Ponte e Castel S. Angelo

A splendid large-format lithograph by the renowned Venetian view painter Marco Moro (1817–1885), depicting the view of Castel Sant'Angelo, with the Tiber and St. Peter's.

The view, unknown to all consulted repertoires, dates to the period immediately following the unification of Italy, with the annexation of Rome and its proclamation as the capital of the Kingdom of Italy.

Marco Moro is universally known for his extraordinary collections dedicated to the cities of Veneto and Friuli (such as Venice, Padua, Vicenza, and Udine). The series of views of Rome is a very late production, less documented, and decidedly rare on the antiques market compared to the vast traditional Roman iconography produced by local view painters.

The presence of the Italian tricolor flag with the Savoy coat of arms raised on the wall of Castel Sant'Angelo unequivocally establishes the creation of the view after September 20, 1870 (the capture of Rome and the end of the Papal States). The work has extraordinary documentary value as it immortalizes the very first years of Rome as Capital, capturing the Tiber just a few years before the devastating floods of 1870, which led to the decision to dismantle the port of Ripetta and the natural banks to build protective walls starting in 1876. This print represents a fascinating historical link: it immortalizes for the last time the pre-unification riverside Rome, "romantic" and without walls, but surmounted by the flags of the newborn Kingdom of Italy.

Marco Moro signed his works on the lithographic stone, often indicating the name of the printer of the time, such as the Venetian publisher Giovanni Brizeghel or the Kier Lithograph Company. There is no known record of his Roman period, therefore the view (probably part of a series) was certainly printed in Venice.

Marco Moro was a lithographer, view painter, and printmaker in Venice, where he attended the Academy of Fine Arts from 1834 to 1839. He quickly distinguished himself for his excellence in drawing and perspective. He began his career working for the lithography firm that Luigi Berletti had opened in Udine, but spent the rest of his life in Venice. Among Venetian lithographers active in the 19th century, such as Giovanni Battista Cecchini, Giovanni Pividor, and Tommaso Viola, Marco Moro is the only one who devoted himself almost exclusively to lithography, creating a huge number of views of the Veneto region. The work for which he is most famous, although not his most successful because the subject required an exact reproduction of the buildings, is "Venezia monumentale pittoresca" completed in 1863 and published by Kier with an art-historical commentary by Gianjacopo Fontana. Three other important works by him date from 1847: “Venezia in miniatura”, “Il Teatro di Padova riedificato dall’Architetto Jappelli” e l’“Album di Gemme architettoniche di Vicenza” (Venice 1847). Marco Moro was one of the few artists to illustrate Vicenza, a city to which he dedicated another work in 1850, “Vicenza e suoi dintorni”, published by himself and Decio Avogadro. On a higher artistic level, demonstrating his maturity, is the l’album “Trieste città gentilissima e commerciale figurata in ventiquattro vedute prospettiche disegnate dal Moro e descritte da celebri penne archeologiche artistiche” published in Venice in 1854 by Giovanni Brizeghel. He died in Venice on February 25, 1885.

Tinted lithograph, circa 1870/76, finely hand-colored at the time, in excellent condition. Extremely rare print.