Touring Rome in 1610 ~ P.M. Felini’s Landmark guidebook to the Marvels of the Eternal City

FELINI, Pietro Martire;

Trattato nuovo delle cose maravigliose dell’alma città di Roma: ornato de molte figure, nel quale si discorre de 300. & più chiese / composto da f. Pietro Martire Felini da Cremona dell’Ordine de’ Serui ; et de tutte le antichita figurate d’essa città, già da Prospero Parisio aumentate, et hora dal sopradetto f. Pietro Martire con diligenza corrette, ampliate, e con bellissimo ordine disposte.

Title printed in red and black with woodcut vignette (Alma Roma) repeated on p. [244].  With 234 in-text woodcut Illustrations as well as initials, tail-pieces.  One impressive full page woodcut depicts The Papal Basilica of Saint Peter.  8vo. Initials. Zannetti device at colophon (arrows).

18th or early 19th century marbled boards, calf back, gilt greek key designs and title.

With a small water-stain on title page and sporadic browning within the book – otherwise an attractive, neat and tight copy of a book that is very scarce in commerce and even harder to find complete and in very good + condition.  The Trattato nuovo was a pocket-sized guide intended for practical use by early modern tourists. This is a far better copy than three other copies examined in major libraries.  Some light wear and fraying to leather at top of spine, otherwise the binding in very good condition, the joints and boards firm without any cracking.  Some titles of churches have been copied in the margins in an early hand. There is some age-toning and staining, but the pages are generally fresh, the laid paper crisp. This copy has ample margins without any trimming into the text or woodcuts which are strongly inked with no fading.

FIRST ILLUSTRATED EDITION of the “Trattato Nuovo” – (New Treatise on the Marvels of the City of Rome).

RARE AND FOUNDATIONAL GUIDE TO THE ETERNAL CITY.   Nine subsequent editions were published throughout the 17th- century in Italian, German and Spanish.  The woodcuts are from Girolamo Franzini’s, ‘ Le cose maravigliose de l’alma Citta di Roma’ with important additions.  There is one full-page woodcut of the facade of St. Peter’s.

Pietro Martire Felini’s Trattato is regarded as a landmark within the evolution of the genre of guidebooks. This text witnesses the progressive emergence of secular Rome as an object of interest equal to that of the ancient city. It bears witness to the increased interest in the city’s monuments in a series of thematic sections, such as the one devoted to Delle Statue, an illustrated gallery of ancient and modern sculptures in Rome, or another that addresses the obelisks, which recounts the interventions of Pope Sixtus V along with a few details on the ancient history of the obelisks.

The three-day tour, the guida romana, is preceded by the conventional chapter on the principal sette chiese (seven churches) here organized by an entirely new order that would be imitated until the eighteenth century. The section on antiquities is largely based on Prospero Parisio’s texts that ultimately derive from Andrea Palladio.

(National Gallery of Art Library, Special Collections who have a copy of the 1615 edition)

As Nicolas Parsons notes in his History of the Guidebook (2007):

These innovations accomplish the slow reversal in the representation of Roma antica compared to the initial editions. If secular modern Rome was originally a reality that needed to be wished away in order to discover the lost ancient city, the ancient city is now the substratum for the contemporary reality presented to the visitor. The implication is clear: secular modern Rome, too, is equal, if not superior, to its ancient model. Not only does the rise of Christianity make for a worthy new Rome but also the visible splendor of the new buildings and infrastructure across the city. Beside the stable section on the “modern” Roman churches—a part of the guidebook that is regularly updated but whose conception and structure remain unchanged—emerges a marvelous city.  By acknowledging this evolution, which destabilizes the original strict separation between a “modern” Christian and ancient Rome, the Trattato Nuovo announces more general changes in the conception of Roman guidebooks that would occur from the 1620s onward.

Roma Antica, Sacra, Moderna: The Analogous Romes of the Travel Guide Maarten Delbeke and Anne-Françoise Morel

Pietro Martire Felini’s guide to the marvels of Rome also includes Palladio’s text, with the addition of illustrations.

“L’antichita figurate dell’alma citta di Roma (di Andrea Palladio) , gia da Propsero Parisio aumentate, & hora con diligenza da Pietro Martire Felini da Cremona….. corrette & molto ampliate’: Pp (243) – 423.

Andrea Palladio’s  L’Antichità di Roma first appeared in 1554 with his observations on the ancient monuments of Rome together with a description of Roman churches he had seen one one of his trips to Rome.  The inclusion of Palladio’s work on the antiquities of Rome fit into a longstanding tradition of pilgrim guides.  Palladio’s work was reprinted many times, often included with similar small guidebooks to Rome such as Felini’s Trattato nuovo.  

‘Guida molto importante’ , (Schlosser-Magnino – page 601) and praised by Schudt as an “epoch-making work”- the finest and most comprehensive Roman guide of the early 17th century.

While the first illustrated edition of 1610 and the second edition of 1615 are both considered very uncommon, the 1610 edition is considerably rarer.  Rare Book Hub records only 4 appearances at auction in the last 43 years.  WorldCat locates 4 copies of the 1610 edition in North American Libraries.