Specchi, Alessandro; De Rossi, Domenico
Studio d’architettura civile sopra gli Ornamenti di Porte e Finestre tratti da alcune Fabbriche insigni di Roma (...)
1716, Augsburg, Johann Ulrich Krauß (Krauss)
First edition
A magnificent first edition of Alessandro Specchi’s German version of his monumental Studio d’architettura civile, based on his works published by Domenico de Rossi in Rome and here adapted by Krauss with the addition of German text. The work originated in Rome between 1702 and 1721, when Domenico de Rossi assembled technical drawings from the leading masters of the Renaissance and Baroque such as Michelangelo Buonarroti, Antonio da Sangallo, Gian Lorenzo Bernini, Raffaello Sanzio, Francesco Borromini, and others. Their ornamental inventions (doors, windows, cornices, portals), engraved by Specchi, form a true grammar of civic beauty and proportion. This folio, composed entirely of superb plates, conveys the essence of Roman Late Renaissance and Baroque architecture, its measured grandeur and sculptural invention, to architects and draughtsmen across Northern Europe. The explanatory text on the plates appears in both Italian and German, enhancing its usefulness and adding, to the plates’ beauty, the printer’s craftsmanship and noteworthy philological interest.
Fifty-three engraved plates, including two title pages and four folded double plates, display architectural details from Rome’s most celebrated buildings: Campidoglio, Vatican Palace, Palazzo Farnese, Palazzo Barberini, Palazzo Chigi, S. Giovanni in Laterano, Propaganda Fide, among others. Each plate bears precise measurements, plans, and profiles, arranged with scholarly rigor and artistic flair. Among the most admired are the round staircase plates, spiraling in perfect geometry, suspended between light and structure. These engravings after Borromini’s and Bernini’s famed helicoidal stairs, reveal the Baroque genius for transforming function into motion, and stone into living rhythm. The engraver renders them with astonishing clarity and precision, capturing the vertiginous grace that made Roman architecture a theatre of perspective and form. The suite stands as both a teaching tool and a visual hymn to the Eternal city.
Roman genius distilled into line and light: a poetry of stone, shadow, and proportion carried across Europe in engravings that taught architects how to dream; a suite that stands as both masterclass and visual hymn, a teaching tool forged into an ode to the Italian Late Renaissance and Baroque, radiant with proportion, invention, and Roman dream.
Leaves [1] f.e., 53 plates, of which 4 folded double-page.
Contemporary half-parchment binding over hard boards, possibly restored; the covers later re-covered in light blue paper. The inner spine at the front is slightly open but remains very solid. Rear endpaper missing. Spine with minor wormholes, visible internally in the last dozen leaves (really minor). The plates are in excellent condition, with only light signs of age: slight soiling and occasional thumb marks; one plate with a marginal tear neatly restored; the final plates slightly water-stained at the lower edge; the last with a small area of browning at the upper margin. An excellent copy.
Dimensions (inches): 15 x 9 3/4 x 3/4
Alessandro Specchi (1668-1729) was a Roman architect and engraver, student of Carlo Fontana, known for his Baroque designs and measured architectural engravings. Domenico de' Rossi (1659–1730) was an Italian printer, active in Rome from 1691 to about 1724. Upon his father's death, he inherited the printshop near the church of Santa Maria della Pace, the largest and most long-lived publisher of the Roman baroque.
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