420. Fontana (Domenico) Della Transportatione dell’Obelisco Vaticano et delle fabriche di Nostro Signore Papa Sisto V., first edition , fine engraved title, portrait and 38 plates and plans by Natale Bonifacio, 3 folding or double-page, plate on p.44 with repair to lower half, affecting image, tape repair to text f. C1, a few other small marginal repairs, occasional staining, particularly to beginning, within plate marks in some instances, light foxing throughout, 18th/early 19th century floral pastepaper boards, joints splitting, [Fowler 124; Mortimer, Italian, 193 (with 4 plates only); Cicognara 3736: Olschki 16955; Norman 812], folio, Rome, Domenico Basa, 1590.
est. £3500 – £4000
Recording and illustrating one of the greatest engineering feats of the Renaissance. Fontana directed the successful transportation of the Vatican obelisk from the spina of Nero’s Circus to the front of the future new site of St. Peter’s. The project, which took four and a half months to complete, required some 900 men, 150 horses and 47 cranes. Fowler considers the plates to “important examples in the development of architectural drawing” and Olschki finds them “remarquables au point de vue artistique autant que technique”.