MARLIANI, Bartolomeo

by Bartolomeo Marliani

£10,500 · Offered by Sokol Books

A fine copy of the first illustrated edition of this most important early guide to Rome rare (Brunet). Bartolomeo Marliani (1488-1566) was a humanist, archaeologist and antiquary. First published in 1534 as Antiquae Romae topographia , this is his most famous work. This edition was dedicated to Francis I, and remained the standard reference for the topography of ancient Rome to the C18. Rabelais had planned to write a similar description of ancient Rome, a project eventually aborted; he contributed instead to Marliani s, offering his knowledge, and checking classical quotations and inscriptions (McGowan, 36). In peripatetic fashion, the work leads the reader around the remains of the ancient city, illustrating side by side its ruins and lost buildings. It discusses, in brief sections, temples, private and state buildings, arches, sepulchres, basilicae, baths, bridges, roads and aqueducts, but also statues and columns, often reproducing epigraphic inscriptions, and with the help of 23 woodcuts, here in strong, clean impression. The handsomely illustrated statues of the Lupa Capitolina and the Laocöon are remarkable, this depiction being one of the earliest known (Fowler). Marliani s identification of the original location of the Foro Romano was harshly criticised by the architect Pirro Ligorio, whose (incorrect) theory eventually prevailed. Topographia epitomized a growing confluence of interest among scholars and architects who were pursuing a common goal, the graphic preser

• Binding: Hardcover

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