Ratti, Carlo Giuseppe
Savona 1737 – 1795 Genoa

Istruzione di quanto può vedersi di più bello in Genova in pittura, scultura, ed architettura.

Genoa, Paolo & Adamo Scionico, 1766

octavo (160 × 115 mm), (208) ff. signed *⁶ §⁸ A–Z⁸ Aa-Bb⁴ Cc² and paginated i–xxii (i.e. xx, pp. iii–iv passed over) (8) 1–404, plus engraved city plan ‘Genova nel solo giro delle sue mura vecchie con l’esposizione delle Chiese e luoghi principali: Misurata a passi Geometrici da Giacomo Brusco Inge­gnere Aiut 1766’ (matrice 310 × 450 mm) signed Gio. Lor. Guidotti incise in Lucca.

provenance Georg Karl (Ignaz Johann Nepomuk) von Fechenbach zu Laudenbach (1749–1808), Fürstbischof von Würzburg, engraved armorial exlibris G.C. v. Fechenbach pasted in margin of folio *3 recto; inven­tory/shelfmarks on binding wrapper Nr. 1177 | C.5 with I.16 written on the spine — Hartung & Hartung, Auktion 115 (‘Dabei Teil iii der Bibliothek des fränkischen Adels­geschlechts von Fechenbach’), Munich, 7 November 2006, lot 937

An unusually fresh, uncut and mostly unopened, copy.

bound in contemporary marbled paper wrappers (an interim binding)

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First edition of the first guidebook to Genoa, com­piled by the painter Carlo Giuseppe Ratti, director of the School of Painting at the Accademia Ligustica di Belle Arti, and dedi­cated to Girolamo Durazzo by its publisher.

Son of the distinguished Genoese painter Giovanni Agostino Ratti, Carlo Giuseppe had studied in Rome with Placido Costanzi (1756–1759), and there became a close friend and follower of Anton Raphael Mengs and Johann Joachim Winckelmann, both of whom were formative influences on his interest in histori­ography, and his desire to reform and rejuve­nate the Genoese artistic tradition through the academy. Ratti’s principal publication was the 1768–1769 revision of Soprani’s Vite de pittori (1674), still a critical text for the mod­ern study of Genoese art and artists.

A second edition (‘Nuovamente ampliata, ed accre­sciuta in questa seconda Edizione dall’Autore medesimo’) was published in 1780, accompanied by a guide to the Riviera (Descrizione delle pitture, scolture, e archi­tetture, ecc., che trovansi in alcune città, borghi, e castelli delle due riviere dello stato Ligure). A facsimile of it was published in 1976.

This first edition is scarce: no copy has yet been obtained by the Getty Research Institute, National Gallery of Art, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Canadian Centre for Architecture, or Bibliotheca Hertziana, all in recent years active collectors of ‘Le fonti della storia dell’ arte’.

These copies are known to the writer

● Dunedin, New Zealand, University of Otago, DeBeer (Special Collections), Ib 1766 R ● Florence, Kunsthistorische Institut, N 3843 (Raro) ● Genoa, Universitaria di Genova, Biblioteca, 2.R.Ibis.6 ● Lexington, University of Kentucky Library, 914.5182 R189 ● London, British Library, 10132.a.24 (lacking folding plate) ● Milan, Civica Biblioteca d’arte, X.1 ● Modena, Biblioteca civica di storia dell’arte Luigi Poletti, CAM D 0176 ● Modena, Biblioteca Estense Universitaria, E 031 B 032 ● New York, Columbia University, Avery Library, AA 1116 G2 R181 ● Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, V–50494 (mis­dated 1756) ● Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, Arsenal – Magasin 8–H–3923 ● Parma, Biblioteca Palatina, PAL 3529 and AA VIII.24671 (two copies) ● Rome, Biblioteca romana e emeroteca ● Rome, Biblioteca Casanatense ● Rome, Biblioteca dell’Accademia nazionale dei Lincei e Corsiniana ● Rome, British School at Rome, S.689.GEN(2).3 ● Urbana-Champaign, University of Illinois Library, 914.5121 R189i ● Zurich, Zentralbibliothek, Rx689

reference Leopoldo Cicognara, Catalogo ragionato dei libri d’arte e d’antichità posseduti dal conte Cicognara (Pisa 1821), no. 4225

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Height of binding 155 mm