Facciata dove veniva situata la Navicella di Giotto, che riguardava il prospetto dell'Anticha Basilica Vaticana…

Reference: S21973
Author Giovanni Battista FALDA
Year: 1665 ca.
Zone: Vaticano
Printed: Rome
Measures: 250 x 170 mm
€200.00

Reference: S21973
Author Giovanni Battista FALDA
Year: 1665 ca.
Zone: Vaticano
Printed: Rome
Measures: 250 x 170 mm
€200.00

Description

Etching, magnificent work, printed on contemporary laid paper with margins, in excellent condition.

With his large series of city views, Giovan Battista Falda contributed to the creation of an image of the city of Rome which was strictly connected to the magnificence and generosity of the Popes of the XVII century: many churches, palaces, gardens overlooking the remains of a glorious past. The engraver devoted his entire, though short, life to create, through precise and faithful perspective views, city plans and representations of the main events in the city: canonizations, the entries of new popes or foreign monarchs, a huge and unitary fresco which had to celebrate the modern Rome, the result of the farsightedness of Pope Alexander VII Chigi (1655 - 1667). The plates here presented come from the two main works Falda realized: Il Nuovo Teatro delle fabriche, et edificii, in prospettiva di Roma moderna & Le fontane di Roma nelle piazze, e luoghi, publici della citta', both published in Rome by the typography of De Rossi, for the first time in 1665. Examples in the first state, before the serial numbers were added, from the first edition of both works.

Bibliografia: Bartsch 1-35; TIB 005-037 (Fontane); TIB 087-176(Fabbriche).

Giovanni Battista FALDA (Valduggia, Novara, 1643; Rome, 1678)

Giovan Battista Falda, a native of Valduggia, was sent to Rome at the age of 14 and entrusted to the care of an uncle who pointed him out to Gian Lorenzo Bernini. But it was his meeting with printer Gian Giacomo De Rossi that marked a turning point in Falda's artistic career: in fact, his talent was directed by the publisher to the art of engraving. In De Rossi's workshop he could also appreciate the work of great engravers such as J. Callot, S. Della Bella and I. Silvestre; having completed his apprenticeship, he was benevolently received at the papal court, so much so that Alexander VII commissioned him to design the factories of the Castel Gandolfo residence. In 1665, Falda gave to the presses for the publisher De Rossi his masterpiece: the plates of the first book of the Nuovo Teatro delle fabbriche, et edificii, in prospettiva di Roma moderna sotto il felice pontificato di n. s. Alessandro VII, which was followed, between 1665 and '69, by the second and third. The work was intended to popularize the new image of Rome: the Pope, in fact, decided to open new streets, to embellish the city with fountains and monuments, also as a demonstration of the financial and cultural power of his family. With the Nuovo Teatro, as with the later collections devoted to fountains and palaces, Falda became the popularizer of these aspects; his engraved views, characterized by attention to both perspective rules and scenographic effects, skillfully exploit the vigor of line and the richness of the contrast between black and white, in keeping with the spatial criteria of Baroque art. The specifically popular and commercial aspect of the engraved views was skillfully exploited by the publisher De Rossi, who established an inseparable and effective partnership with Falda, to whom much of the printed production of the century in Rome was owed, with a fortune comparable only to that which would be paid to the work of Giovan Battista Piranesi. Falda's activity was tireless despite the brevity of the time span in which he worked (he died at the age of 35 on August 22, 1678 and was buried in S. Maria della Scala in Trastevere). By the end of his life he had engraved about 300 plates: many of these are preserved in Rome at the Calcografia nazionale.

Giovanni Battista FALDA (Valduggia, Novara, 1643; Rome, 1678)

Giovan Battista Falda, a native of Valduggia, was sent to Rome at the age of 14 and entrusted to the care of an uncle who pointed him out to Gian Lorenzo Bernini. But it was his meeting with printer Gian Giacomo De Rossi that marked a turning point in Falda's artistic career: in fact, his talent was directed by the publisher to the art of engraving. In De Rossi's workshop he could also appreciate the work of great engravers such as J. Callot, S. Della Bella and I. Silvestre; having completed his apprenticeship, he was benevolently received at the papal court, so much so that Alexander VII commissioned him to design the factories of the Castel Gandolfo residence. In 1665, Falda gave to the presses for the publisher De Rossi his masterpiece: the plates of the first book of the Nuovo Teatro delle fabbriche, et edificii, in prospettiva di Roma moderna sotto il felice pontificato di n. s. Alessandro VII, which was followed, between 1665 and '69, by the second and third. The work was intended to popularize the new image of Rome: the Pope, in fact, decided to open new streets, to embellish the city with fountains and monuments, also as a demonstration of the financial and cultural power of his family. With the Nuovo Teatro, as with the later collections devoted to fountains and palaces, Falda became the popularizer of these aspects; his engraved views, characterized by attention to both perspective rules and scenographic effects, skillfully exploit the vigor of line and the richness of the contrast between black and white, in keeping with the spatial criteria of Baroque art. The specifically popular and commercial aspect of the engraved views was skillfully exploited by the publisher De Rossi, who established an inseparable and effective partnership with Falda, to whom much of the printed production of the century in Rome was owed, with a fortune comparable only to that which would be paid to the work of Giovan Battista Piranesi. Falda's activity was tireless despite the brevity of the time span in which he worked (he died at the age of 35 on August 22, 1678 and was buried in S. Maria della Scala in Trastevere). By the end of his life he had engraved about 300 plates: many of these are preserved in Rome at the Calcografia nazionale.