Forma Templi D. Petri in Vaticano

Sangallo's design for the Basilica of St Peter in the Vatican; plan of the façade extended to the left with a tall tower, with Pope Paul III's coat of arms in centre.
Engraving, 1545, lettered: 'Forma Templi . d . Petri in Vaticano / Antonius. S. Galli inventor / Antonius Labaccus eius discip effector' and below 'Cum gratia et privilegio / Ant. Sal. excudebat Romae MDXLV'.

Longitudinal section of Antonio Sangallo's design for St. Peter's Basilica, conceived and designed by Antonio Labacco, engraved by Baldo Perugino and published in Rome by Antonio Salamanca in 1545.

Etching and engraving impressed on contemporary laid paper with watermark "eagle in circle with crown," thin margins, in very good condition.

The plate belongs to a series of four engravings taken from Antonio da Sangallo's model made as a project for the construction of St. Peter's Basilica. Sangallo was appointed architect of the new St. Peter's Basilica in 1536, by Pope Paul III, after work had been suspended with the sack of Rome in 1527. The effort that followed this appointment yielded a large wooden model still preserved at the Fabbrica di San Pietro. The engraving reproduces that model where Labacco's stated role as Sangallo's pupil and "effector" probably refers to the making of the wooden model or the drawing used for the engraving; in fact, no engraved works by Labacco are known. Sangallo's project was abandoned with his death in 1546, after which the design for the building was entrusted by Paul III to Michelangelo.

The first examples of the longitudinal series date to 1545; the engraver is not mentioned although Alfredo Petrucci points out based on a passage from Vasari that "no one suspected that there might be in Rome, as there was a qualified engraver named Baldo Perogini, or Perosini, whose work Labacco might have used and of whom the documents tell us unequivocally". The first to make architectural works known through prints was Sebastiano Serlio in his Libro delle antichità di Roma published in Venice in 1540. From that time on, engraving became a means of propaganda to popularize and support an architect's project. The longitudinal section made it possible to compare the internal structure of the architectural design with the external one. The print agrees substantially with the wooden model preserved in the Vatican, the largest and oldest wooden model of St. Peter's Basilica. Suffice it to say that it took four years to make and the cost of the work exceeded 5,000 ducats. The engraving has the merit of highlighting decorative details that do not appear in the model.

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. 146; Peter Parshall, Antonio Lafreri's 'Speculum Romanae Magnificentiae, in “Print Quarterly”, 1 (2006); A. Alberti, L’indice di Antonio Lafrery (2010), n. 158; Marigliani, Lo splendore di Roma nell’Arte incisoria del Cinquecento (2016), n. VIII.4; D. Woodward, Catalogue of watermarks in Italian printed maps 1540 – 1600 (1996); A. Petrucci, 1964, n. 74, p. 98; C. Witcombe, 2008, pp. 92, 104.