PIRRO LIGORIO’S PIANTA GRANDE: Magnificent monumental wall map on twelve sheets.
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Description
LIGORIO, Pirro (c. 1513–1583). Anteiquae urbis imago accuratissime ex vetusteis monumenteis formata. [Rome]: presso Giovanni Scudellari, [c. 1820–30].
Engraved wall map on twelve sheets, printed from copperplates engraved by Jacob Bos in 1561. The whole intended to join in three rows of four. Wove paper, the sheets unmounted, uncut with wide margins as issued. Old creasing and folds in the margins, very light toning confined to the extremities, some marginal tears far from the plate mark. The engraved surface strongly inked, the plate marks fresh and sharp.
A remarkable survival, and very rare to find complete on all twelve sheets. More unusual still to find a wall map of this scale in its original state: unlined and not segmented or mounted. . As with most wall maps the most impressive presentation is to assemble the map as one image. The sheets in this instance could be cut close to the plate mark, mounted and framed (either as a whole or with the 12 frames for each sheet). The engraved images within the plate marks are in superlative condition. The creasing and tears are confined to the margins – minimal conservation with some humidification to flatten the marginal creases and close the tears would leave a set that could hardly be bettered.
The Neapolitan born architect and antiquarian, Pirro Ligorio created this monumental twelve-panel bird’s-eye view of ancient Rome in 1561. The sheets etched by Bos were published by the Tramezzini brothers. It imagined Rome as it looked during the reign of Augustus Caesar — a composite imperial Rome, distilled from coins in Roman cabinets, from inscriptions, from sculptural relief, from the ancient authors, and from the vestiges that still stood in the sixteenth century. Frutaz considered this to be “one of the most artistic Reconstructions of Ancient Rome”
Only one copy of the original 1561 map exists – this damaged, through unique example is held by the British Library. According to Frutaz (page 61) “there were three editions reprinted from the plates of the original edition”. De Rossi’s plan in the 17th century, Losi in 1773 and ours by Scudellari in 1820 to 1830 – the last impressions ever taken from Ligorio’s plates. In all the three later editions, the plates were reworked. There are two variants of the Scudellari plan. Our variant (at the Nazionale di Roma) bears the imprint: Presso Giovanni Scudellari beneath the credit to Pyrrho Ligorio, Michael et Franciscus Tramezini.