Descrizione

VISENTINI (ANTONIO) – Urbis Venetiarum Prospectus Celebriores, ex Antonii Canal Tabulis XXXVIII.

Aere expressi ab Antonio Visentini, Venice: Giovanni Battista Pasquali, 1742.

Obl. Folio (350 x 510 mm.), 3 parts in one vol., bound in contemporary brown half late, with corners, spine with raised bands, title on label, internally a clean, very good copy (light occasional foxing in margins). Provenance: a contemporary engraved bookplate (possibly of the Pisani family, in Venice), and a small, 20th cent. stamp (Montecuccoli), both at inner side of upper cover. Three letterpress title-pages in red and black with engraved vignettes, letterpress plate list, engraved double portrait of Canaletto and Visentini after Piazzetta, engraved Prospectus by Angela Baroni after Visentini, 38 engraved plates by Visentini after Canaletto.

First edition of the complete set. The engravings by Antonio Visentini (1688-1782) are based upon thirty-eight paintings by Canaletto in the possession of the British collector Joseph Smith. The work begun in 1728 and was completed in 1735 when an edition with 14 views only was published; the preparatory drawings are now in the British Museum in London and the Museo Correr in Venice. In 1742 this first complete edition was published through the collaboration between Smith and his business partner the editor Pasquali. In this edition Visentini focused on trying to obtain better effects in the lighting of the plates and in the water. The two portraits are also reissued for this new complete edition. Copies of mixed editions are also known as Smith didn’t want to destroy the unsold plates of the previous editions, and collectors which had the first 1735 plates decided to use them to complete the following editions they might have purchased. Two copies of mixed editions with the dates of 1742 and 1751 are preserved at the Museo Correr in Venice. Berlin Kat. 2695; Cicognara 4113; Millard Coll. IV, 153.