TRATTATO DELLE PIANTE & IMMAGINI DE SACRI EDIFIZI DI TERRA SANTA DISEGNATE IN JERUSALEMME SECONDO LE REGOLE DELLA PERSPECTTIVA... by AMICO, Bernardino [Jacques Callot] - 1620

Florence: Pietro Cecconcelli, 1620. First Callot Edition. Hardcover. Small Ex libris of Sefik E. Atabey on front pastedown; ink stains on the title page and last leaf with some slight transference to other pages. Small hole from ink in last leaf affecting one letter, small hole in the title page blank margin from ink, piece excised (2-3/4" x 4-3/4") from upper corner of plate 43 with no apparent loss of image; minor marginal stains; burn hole in F1, no loss of text. A Very Good copy. Jacques Callot. Small folio (7-1/8" x 10-1/4") bound in 18th century tree calf leather, gilt ruled and decorated spine with the cypher "RD" or "RLD," edges speckled blue-green; marbled endpapers; [10], 65, [1] pages: [1], [4], A2, B1, C2-F2, G1, H2-I2, L2, M1, N2-R2, S1, T2-V2, X1, Y2-Z2, Aa-Cc2, Dd1, Ee2-Qq2, Rr1, Ss2-Vv2. Engraved architectural title page, 34 double-page plates showing 46 plans and views by Jacques Callot, including a plan of Jerusalem after Antonio de Angelis (1578), woodcut printer's device at end. The first edition of this rare work was published in 1609 in Rome with plates by Antoine Tempesta, with whom the celebrated French engraver Jacques Callot (1592-1635) later worked and with whom he went to Florence in 1614. It was there that the dedicatee of this edition, Cosimo II de'Medici, commissioned the plates for this edition. Callot reworked several of the original plates and added 9 new ones. They are unique in the work of Callot and made at the beginning of his most productive period. The format of the work is unusual. The plates were apparently printed first, on double-page sheets, then descriptive letterpress for each plate was set up to be printed on the versos of the plates. If there was more text than could be accommodated on the two versos, a single leaf was set up to print the remainder of the text. These odd leaves were signed as part of the ordinary alphabetic sequence. The author, the Franciscan Bernardo Amico, was Prior of his Order at Jerusalem from 1596 onwards for a period of five years. Many of the buildings now lost are described as they were still preserved at the turn of the sixteenth century." [Blackmer Catalog] Atabey 20 [this copy, not mentioning the excision]; Sotheby's Atabey Catalog 2002 lot 25 (this copy, mentioning the excision). Old owner's name on colophon "Manuel de la Pena" with a manuscript salutation at the end of the preface in a fine hand which is nearly the same as the printed one at the end of the dedication (Could this be authorial?).

Rembrandt owned a copy of the second edition and borrowed from it Amico's rendering of the Temple of Jerusalem as a domed octagonal building.