Beschreibung:

PIRANESI, Giovanni Battista (1720-1778) and Francesco PIRANESI (1748-1810). [ Opera ], Paris: Firmin Didot 1835-1837. 29 works or collections in 27 volumes, folio, the many double-page plates mounted on guards, contemporary grey-and-white marbled boards (some joints weak, spines rubbed or, in a few cases, worn). Provenance : Bibliothque de Broglie (bookplate in vol. XVIII). AN EXTREMELY FINE SET OF THE WORKS, ALL UNCUT AND REMARKABLY FRESH COPIES. This comprises: PIRANESI, G. B. Le Antichit Romane . Paris: Firmin Didot 1835. 4 volumes, 2 (620 x 450mm). Engraved frontispiece portrait of G. B. Piranesi by F. Piranesi after Joseph Cades, 222 etched plates, including one plate on 2 sheets, each volume with a separate number sequence, volume I extra-illustrated with 3 unnumbered plates at end, approximately 118 plates double-page and 7 double-page and folding. Bound as volumes I-IV. The three additional plates in volume I are views of the Castel Sant'Angelo, the Basilica de St. Pietro, and one of the Carceri. This work, which required eight years of careful study and excavation by Piranesi, established his reputation as the leading protagonist of Roman archaeology when it first appeared in 1756. His aim, as with all his archaeological publications, was both to record the vanishing past for scholars and to inspire contemporary designers to emulate the achievements of ancient Rome. Volume I explains the urban structure of ancient Rome in terms of its walls, defences and aqueducts as well as its public monuments. Volumes II-III include the plans of the Camera Sepolcrali , and are devoted to the extensive remains of sepulchres around Rome. Volume IV concentrates on the heroic feats of Roman engineering in the form of bridges and monumental structures such as the Curia Hostilia, the substructure of the Temple of Claudius, Hadrian's mausoleum (the Castel Sant'Angelo), and the Theatre of Marcellus. As John Wilton-Ely notes, the work includes plates by or after other artists, chiefly in volumes II and III. Hind pp. 83-84; Wilton-Ely pp. 327-582. PIRANESI, F. Monumenti degli Scipioni . Paris: Firmin Didot 1836. 2 (605 x 440mm). 6 etched plates, engraved tail-piece. Bound as volume V. First published in 1785. PIRANESI, F. Raccolta de'Tempi Antichi. Paris: Firmin Didot 1836. 2 parts in one volume, 2 (445 x 608mm). 52 etched plates comprising 50 plates in three numbered series and 2 unnumbered plates, 36 double-page and one double-page and folding. (Title slightly soiled at outer margin.) Bound as volume VI. First published 1780-1790. PIRANESI, B. Della Magnificenza ed Architettura de Romani [with: Osservazioni ... sopra la lettre de M. Mariette ]. Paris: Firmin Didot 1836. 2 works in one volume, 2 (604 x 170mm). Etched Latin and Italian titles, engraved portrait of Pope Clement XIII by D. Cunego after Piranesi and 51 etched plates in two series numbered 1-38 and 1-9 with 4 unnumbered plates in the first part, 20 plates double- page and one double-page and folding, engraved initials and culs-de-lampe. Bound as volume VII. In Della Magnificenza Piranesi made a claim for the superiority of Etruscan art to that of the Greeks, on the grounds that it was older and more gifted; he also claimed that the Etruscans were the first instructors of the Romans. However, the imaginative richness and sheer variety of late Roman ornament in many of Piranesi's illustrations were directed against Le Roy's Les ruines des plus beaux monuments de la Grce (1758) and his arguments in favour of restrained Attic detail. The second work, the Osservazioni , is a refutation of the French critic Mariette who in 1764 attacked Piranesi's theories about the Etruscans, arguing that they were Greek colonists and that most building work in Rome was carried out by Greek slaves. Hind pp. 85 & 86; Wilton-Ely pp. 820-884. PIRANESI, G. B. Prima parte di Architetture e Prospetive . [Paris: n.d.]. 2 (600 x 425mm). Etched title and 27 plates, including 6 double-page. [ Bound w