CHACON, Alfonso - Lot 14

CHACON, Alfonso Historia utriusque belli Dacici a Traiano Caesare gesti... ex simulachris quae in columna eiusdem Romae visuntur collecta... ad catholicum Hispaniarum regem Philippum II Rome, Francesco Zanetti & Bartolomeo Tosio, 1576 THE FIRST ENGRAVED REPRESENTATION OF THE FAMOUS BAS-RELIEFS OF THE TRAJAN COLUMN. WITH TWO SUPERB LARGE FOLDING PLATES ILLUSTRATING THIS GREAT MONUMENT OF ANTIQUITY, A MASTERPIECE OF SCULPTURE. A RARE AND PRECIOUS WORK, WHEN BOUND IN ORIGINAL ORIGINAL EDITION In-folio (310 x 240mm) in contemporary leather. Wood-engraved initials [6 lines long] and cul-de-lampe Typographical mark with aldine anchor printed on the title page. The use of the anchor is probably explained by the fact that Francesco Zanetti, originally from Venice, and Bartolomeo Tosio were both disciples of Paolo Manuzio. Manuzio moved to Rome in 1564 to manage the papal printing works, which became known as the Stamperia del popolo romano. He was protected by Pope Gregory XIII and died in 1574. COLLATION: A-F4 + 4 leaves (6 plates) + 130 double pages; A3r-F1v paginated 5-42 CONTENTS: A1r title, A2r dedication to the King of Spain, A3r text Columnae traiani tam intimae quam extimae frontistisima exactissima orthographia, F2r Index columnae traianicae explicationem (6 pp.) ILLUSTRATION: 6 engraved plates on 3 pages, one double [1: 2 end-to-end plates including the outside of the column; 2: 2 end-to-end plates, one of which folds out for the inside of the column; 3: 2 cutaway plates of the inside of the column printed on double pages]; 130 plates printed on double pages numbered 1-130, A TOTAL OF 133 PLATES DRAWN BY GIROLAMO MUZIANO AND ENGRAVED BY FRANCESCO VILLAMENA FRENCH BINDING circa 1600 (probably Provençal). Red morocco, gilded decoration, large central fleuron with foliage motif, double framing of fillets with fleurons at the corners, ribbed spine with fleuron, red speckled edges. PROVENANCE : Vincent-François Jouvène, Marseilles merchant (17th-century handwritten bookplate on title page: Ex Bibliotheca Vincentii fransci Jouvene Massiliensis). The Jouvène family, an important Provencal trading family ennobled at the beginning of the 18th century, produced an alderman in Marseille at the end of the 16th century and a councillor at the Parlement de Provence. A Jouvène street and square still belong to the old aristocratic quarter of Arles. CENSUS: 6 copies in the U.S.A.: Boston Athenaeum, Princeton (calf, circa 1600, formerly Librairie Sokol, £14,500), George Washington University (modern binding), Yale (Borghese copy), Emery Library in Atlanta. USTC and EDIT16 list 7 copies in Europe: 3 in France and 4 in Italy. The BnF copy is bound in late 17th-century red morocco; it is stout and not very elegant. The work is very rare at auction: only two occurrences, including this one. A copy of this edition, without the plates, but bound in vellum for the famous Pillone library, appeared in the Hauck sale (New York, June 27, 2006, lot 233). A copy incomplete with one plate was offered by the Sokol bookshop in 1997. The two folding plates are slightly missing, plate 14 is slightly missing, there are a few faint brown spots in the first few leaves or in the margins of some plates, some old reinforcements on the verso of plates 38, 39, 42, 43, 85, 90, 110, 111, 121, 124, 127, 128 and 130, sometimes filling old tears. Inaugurated in 113 A.D., the Trajan column, the only intact element of Trajan's sumptuous Forum, has been at the center of numerous interpretative debates since the 15th century. All revolve around the same question: how can and should art represent history and its violence? In short, the question of the epic. But it is also through the style of their sculptures themselves that these bas-reliefs created by the "Master of the Trajan Column" exerted a multisecular and decisive influence, from Michelangelo to Rodin. Around 1500, Pope Alexander VI (d. 1503) and Julius II commissioned the painter Jacopa Ripanda (d. 1516) to draw an exhaustive survey of the column. The artist designed a sighting device that made him famous. He completed his survey under particularly perilous conditions, as he was suspended in a basket. Later in the century, Pope Gregory XIII (1502-1585) was elected in one day by the shortest conclave in the history of the Church (May 14, 1472). He owed his election to the Spanish party, and thus to Philip II. Emperor Trajan himself was of Spanish origin, and Philip II was fascinated by him. The pope therefore commissioned the Spanish scholar Alfonso Chacon (1540-1599) to produce a work that would, for the first time, depict all the bas-reliefs on the column.