GRANDIOSE GARDENS
FALDA, Giovanni Battista.
Li giardini di Roma con le loro piante, alzate e vedute in prospettiva, disegnate ed intagliate da Gio. Battista Falda. Nuovamente dati alle stampe ...
Rome, Gio. Giacomo de Rossi, [early eighteenth century?].
Oblong folio (385 x 500 mm approx.), comprising 21 numbered plates (title-page with fleur-de-lys watermark, dedication to Livio Odescalchi engraved by Arnold van Westerhout after Giovanni Battista Manelli, and 14 views by Falda and 5 by Simone Felice); a few marks to title and neat repair to inner margin, some worming to blank outer margins of pll. 2-17 very neatly repaired, some very light marginal damp-staining; overall very good in recent half calf with marbled sides , spine gilt in compartments with red morocco lettering-piece.
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Li giardini di Roma con le loro piante, alzate e vedute in prospettiva, disegnate ed intagliate da Gio. Battista Falda. Nuovamente dati alle stampe ...
A later impression of these magnificent plates of nine Roman gardens by the influential engraver Giovanni Battista Falda (1643–1678). The plates offer perspectives and bird’s-eye-views of the gardens of the Vatican and Quirinal, and of the villas Medici, Farnese, Ludovisi, Montalto Peretti, Borghese, Celimontana, and Pamphili. Populated with labouring gardeners, well-dressed visitors, barking dogs, and ornate carriages, Falda’s etchings ‘are distinguished by deeply bitten line and shadow in the manner of Jacques Callot and Israël Silvestre, and by accuracy in topographical and genre details’ (Grove Art Online). The magnificent dedication plate, depicting the Garden of the Hesperides, is by Arnold van Westerhout (1651–1725).
The plates were originally published in the 1670s, first appearing in this form around 1683. According to RIBA, earlier examples have a pascal lamb watermark, and later impressions a fleur-de-lys, as here.
Berlin Katalog 3492; Kissner 133; Olschki 16895; Rossetti 4831; Vinciana 4440.
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