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Pitture a fresco del Campo Santo di Pisa, disegnate e intagliate da Carlo Lasinio Conservatore del medesimo
- Subjects
- Book illustration - Reproductive printmaking - Andrea di Bonaiuto da Firenze, active 1343-1377
- Book illustration - Reproductive printmaking - Antonio Veneziano, active 1369-1419
- Book illustration - Reproductive printmaking - Buffalmacco, active c. 1314-c. 1351
- Book illustration - Reproductive printmaking - Gozzoli (Benozzo), c. 1421-1497
- Book illustration - Reproductive printmaking - Spinello Aretino, c. 1350-c. 1410
- Book illustration - Reproductive printmaking - Taddeo Gaddi, c. 1290-1366
- Book illustration - Reproductive printmaking - Traini (Francesco), active 1321-1345
- Authors/Creators
- Lasinio, Carlo, 1759-1838
- Artists/Illustrators
- Lasinio, Carlo, 1759-1838
- Nenci, Francesco, 1781-1850
- Printers/Publishers
- Molini, Landi & Co., active 1805?-1812?
- Other names
- Rosini, Giovanni, 1776-1855
- Selenka, Philipp, 1803-1850
Lasinio, Carlo
Treviso 1759 – 1838 Pisa
Pitture a fresco del Campo Santo di Pisa intagliate da Cav. Carlo Lasinio Conservatore del medisimo.
Florence, Molini, Landi & Co. [i.e. Pisa, Tipografia Capurro?],1 1812
folio (595 × 470 mm), (1) f. letterpress (title-page, with engraved vignette); plus forty unnumbered etched and engraved double-page plates (each circa 475 × 805 mm), reproductions of the frescoes, after drawings by Francesco Nenci (nine plates), A. Niccolini (one plate), or Lasino himself (thirty plates). Lasinio’s plate ‘Abramo vittorioso’ is dated 1808 and his ‘Combattimento di S. Efeso contro i Pagani di Sardegna’ is dated 1810.
contents ■ Veduta interna del Campo Santo, drawn by Niccolini, and engraved by Lasinio ■ Il Giudizio universale e l’Inferno, drawn and engraved by Lasino ■ Gli Amici di Giobbe, drawn and engraved by Lasinio ■ Il Trionfo della Morte, drawn and engraved by Lasinio ■ Maledizione di Cam, drawn by Nenci, and engraved by Lasinio ■ Gli Anacoreti nella Tebaide, drawn and engraved by Lasinio ■ Ubriachezza di Noè, drawn by Nenci, and engraved by Lasino ■ Ritorno, e miracolo di S. Ranieri, drawn and engraved by Lasinio ■ Le Sventure di Giobbe, drawn and engraved by Lasinio ■ La Torre di Babele, drawn by Nenci, and engraved by Lasinio ■ Adamo, e Lot in Egitto, drawn by Nenci, and engraved by Lasinio ■ Morte di S. Ranieri, drawn and engraved by Lasinio ■ Abramo, e gli Adorati di Belo, drawn by Nenci, and engraved by Lasinio ■ Arca di Noè, e il Diluvio, drawn and engraved by Lasinio ■ Partenza di Agar da Abramo, drawn and engraved by Lasinio ■ Infanzia e primi prodigi di Mosè, drawn by Nenci, and engraved by Lasinio ■ Abramo vittorioso, drawn by Nenci, and engraved by Lasinio ■ Il Sacrifizio d’Abramo, drawn by Nenci, and engraved by Lasinio ■ Passaggio del Mar Rosso, drawn by Nenci, and engraved by Lasinio ■ La Morte di Abele, drawn and engraved by Lasinio ■ Nascita di Giacobbe, e di Esau, drawn and engraved by Lasino ■ Conversione di S. Ranieri, drawn and engraved by Lasinio ■ Miracoli di S. Ranieri, drawn and engraved by Lasino ■ S. Ranieri prende il abito d’Eremita, drawn and engraved by Lasinio ■ Le Tavole delle Legge, drawn and engraved by Lasinio ■ La Verga d’ Aronne, e il serpente di bronzo, drawn and engraved by Lasinio ■ Incendio di Sodoma, drawn and engraved by Lasinio ■ Miracoli di S. Ranieri morto, drawn and engraved by Lasinio ■ Le Nozze di Rebecca, drawn and engraved by Lasino ■ Incontro di Giacobbe, e d’Esau, e ratto di Diana, drawn and engraved by Lasinio ■ Martirio dei SS. Efeso, e Potito, drawn and engraved by Lasinio ■ La Creazione, drawn and engraved by Lasino ■ Combattimento di S. Efeso contro i Pagani di Sardegna, drawn and engraved by Lasino ■ L’Adorazione dè Magi, drawn and engraved by Lasinio ■ Presentazione di S. Efeso all’ Imperator Diocleziano, drawn and engraved by Lasinio ■ Giuseppe che si scopre ai fratelli in Egitto, drawn and engraved by Lasinio ■ La Caduta di Gerico, e il gigante Golia, drawn and engraved by Lasinio ■ Innocenza di Giuseppe, drawn and engraved by Lasinio ■ Le Nozze di Giacobbe e di Rachele, drawn and engraved by Lasinio ■ La Crocifissione, drawn and engraved by Lasinio
Occasional foxing and staining in margins, particularly toward the end; publisher’s drystamp in lower corners of plates.
bound in russia leather, decorated in gilt; engraved ticket printed on green paper Gebunden bei Ph. Selenka in Wiesbaden.
A fine suite of prints reproducing frescoes painted circa 1350 in a cloister used as a cemetery for illustrious Pisan citizens up to 1779. Among the most celebrated works of the printmaker Lasinio, the prints ‘must be placed amongst the finest reproductive illustrations of the nineteenth century and, indeed, were almost the first large-scale reproductions of any cycle of early Italian fresco painting’.2 Although giving a misleadingly positive impression of the overall state of preservation of the frescoes, Lasinio’s etchings have nonetheless acquired documentary value, owing to the damage inflicted by bombardment in 1944.
The publication was jointly conceived by Giovanni Rosini, professor of Italian at Pisa University, and Carlo Lasinio, professor of engraving at the Accademia in Florence, during the latter’s visit to the Camposanto on 6 January 1806.3 A prospectus inviting subscriptions for a set of etchings was published in 1806, when it was anticipated that the work would commence in September, and take four to five years to complete.4 By 1810, twenty-eight plates had been issued, and it was forecast that the remainder would be published within the next eighteen months.5 The work was completed two years later, and issued thereafter as a suite of forty unnumbered plates, each carrying the publication line of Giuseppe Molini and Giuseppe Landi, preceded by a letterpress title-page with their imprint dated 1812. Prospective purchasers were offered copies in a variety of forms.6
About 1816, two prints were added to series,7 and six folios of explicatory letterpress introduced.8 Previously, the order of the plates had been left to whim or discretion of the binder;9 from now on, the plates (still without numbers) were arranged to follow the order of their discussion in this letterpress.
In 1822, Giuseppe Molini, now working on his own at Florence, published a new edition. Landi’s name was erased from the matrices and the plates were numbered i–ii, i–xl. The descriptive letterpress was reprinted (on fourteen folios) and a new title dated 1822 was supplied.10 The matrices afterwards passed to other publishers, who issued further editions at Florence in 1828 and 1841; a facsimile reprint (Cassa di Risparmio di Firenze) was made in 1976. In addition, Lasinio’s son, Giovanni Paolo Lasinio, published his own, smaller version of the Camposanto frescoes in 1832, after a series of drawings by Giovanni Rossi.
Our copy evidently was issued circa 1812–1815 and bound some twenty years later. It contains the engraved ticket of the bookbinder Philipp Selenka (1803–1850) of Wiesbaden, younger brother of Johann Jacob Selenka, Hofbuchbinder in Braunschweig.11
references Leopoldo Cicognara, Catalogo ragionato dei libri d’arte e d’antichità posseduti dal conte Cicognara (Pisa 1821), no. 3402 (‘40 immense tavole atlantico… opera ottima, e insigne, eseguita con nobiltà, e senza eccesso di lusso’); Paola Cassinelli, Carlo Lasinio incisioni (Florence 2004), no. 31 (40 plates); Early printed books 1478–1840: catalogue of the British Architectural Library, Early Imprints Collection (London & Munich 1994–2003), no. 1769.
1. Giuseppe and Luigi Molini, Operette bibliografiche (Florence 1858), p.4, claim that books published with the imprint Florence, ‘Molini, Landi e C.o,’ were in fact printed at Pisa, ‘dalla tipografia Capurro, diretta dal chiarissimo prof. cav. Giovanni Rosini, che era il terzo socio di questa ditta; ma ho creduto inutile notarle, non servendo allo scopo prefissomi’.
2. Christopher Lloyd, Art and its images: an exhibition of printed books containing engraved illustrations after Italian painting, Bodleian Library (Oxford 1975), pp.52, 110–112 no. 44. The prints proved to be very influential on 19th-century European art, particularly on the Pre-Raphaelites in Britain; see Jorge L. Contreras, ‘James Collinson, the Campo Santo and the Birth of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood’ in Journal of Pre-Raphaelite Studies 15 (2006), pp.5–18.
3. Giampiero Lucchesi, ‘Carlo Lasinio e le “scritte” nascoste nelle sue incisioni degli affreschi del camposanto’ in Bollettino storico pisano 62 (1993), p.385; Lucia Tosi, ‘Tra Accademia delle Belle Arti e Scuola di Disegno: l’insegnamento delle arti a Pisa’ in Alessandro Gherardesca, edited by Gabriele Morolli (Pisa 2002), p.161.
4. Pitture del Campo Santo di Pisa intagliate presso gli originali da Carlo Lasinio (Florence: Presso Molini, Landi e Co., 1806); copies of the prospectus are in the British Library (inserted in 259* h 8) and National Art Library, Victoria & Albert Museum (107.J Box I). The ‘Condizioni della soscrizioni’ are printed on p.ix. For other information about the enterprise, see Donata Levi, ‘Carlo Lasinio, Curator, Collector and Dealer’ in The Burlington Magazine 135 (February 1993), p.133 note 5.
5. Giovanni Rosini, Lettere pittoriche sul Campo Santo di Pisa (Pisa 1810–[1813]), pp.5–6: ‘Tutti i disegni son compiuti, 28 Tavole son già pubblicate, 3 son prossime a pubblicarsi, sicchè non passeranno forse 18 mesi, che sarà in luce la intiera Collezione di esse’.
6. Cf. Catalogo dei Libri che si trovano vendibili presso Giuseppe Molini e Comp. (Florence 1820), p.161, offering ‘ordinary’ copies ‘leg. pulitamente in mezza legatura’ (priced 400 Paoli), ‘Il medesimo coi rami avanti lettera’ (600 Paoli), ‘Un esemplare solo coi rami avanti tutte le lettere’ (800 Paoli), ‘Le medesime accuratamente miniate in colori sotto gli originali, nelle quali sono stati suppliti e miniati quei pezzi che non si trovano negli originali per essere stati distrutti dal tempo. Il titolo di ciascheduna figura, non meno che il frontespizio sono eseguiti in lettere d’oro’ (2000 Paoli). The forty preparatory drawings by Francesco Nenci were also offered for sale (8000 Paoli). Some prints are known in multiple states; cf. Lucchesi, op. cit., pp.394–397, describing a copy with dedicatory inscriptions added by an etching needle to sixteen prints.
7. One is an aquatint by Domenico Landini (‘a Milano’) after a drawing by Francesco Frullani, depicting the interior of the Campo Santo, with a legend ‘Veduta interna del campo santo di Pisa | Vue de l’intérieur du cimetière de Pise’ (no publication line). The other plate is signed ‘Cav. Carlo Lasino inc.’ (without the name of a draughtsman), with a legend ‘Frammenti di pitture di Bruno e Spinello | Fragmens de Peintures de Bruno et Spinello | All’ Illustrissimo ed Ornatissimo Sig.r Tommaso Posder [i.e. Tommaso Poschi] Presidente della R. Accademia delle Belle Arti in Pisa ec ec ec’ (no publication line).
8. The sources for this descriptive text are identified (p.11) as Giuseppe Rosini, Descrizione delle pitture di Campo Santo di Pisa coll’indicazione dei monumenti ivi raccolti (Pisa 1816), and Sebastiano Ciampi, Notizie inedite della Sagrestia pistoiese de’ belli arredi del Campo Santo pisano (Florence 1810). The cataloguers of the British Architectural Library, unaware that there were issues of the prints before this letterpress, thus speculate that the actual date of publication was not ‘1812’, but post-1816; see Early printed books 1478–1840, op. cit., p.937.
9. Compare Bodleian Library (Douce Prints A. 1*) cited by Christopher Lloyd, ‘A note on Carlo and Giovanni Paolo Lasinio’ in The Bodleain Library Record 10 (1978), p.53; Uffizi, Gabinetto Disegni e Stampe, 104076/1–40, with a different order of the prints (Paola Cassinelli, op. cit., pp.87–91).
10. G. and L. Molini, op. cit., ‘Annali delle opere pubblicate’, pp.13–14 no. 29: ‘Pitture a fresco del Camposanto di Pisa, intagliate in 42 grandi tavole in rame da Carlo Lasinio, con illustrazione, scritta dal P. Pompilio Tanzini delle Scuole Pie. Firenze 1822… Quest’opera fu già pubblicata in sole 40 tavole, al prezzo di paoli dieci ognuna, dalla cessata ditta Molini, Landi e Co; ma nel 1822, G. Molini vi aggiunse due tavole, stampò l’illustrazione, e ne ridusse il prezzo come sopra [i.e. to 350 Paoli toscani]’.
11. Two bindings by Philipp Selenka in the Fürstlich Waldecksche Hofbibliothek, Arolsen, are described by Rudolf-Alexander Schütte and Konrad Wiedemann, Einbandkunst vom frühmittelalter bis Jugendstil aus den Bibliotheken in Kassel und Arolsen, Universitätsbibliothek Kassel (Kassel 2002), p.54 no. 68 and Abb. 51 (on R.W. Plumer, Tremaine, or the man of refinement, London 1835) and no. 70 (Eduard und Kunigunde, Frankfurt am Main: Frebs, c. 1840). He was a specialist ‘Portefeuillearbeiter’; see Hektor Rössler, Ausführlicher Bericht über die von dem Gewerbverein für das Großherzogthum Hessen im Jahre 1842 veranstaltete Allgemeine deutsche Industrie-Ausstellung zu Mainz (Darmstadt 1843), p.240.