Calli e Canali in Venezia (Streets and Canals in Venice)

Venice: Linea d'acqua, 2010. Limited edition Facsimile. Hardcover. very good. Linea d'acqua, Venezia, 2010. No. 213 of a limited edition of 250. size 20 x 14 x 2.5 inches, weight 20lb. Fernando Ongania published TWO large format volumes of brilliant photos of Venice. This facsimile combines all 185 photos of both volumes (read more below)
--- Introduction Italian, 20pp, 185 plates. Includes a laid-in index of all 185 plates with the names of the buildings/locations and a brief description (in Italian)
The condition.of the book and the plates is very good. The white cover has some spots and smudging. No slipcase.
Ships from Hawaii with free Priority Mail upgrade within the US (a $75-$100 value!).

Fernando Ongania published TWO large format volumes of brilliant photos of Venice. The first in 1891 titled 'Calli e Canali in Venezia" (with 100 photographic plates) and in 1895 'Calli e canali e isole della laguna' ((with 85 photographic plates of Venice and the islands in the lagoon. There are also 15 pages with reproductions of paintings and prints of pre-photo times). This first facsimile of these books the Venetian publisher and antiquaruian bookseller Linea d'Acqua combines in excellent quality all 185 photographic plates of both volumes, excluding the paintings.

The brilliance of the photos in these late 19th century books is astonishing. Ongania used a technology called Heliogravure process for printing. The facsimile manages to match that quality, which was not easy to achieve. ---
Fernando Ongania was a 19th century bookseller of old and new books. He also offered a lending library with English and French books His bookshop was on St. Marks Place, just a few doors down from Cafe Florian. He supplied a prestigious clientele, a lot of them foreigners, including such scholars and bibliophiles as John Ruskin and J.P. Morgan; He is today most well known for his publishing work. He published works of amazing quality, such as 10-year project to document the Basilica of St. Mark (45 chromolithographs, 422 heliotypes, 132 engravings in 16 mainly over-sized volumes), - The undertaking linked to the name of Ongania that is best remembered today are the two volumes of Calli e Canali in Venezia, (Streets and Canals in Venice). This is a series of 185 photographs of late-nineteenth century Venice, brilliantly reproduced using the technique of héliogravure and contained in two portfolios. It is not just the quality of the photos of buildings and canals, but the large number of photos of 'everyday life', of the people living and working in Venice at the time. So it's not just the same famous buildings again. It is the last testimony to a Venice that no longer exists, one overflowing with life at every corner, with water-scapes silently crossed by gondolas and rowing-boats. A splendid but sober Venice, one as yet untouched by tourism and the industrial experiments of the twentieth century: the Venice of boats with cabins, elegant ladies with parasols, and women with draped headdresses.