Calab Rare Books
ROME
ROME
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Le Antichita Della Citta de Roma, raccolte sotto brevita da diuersi antichi et moderni Scrittori... By Bernardo Gamucci. [8], 201 ff. Illustrated with woodcut initials, woodcut printers device on title, 38 full-page woodcuts plus a fold-out woodcut plan of Rome. 8vo., 145 x 100 mm, bound in contemporary vellum, with the 1581 stamped on the front cover. [Venice: Giovanni Varisco, 1569].
Second Edition, first octavo edition and first with Thomaso Porcacchi's corrections. One of the earliest illustrated guides to Rome, depicting the principle ruins of the ancient city with a series of informative woodcuts. This second edition (the first was published in 1565) includes valuable corrections provided by Thomaso Porcacchi (1530-1585), renowned author and translator, best known for his book L'Isole piu famose del Mondo (The Most Famous Islands of the World).
Gamucci's guide was a popular work because of its simple format and illustrations clearly intended for less informed tourists rather than sophisticated scholars. It is broken in to four parts, the first focusing on the earliest Roman ruins, and the final part dealing with contemporaneous concerns such as the Vatican. The woodcuts, although simple, provide detailed depictions of the sights often populated by observing tourists and artists.
This copy contains the fold-out plan often lacking in the second edition. The printer’s device that is present on the final leaf of most copies is not present. Given this copy was bound without endpapers; it seems it was lost in the binding process back in 1581.
Ownership notations dated 1802 on the title-page have been crossed out in another 19th century hand. Some unobtrusive damp staining in spots, vellum a little wrinkled, overall a pleasing, very good, unsophisticated copy.
Rossetti G404. Fossati Bellani 919.





