Laooconte

Engraving, ca. 1550, lacking signature and editorial indications.

The work is attributed to Nicolas Beatrizet by Bartsch, Robert-Dumesnil and Bianchi.

Inscribed at bottom: LAOCHOON. ROMAE. IN. PALATIO. PONT. IN. LOCO. QVI. VVLGO. DICITVR. BELVEDERE.

Example in first state four (first of two described by Rubach, first of three for Bianchi and Alberti) before Lafreri's address. The plate was later reprinted by Duchetti and De Rossi (states listed by Bianchi who, however, does not know the Lafreri’s edition).

Magnificent proof, richly toned impressed on contemporary laid paper with "Corona" watermark (see Woodward nos. 260-262), trimmed to copperplate at top and bottom and with thin margins at sides, very slight traces of color on verso, otherwise in very good condition.

“The Laocoon group was found on the Esquiline Hill on January 14, 1506 "in the vineyard of Felice de Fredi" (Ridolfino Venuti) purchased by Julius II (1503-1513) was taken to the Vatican and placed in the erecting courtyard of the Belvedere. It was ceded by Pius VI (1775-1799) in February 1797 to the French forced by the Treaty of Tolentino. Among the works returned after the fall of Napoleon-thanks to Cardinal Ercole Consalvi and the mediation of Antonio Canova, it was returned after the Congress of Vienna-and brought back to Rome on January 4, 1816 and relocated in the Belvedere Courtyard. [...] The group represents the assault of two serpents on Laocoon and his sons, who had opposed the decision to bring the wooden horse inside the walls of Troy. According to Plinio the Elder, the sculptors were Athenodorus, Agesander and Polydorus, who came to Italy around 40-20 BC. Scholars believe instead that the sculpture is a Roman copy from bronze originals of the Pergamon School of the 2nd century BC. Because of gaps, including in Laocoon's right arm, among others, the work underwent repeated restoration, until in 1906 Ludwig Pollack recognized in a stonemason's workshop the original arm, which was reinstated in 1959. Thus it is that the engraving (1565) shows Laocoon's right arm stretched upward, while in the restoration that was possible after the 1906 discovery it is bent at the elbow toward Laocoon” (translation from C. Marigliani, Lo splendore di Roma nell’Arte incisoria del Cinquecento).

The work belongs to the Speculum Romanae Magnificentiae, the earliest iconography of ancient Rome.

The Speculum originated in the publishing activities of Antonio Salamanca and Antonio Lafreri (Lafrery). During their Roman publishing careers, the two editors-who worked together between 1553 and 1563-started the production of prints of architecture, statuary, and city views related to ancient and modern Rome. The prints could be purchased individually by tourists and collectors, but they were also purchased in larger groups that were often bound together in an album. In 1573, Lafreri commissioned a frontispiece for this purpose, where the title Speculum Romanae Magnificentiae appears for the first time. Upon Lafreri's death, two-thirds of the existing copperplates went to the Duchetti family (Claudio and Stefano), while another third was distributed among several publishers. Claudio Duchetti continued the publishing activity, implementing the Speculum plates with copies of those "lost" in the hereditary division, which he had engraved by the Milanese Amborgio Brambilla. Upon Claudio's death (1585) the plates were sold - after a brief period of publication by the heirs, particularly in the figure of Giacomo Gherardi - to Giovanni Orlandi, who in 1614 sold his printing house to the Flemish publisher Hendrick van Schoel. Stefano Duchetti, on the other hand, sold his own plates to the publisher Paolo Graziani, who partnered with Pietro de Nobili; the stock flowed into the De Rossi typography passing through the hands of publishers such as Marcello Clodio, Claudio Arbotti and Giovan Battista de Cavalleris. The remaining third of plates in the Lafreri division was divided and split among different publishers, some of them French: curious to see how some plates were reprinted in Paris by Francois Jollain in the mid-17th century. Different way had some plates printed by Antonio Salamanca in his early period; through his son Francesco, they goes to Nicolas van Aelst's. Other editors who contributed to the Speculum were the brothers Michele and Francesco Tramezzino (authors of numerous plates that flowed in part to the Lafreri printing house), Tommaso Barlacchi, and Mario Cartaro, who was the executor of Lafreri's will, and printed some derivative plates. All the best engravers of the time - such as Nicola Beatrizet (Beatricetto), Enea Vico, Etienne Duperac, Ambrogio Brambilla, and others  - were called to Rome and employed for the intaglio of the works.

All these publishers-engravers and merchants-the proliferation of intaglio workshops and artisans helped to create the myth of the Speculum Romanae Magnificentiae, the oldest and most important iconography of Rome. The first scholar to attempt to systematically analyze the print production of 16th-century Roman printers was Christian Hülsen, with his Das Speculum Romanae Magnificentiae des Antonio Lafreri of 1921. In more recent times, very important have been the studies of Peter Parshall (2006) Alessia Alberti (2010), Birte Rubach and Clemente Marigliani (2016). 

Bibliografia

C. Hülsen, Das Speculum Romanae Magnificentiae des Antonio Lafreri (1921), n. 59/A; cfr. Peter Parshall, Antonio Lafreri's 'Speculum Romanae Magnificentiae, in “Print Quarterly”, 1 (2006); B. Rubach, Ant. Lafreri Formis Romae (2016), n. 325, I/II; A. Alberti, L’indice di Antonio Lafrery (2010), n. A 126, I/III; Marigliani, Lo splendore di Roma nell’Arte incisoria del Cinquecento (2016), n. V.63; cfr, D. Woodward, Catalogue of watermarks in Italian printed maps 1540 – 1600 (1996); Bartch XV, p. 265, n. 91; S. Bianchi, Catalogo dell’opera incisa di Nicolas Beatrizet, 003c, p. 4, n. 98, I/III.