Musei Capitolini Tomus

3 small folio volumes, contemporary red morocco, gilt garland with scrolls on covers, highlighted by a gilt roll, flowers, the large coat of arms of Madame de Pompadour surmounted by the motto in gold letters “Menus Plaisir du Roy”, gilt title, gilt floral compartments, spine with six raised bands, double gilt fillet on the edges, marbled endpapers, a gilt garland on the pastedowns, gilt and marbled edges. Contemporary decorated and armorial binding.
4 ll.- 42 pp., 97 plates ; 3 ll.-56 pp., 88 plates, 4 ll.-196 pp., 91 plates : 276 etchings in black. Parts 1 and 2 : 1748-1750. Part 3 : 1755. Title and engraved title for each volume.

405 x 270 mm.

Bottari, Giovanni Gaetano (1689-1775). Musei Capitolini tomus [...] cum animadversionibus italice primum nunc latine editis. 
Rome, Antonio de Rubeis, 1750-1755.

This famous work illustrated by Giovanni Domenico Campiglia (1692-1768), Roman engraver and painter whose 4th volume was published after the death of Madame de Pompadour.

A very rare work.

The 4th volume is ofteh missing but here Madame de Pompadour having already died in 1764 (the date of publication of the fourth volume), she could not have owned the final volume. It is almost impossible to find all three volumes of this celebrated work on the market. Wide-margined, bound in its original morocco leather. Engraved headpieces, very fine initials with views of Rome, and a large vignette on the title page, notably by Vasi. In 1743, the first public museum opened its doors in Rome: the Museo Capitolino. To celebrate its founder, Pope Clement XII Corsini, the publication of all the sculptures in the collection was planned. Ultimately, four volumes, containing some 350 plates, were published, first in Italian, then in Latin. Giovanni Gaetano Bottari, the Corsini librarian, was entrusted with writing the text, the manuscript of the last volume being to be completed by Canon Niccolò Foggini, nephew of Bottari's successor, Pier Francesco Foggini.

The sculptures are classified by genre. Busts of famous men (1) are followed by portraits of emperors (2). The third volume contains the large-format statues.

Only one statue is presented from two different views: that of the Dying Gaul (vol. 3, pl. 67 and 68).

All the reproductions were made by Giovanni Domenico Campiglia (1692–1775), who had previously worked for the Museum Florentinum. The drawings present the pieces against a neutral background and often include views from unusual angles, which could be explained by the museum's high ceilings. Campiglia also seems to have worked by torchlight, often illuminating the bodies and faces from below, emphasizing the musculature and shadows of the sculptures. The precision of the proportions suggests that he may have used a camera obscura.

Numerous engravers worked on printing the designs, most of them Florentine or Roman: Pazzi, Carlo Gregori, Billy, Girolamo De Rossi, Mazzoni, Parocel, Marco Antonio Corsi, the Spaniards Gennaro and Gutierrez, Sintes, and Silvestro Pomared.

Antonio De Rossi's printing house was active between 1695 and 1755, and this work is one of the finest examples of his high level of output.

Graesse, Trésor de livres rares et précieux, IV, 636; Brunet, III, 1963. Few defects, some foxing or uniform oxidation on a few pages.

The Grand Duke of Tuscany placed Bottari in charge of the Grand Ducal Printing Press, and several works soon appeared from it, not by him, but whose editions he directed with the greatest care. Until then, he had always remained in Florence; in 1750, he went to settle in Rome; in 1752, Pope Clement XII granted him a canonry and the chair of ecclesiastical history and controversy at the College of Sapienza; he appointed him Prelate Palatine the same year. Shortly afterward, Bottari, accompanied by the surveyor Manfredi, surveyed the Tiber from Perugia to the mouth of the Nera to see if it could be made navigable. They carried out the same survey on the Teverone from below Tivoli to its mouth. The account of the first of these two visits was printed, along with other writings relating to the Tiber, under the title: *Delle Ragioni e de' Rimedi delle inondazioni del Tevere*, Rome, 1746; it is signed by Manfredi; but Mazzuchelli asserts that it is the work of Bottari. The Pope, satisfied with this work, appointed him, some time later, Keeper of the Vatican Library. Bottari had the collection of medals placed there, which thereafter, according to the Pope's wishes, became one of the essential parts and one of the principal ornaments of that library. Clement XII having died on February 6, 1740, Bottari entered the conclave with Cardinal Corsini. There he completed the publication of a study of Virgil based on the Vatican manuscripts, by composing the preface and notes for the variants, or varias lectiones, which alone would suffice, as Mazzuchelli very rightly observes, to demonstrate his erudition. 

Cardinal Lambertini, with whom Bottari had a long-standing relationship, having been elected Pope Benedict XIV, wished to have him at his side. Although very attached to this pontiff, he wrote in 1751 to a friend in Brescia, "His Holiness absolutely wanted me in his palace. I am here and will remain here without advancing a single step, because I lack sufficient merit; because I don't care for it, I don't desire it, nor do I ask for it, and because it would be of no use to me, neither for my soul nor my body." After the death of Benedict XIV in 1758, Bottari retained his positions and influence under Clement XIII. He died in Rome on June 5, 1775. He was a member of the Florentine Academy, the Academy of the Crusca, the Apatisti, the Institute of Bologna, the Arcadian Academy, etc. Most 18th-century authors paid tribute to his taste and intellect, and spoke admiringly of his knowledge. He left behind a large number of works, and an even greater number of good editions of well-known works, to which he added clarifications, notes, and prefaces.       

Precious copy bound in a somptuous decorated morocco bearing the arms of Madame de Pompadour in the precious and very rare version of « Menus Plaisirs du Roy ».

Jeanne-Antoinette Poisson, duchess-marquise of Pompadour and Ménars near Blois, Lady of Saint-Ouen, daughter of Antoine, first clerk in the offices of the Paris brothers, and of a libertine mother, born in Paris on December 29, 1721, with all the seductive qualities of mind and body, received a careful education thanks to the protection of her mother's friend, the financier Le Normand de Tournehem, who arranged for her to marry on March 9, 1741 his nephew, Charles-Guillaume le Normand d'Etiolés, knight of honor at the presidial of Blois, then tax farmer, of whom she was the first wife and to whom she gave a daughter; cold and calculating, she set her ambition to become the mistress of Louis XV; She first had a most brilliant salon frequented by her admirers, artists and writers, then she succeeded in attracting the king's attention and on April 23, 1745, she was installed at court in the former apartment of Madame de Mailly; immediately created Marquise de Pompadour, then appointed lady of the palace to the queen on February 8, 1756, she reigned unchallenged over the king and governed France in his name for nineteen years, until her death, despite the constantly renewed intrigues and the libels of all kinds that rained down on her; if it must be agreed that she protected the arts and letters and that she founded the Sèvres factory, it must be recognized that her policy and her prodigality were detrimental to France. Madame de Pompadour, exhausted by the life of pleasure she had led, died at Versailles on April 15, 1764, aged only 42, leaving all her possessions to her brother, the Marquis de Marigny.