La Nobilissima Citta di Parma

At the top, along the upper margin, is engraved the title: LA NOBILISSIMA CITTA DI PARMA. In the lower center, outside the city walls, we find the editorial imprint: Marcelli Clodij for. In the lower right corner is the signature of the engraver of the plate: Ambrosius Bram. for. Along the lower margin is a numerical legend of 82 references to notable places and monuments, distributed over nine columns. In the table further indications of toponymy are given. Orientation in the four sides in the center with the name of the cardinal points: SEPTENTRIO, MERIDIES, OCCIDENS, ORIENS, the north is on the right (although it should be indicated at the bottom).

Perspective plan of the city, printed in Rome by Marcello Clodio and engraved by Ambrogio Brambilla. It is based on the work of Paolo Ponzoni (1572) and was probably made, as already hypothesized by Da Mareto, on commission of Cardinal Alessandro Farnese. The map is characterized by a greater accuracy in the drawing, probably due to the etching technique instead of the xylography of his model. Brambilla makes a glaring error in the orientation of the plan: he copies the Ponzoni model, which is oriented with north at the bottom, but places the cardinal points in a completely arbitrary manner.

Marcello Clodio is a printer, publisher and merchant active in Rome (described as "mercante de disegni" in a document dated January 10, 1587). His activity as a merchant is documented by the price registers of prints and books sent from Rome to Ludovico Quatrocha, in Milan, on January 10, 1587. Inside were works by several Roman publishers including Cavalieri and Caranzano, and on a variety of subjects. He acquired and re-sold old plates, including Roman antiquities previously published by Salamanca and others, acquired in the division of Pietro de Nobili's printing house. Clodio also personally commissioned some works, including Brambilla's Map of Parma and a portrait of Sixtus V, in 1589.

Ambrogio Brambilla, born in Milan, lived in the city for some years and, as a member of the Milanese Academy of Val di Bregn, composed poems in dialect that he signed with the pseudonym Or Compà Borgnin. Brambilla, however, is best known for his activity as a burin and etching engraver, to which he dedicated himself in Rome in the last twenty years of the sixteenth century, where in 1579 he was enrolled in the Congregazione dei Virtuosi al Pantheon. His production was largely published by Claudio Duchetti and, also, by Nicola van Aelst.

Etching and engraving, printed on contemporary laid paper, with margins, in perfect condition.

Very rare work; in the Bifolco-Ronca census only 9 examples of the map are preserved in public collections.

Bibliografia

Bifolco-Ronca, Cartografia e topografia italiana del XVI secolo, tav. 1176; Da Mareto (1975): pp. 37, 40-41, n. 39; Tooley (1939): n. 444.