Theatrum Sive Coliseum Romanum

Engraving, circa 1565/70. Inscribed lower center: "THEATRVM · SIVE ·COLISEVM · ROMANVM · " Signed lower left: "Apresso luca Guarinoni".

Reverse copy of the anonymous engraving in the Antonio Lafreri catalog, dated circa 1558 (Huelsen no. 19). Created for the Venetian market, the work is not described in the bibliography, and we have not located any institutional examples.

The Colosseum is shown here largely buried, as it would have actually appeared in the 16th century. It was isolated and in open countryside, as documented in the 1555 map of Rome by Hugues Pinard (Urbis Romae descriptio), also part of the Speculum corpus. The figurines of figures serve to convey the grandeur and mass of the building. Moreover, Étienne Du Pérac himself, in his work Vestigi dell’antichità di Roma raccolti et ritratti in perspettiva con ogni diligentia, published in 1575, presents the same desolate image on plate 16, using barely sketched figures. Bernardo Gamucci, in turn, denounced "the destructions that are seen in the wretched city, and in particular those threats made with fire and sword to this famous Amphitheater; for they left no stone untouched by the enemy's chisel to separate it from so beautiful a structure".

A magnificent work, printed on contemporary laid paper without watermark, with thin margins and traces of vertical paper folds, and otherwise in excellent condition.

The work formerly 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).

Undescribed and very rare work.