Details
CONTATO, Giandomenico. Catastico o sia raccolta di tutte le piante de terrini del sig.r Girolamo Giro. Manuscript survey on paper
£[Rovigo], 1782.
2° (520 x 380mm). 32 leaves (including 17 blanks). 116, 214. Title with vignette drawing below, on verso, 2 views all antiqua one incorporating a scale bar in Rovigo perches, the other view with tablet signed and dated by Contato, index with vignette, 2-page description of lands, each with views below, 12 explanation texts to face the estate plans decorated with 14 wash drawings of rural scenes, each text leaf drawn as a decorative trompe l'oeil page, 12 estate plans set over elaborate north arrows entwined with wild roses and other flowers, each delicately coloured and executed, fields numbered and keyed to accompanying text, arable in red, pasture in green, the farms and barns carefully drawn in perspective. Text and plans all within black-ruled and grey wash borders. Contemporary vellum over pasteboard (lightly spotted, corners slightly worn, neatly rebacked with early morocco label).
A highly attractive late 18th-century survey of the estates of Girolamo Giro, his land spread piecemeal along the northern banks of the river Adicetto near Rovigo. The maps are carefully executed and the texts delightfully illustrated with picturesque views of the local landscape and other stylised riverine and maritime scenes. For such a fragmented and relatively small estate this is an elaborate and very competant survey, indeed the ruled spaces left on the index and the number of blank leaves bound in, suggests that the task was intended to continue. Certainly Contato was both a good draughtsman and a good artist.
£[Rovigo], 1782.
2° (520 x 380mm). 32 leaves (including 17 blanks). 116, 214. Title with vignette drawing below, on verso, 2 views all antiqua one incorporating a scale bar in Rovigo perches, the other view with tablet signed and dated by Contato, index with vignette, 2-page description of lands, each with views below, 12 explanation texts to face the estate plans decorated with 14 wash drawings of rural scenes, each text leaf drawn as a decorative trompe l'oeil page, 12 estate plans set over elaborate north arrows entwined with wild roses and other flowers, each delicately coloured and executed, fields numbered and keyed to accompanying text, arable in red, pasture in green, the farms and barns carefully drawn in perspective. Text and plans all within black-ruled and grey wash borders. Contemporary vellum over pasteboard (lightly spotted, corners slightly worn, neatly rebacked with early morocco label).
A highly attractive late 18th-century survey of the estates of Girolamo Giro, his land spread piecemeal along the northern banks of the river Adicetto near Rovigo. The maps are carefully executed and the texts delightfully illustrated with picturesque views of the local landscape and other stylised riverine and maritime scenes. For such a fragmented and relatively small estate this is an elaborate and very competant survey, indeed the ruled spaces left on the index and the number of blank leaves bound in, suggests that the task was intended to continue. Certainly Contato was both a good draughtsman and a good artist.