Album of Favourite Engravings: Rome

Milan: P. e G. Vallardi, 1835. 35 copperplate prints bound in a hardcover folder, cover detached. Published by the Vallardi brothers of Milan, undated, but about 1835. The Vallardis continued the business founded in 1750 by their father, offering maps and prints, with Guiseppe carrying on after Pietro's death in 1819; the firm was renamed Antonio Vallardi around 1920 and continues, as part of a conglomerate, to produce guide & reference books. Some of the images are remakes, sometimes reversed, of prints engraved by Peregrinus de Colle and Francesco Pedro, many from paintings by Venetian painter Francesco Maggiotto (1738-1805) (mostly cited on the prints as Maiotto or Magiotto), originally published by Cavalli of Venice some 30-40 years earlier. Often they illustrate quotes from Virgil, Horace, & Voltaire. Includes I Destini Messi Alla Sorte [card players]; La Lettura Della Bibia [father reading to bored family, child playing with small dog]; L'Infanzia Dei Contadini [Dionysian cherubs with barrel]; L'Infanzia Dei Pastori [Pan, Dionysians bothering a goat; La Pace Domestica [old woman reading book, mother breast-feeding child while man looks on, cat naps]; Il Giuoco Del Tarrocco [card players]; Il Venditore Di Frutta [couple with tent & stand offer fruit to mother & child]; Il Linguaggio Delle Mani [in a cell, two women fight with a chair while a man cowers below and a child tries the door]; Frigoribus parto Agricole plerumque fruuntur... [Art by Aubry, engraved by de Colle, verse by Virgil; women play cards while men look on (Cavalli)]; Port de Mer [seacoast picture by Wouverman with boat, small family, dog & horse, engraved by de Colle (Cavalli)]; Non Dindymene, non acuta... [three women (one of them squabble while an appalled man looks on, engraved by F. Pedro after art by F. Maiotto [Maggiotto], quote from Horace (Cavalli)]; O le bon tems que ce siccle de fer [sic; Voltaire, Le Mondain]... [a group fishing & cooking on shore below a castle, a small boat rows out to a ship; engraved by de Colle after a painting by Vernet (Cavalli)]; La Famiglia Del Pastore In Ripose [mother holds infant while older child pours father a drink, a middle child nearby; sheepdog looks benignly at sheep, other figures in background; after Giorgio Giacoboni]; Multa petentibus Desunt multa Bene est cui Deus obtulit... [Woman turning food out of a bowl as man grates something, child looks on eagerly (after Maggiotto, engraved by F. Pedro, verse by Horace (Cavalli)]; Aut amite levi rara tendit retia Turdis educibus dolos... [man with long gun looks to the sky; two women appear to discuss a thrush in a basket-work cage; after Anto. Marinetti, engraved by F. Pedro (Cavalli), Horace]; Me nunc Cressa Chloë regit... [man plays recorder while young woman looks at sheet music, old man looks at woman; engraved by F. P. (Pedro, we assume) after Piazzella (Cavalli), verse by Horace]; Vous ne me parlez plus de ces belles contreés... [Orientalism with swooning woman sheltered by youth with umbrella, three bemused/bored/annoyed men look on, one with a long pipe; engraved by Peregrino de Colle after Franco. Mariotto, verse from Voltaire's play Zaïre (Cavalli); L'Armento in Riposo [barn scene, cow urinating (!) with other cows in repose, doves are gathered by a man on a ladder while a girl grooms one of several sheep; after a painting by Giorgio Giacaboni]; Velocifero a Vapore del Dott. Church [a steam-powered car reputed to have been in regular service between London & Birmingham in 1833, Italianized version of a British print, looks like an aquatint]; Le Facile Gelose ['The Easy Jealous'; two young women fight, one restrained by a third; a fourth looks on while a dog on the stairs behind barks]; Ha la stizza la lingua, e la man pronta... [five women two of whom are fighting - what's with all the fighting, Italy? Verse from Giovanni Della Casa - a baking metaphor, not sure of the connection to the image; from a painting by F. Maiotto (Cavalli, F. Pedro)]; L'Ultima Ragione Delle Donne ['The Last Reason of Women'; ANOTHER pair of fighting women, here in a domestic setting, with a man trying to hold one of the women while another man rushes in the door; a child dodges away]; Il Chirurgo Cavadenti [dentistry; one man sews something while another approaches with a bandage (?), a hammer & small tongs are in view, other men look on, a tooth 'sign' is visible; after F. Maiotto [Magiotto]; La Miglior Medicina ['The Best Medicine'; a wealthy ailing man, head wrapped, is offered food whil a doctor takes his pulse, an assistant grinds medicine, a woman holds a small steaming bowl]; Il Mercante Greco [a Greek merchant weighs a bundle with a steelyard while a scribe takes notes, two others assist, after a painting by F. Maiotto [Maggiotto]; Recoivent cet encens que l'on doit a vos yeux... [Eastern men (Greeks?) dance while two musicians, turbannerd, play' a fifth man smokes a long pipe. Quote from Voltaire's 'Zaire', image after Maiotto, originally engraved by Peregrinus de Colle (Cavalli)]; I Mussulmani in Conversazione [a woman, three turbanned Muslim gents, and a fellow with a shaven head have a discussion about some bundles, the men all with long pipes; after Maiotto]; La Vendita Della Schiava ['The Slave's Sale'; three turbanned & mustachioed gents (presumably Muslim) bargain over two women and a man in chains (presumably Christian), a sailboat behind; after Maiotto]; Libres saus deshonneur, e sages saus contrainte [sic]... [woman plays a sort of lute while four turbaned gents loiter, two smoking; quote frome Zaire again, de Colle after Maiotto (Cavalli)]; Les pins de ses forets faconnes on vaisseaus... [wealthy easterner supervises movement of crates & bundles into a building; Pedro after Maiotto (Cavalli)]; La Ricreazione Dell' Odalisca [woman with long pipe lounges while Black man plays a lute, two turbaned gentlemen seem to want something from her, a hawk perches in the background; after Maiotto]; four more on Orientalist themes, all after Maigiotto/Maiotto (Cavalli). All plates on thick, rough paper, tissue-guarded - plates generally clean with a few pencil numbers; guards usually creased or cockled, some foxed. Scarce intact: most such were long ago broken up to sell individually. So it goes. . First Edition. Disbound. Fair. 16½" by 12".