominici Borbonii celeberrimi architecti, et pictoris Bononiensis.
Only known edition of this very rare collection of superb architectural plates by the Bolognese architect and painter Domenico Borboni, published by Giovanni Antonio Remondini, our copy used as a draughtsman’s pattern book.
The plates illustrate richly decorated door surrounds (6), gates (2), architectural facades with doors and windows combined (2), window surrounds (4), funeral or epitaph niches (3), and fireplaces (3). In addition to being signed by Borboni (‘DB in. et fe.’), each plate bears the name of the French publisher Daman (‘Daman excudit avec Privilege’), who had close commercial links with Remondini. A French edition of these plates is not known, and either was never published or is unrecorded.
Borboni worked mostly in Avignon and Lyons. He appears in Felibien’s Entretiens sur les vies ... des plus excellens peintres (Paris, 1688): ‘je ne me souviens que de quelques-uns qui ont eu d’autres sortes de talens, comme de Dominique & Mathieu [Matteo Borboni, his brother] Bourbon de Boulogne qui representoient des perspectives & de l’architecture, & qui ont beaucoup travaillé à Lyon & en Avignon’ (vol. II, p. 456). In Avignon Borboni built the imposing Hôtel de Crillon in 1648 (still standing), painted the set designs for a ballet at the theatre in 1649, and spent some years on a grand cycle of trompe-l’oeil church frescoes, finished in 1656.
The ownership inscription to the third plate suggests that this work was previously part of a sammelband, likely serving the draughtsman Giovanni Battista Petri di l’Orno as a pattern book.
No copies traced on Library Hub. OCLC records three copies in the US at Columbia University, National Gallery of Art Library, and University of Pennsylvania (incorrectly dated).
Berlin Katalog 3855.
