[SMUGLIEWICZ, Franciszek (1745-1807) and Vincenzo BRENNA (1745-1820)]. Vestigia delle terme di Tito e loro interni pitture. [Rome: Ludovico Mirri, c. 1776].

[SMUGLIEWICZ, Franciszek (1745-1807) and Vincenzo BRENNA (1745-1820)]. Vestigia delle terme di Tito e loro interni pitture. [Rome: Ludovico Mirri, c. 1776].

2° (686 x 885mm). Engraved double-page preface, engraved double-page title and 59 numbered double-page plates by Marco Carloni after Smugliewicz and Brenna, mounted on guards, 7 plates with folding extensions. (First plate lightly spotted, several plates detached from mounts, 3 folding plates strengthened along fold line on verso.) Uncut in 19th-century half vellum and mottled boards (lower joints slightly splitting, lower corners bumped).

A FINE COPY WITH DECKLE EDGES. The Polish-born painter, Franciszek Smugliewicz, worked in Rome between 1763 and 1785, winning first prize at the academy of San Luca. One of his most important commissions was to portray the recently re-excavated site under the Esquiline hill, known as the baths of Titus. Although Raphael had copied the emblematical paintings and stucco work for the logge of the Vatican, the rooms themselves had subsequently been covered over again. As the preface addressed to the 'amatori delle belle arti e della antichità' makes clear, posterity was indebted to Ludovico Mirri who financed new excavations in 1774, commissioned the designs of Smugliewicz and Brenna, and published this magnificent set of plates by Marco Carloni (1742-1796). Berlin Kat. 3950; Cicognara 3796 ('grandissimo volume').