Rome. LAURO - ALTO. Splendore dell’Antica e Moderna Roma.

Oblong 4to. 220x320 mm. Bound in stiff vellum with Yapp edges, on the spine red morocco label with title. Engraved title page in Latin ‘Antiquae Urbis Splendor’ dated 1612, Portrait of Urban VIII dated 1623, Engraved plates 2-3, 1 unnumbered engraved plate dated 1622, 2 text leaves (Notice to readers and Title page in Italian dated 1641), Engraved plates 4-7, 4 text leaves, Engraved plates 8-12, 2 text leaves, Engraved plates 13-126, 3 text leaves, Engraved plates 127 (Title page of 1628)-166, 3 unnumbered engraved plates, 1 text leaf with Index. Text in 4 languages. A total of 171 copper-engraved plates. Ex libris “Bibliotheca Seminarii S Ioannis” applied to the front pastedown. Defects on spine. Dampstain covering the pages, unsophisticated copy.

Rare illustrated edition, edited by Giovanni Alto. The work contains all the numbered engravings in the index, plus five unnumbered plates: the Portrait of Pope Urban VIII, The Senate of Rome with the Pontiff, placed after plate no. 3, and the three plates at the end, before the Index. The text is in Latin, Italian, German and French. Giacomo Lauro was an Italian painter, engraver, printer and antiquarian of the late Renaissance, active mainly in his native Venice and in Treviso. He was a follower of Paolo Veronese. He published his famous "Antiquae urbis splendor" in four parts (1612, 1613, 1615, 1628). Giovanni Alto, a Swiss antiquarian who served in Rome as a papal guard, edited and published this edition in 1641, translating it from its original Latin into Italian, German and French.