PIRANESI, Giovanni Battista ( 1720--1778)
[Le antichità romane. 1784]
Le antichità romane opera del Cavaliere Giambatista Piranesi ...
Roma:, nella stamperia Salomoni,, 1784.
4 vols ; 54.7 cm. (2°)
I: [8], 40, XI, [1], iii, [1], IV, iii, [3] p., etch. port., [46] etch. pl. numbered 1-XLIIII (3 unnumbered, 3 fold.) : etch. initials
II: LXIII etch. pl. (1 fold.)
III: LIV etch. pl. (1 fold.)
IV: LVII [i.e. 59] etch. pl. (5 fold.)

Soane also owned a copy of the first printing of 1756 (q.v.). The letterpress in vol. I has been re-set for this new edition. It was published by Piranesi's son Francesco (1758-1810), who has added two new plates of his own in vol. I (numbered XLV and XLVI) and replaced Polanzani's engraved portrait of his father with a new one signed 'Franciscus Piranesius invenit et sculpsit 1779 / Josephus Cades vultum delineavit'. The original dedicatory frontispiece in vol. I (pl. I) has also been re-worked to bear a dedication to Francesco Piranesi's patron Gustav III of Sweden, whose arms replace those of Lord Charlemont in the cartouche.

Copy Notes Bound in at the end of vol. IV is a single-sheet engraved Catalogo dell opere date finora alle luce da Gio. Battista Piranesi (q.v.). Hind (p.6, no. 12) dates this state to around 1779 and reproduces it as pl. II in his Giovanni Battista Piranesi: a critical study (London 1922). It is inscribed in ink on the verso 2 Heliodorus.

Binding C19th calf, gilt-ruled borders, gilt-ruled spine, red and black spine-labels gilt-lettered 'Piranesi Antichit.' and 'Tom. I. [IV]'. Part of a 12-volume set re-bound by Hood and McCullock, to whom Soane paid £24 on 3 July 1826. (Archive 16/12/38).

Reference Number 6404

Additional Names Hood & McCullock; Piranesi, Francesco (1758--1810)