Aedium Farnesiarum Tabulae ab Annibale Caraccio AEdium Farnesiarum tabulae ab Annibale Caraccio depictae: a Carolo Caesio aeri insculptae, atque a Lucio Philarchaeo explicationibus illustratae

Romae: Sumptibus Venantii Monaldini Bibliopolae in via Cursus, 1753. FIRST EDITION. Folio, 435 x 305 mms., 7 preliminary leaves, followed by lxxiv pages, with engraved frontispiece, title-page in red and black, and thirty-three engraved plates (15 folding), engraved tail-pieces, contemporary vellum; small paper flaw in one plate, but a fine copy of these superbly engraved plates. These engravings (by Carlo Cesi) of the frescoes in the Palazzo Farnese that Carracci (1560 - 1609) are the result of Carracci's being "recommended by the Duke of Parma, Ranuccio I Farnese, to his brother, the Cardinal Odoardo Farnese, who wished to decorate the piano nobile of the cavernous Roman Palazzo Farnese. In November–December of 1595, Annibale and Agostino traveled to Rome to begin decorating the Camerino with stories of Hercules, appropriate since the room housed the famous Greco-Roman antique sculpture of the hypermuscular Farnese Hercules. Annibale meanwhile developed hundreds of preparatory sketches for the major work, wherein he led a team painting frescoes on the ceiling of the grand salon with the secular quadri riportati of The Loves of the Gods, or as the biographer Giovanni Bellori described it, Human Love governed by Celestial Love. Although the ceiling is riotously rich in illusionistic elements, the narratives are framed in the restrained classicism of High Renaissance decoration, drawing inspiration from, yet more immediate and intimate, than Michelangelo's Sistine Ceiling as well as Raphael's Vatican Logge and Villa Farnesina frescoes. His work would later inspire the untrammelled stream of Baroque illusionism and energy that would emerge in the grand frescoes of Cortona, Lanfranco, and in later decades Andrea Pozzo and Gaulli.Throughout the 17th and 18th centuries, the Farnese Ceiling was considered the unrivaled masterpiece of fresco painting for its age. They were not only seen as a pattern book of heroic figure design, but also as a model of technical procedure; Annibale's hundreds of preparatory drawings for the ceiling became a fundamental step in composing any ambitious history painting" (Wikipedia). The tail-pieces of small children, one or two of which could be construed as rather naughty, are by Giacinto Gimignani (1611 - 1681). Leopoldo Cicognara: Catalogo ragionato dei libri d'arte e d'antichità posseduti dal Conte Cicognara (1821), 3376: "L'autore del testo pose grandissima cura a impinguarlo di erudizione, e l'editore v'aggiunse quantita d'altri rami, e vignette prese da altre opera, ma le 33 tavolo di Carlo Cesio sono in questa ristampa alquanto logore per quata sia fresco e nitido l'esemplare.