first edition Hardcover
1729 · Rome
by ROME. FESTIVALS
Rome: Nella Stamperia di Gio. Battista de Caporali, per andare all'Orso, 1729. FIRST EDITION. Hardcover. Fine. Bound in later carta rustica. A fine, fresh copy on crisp paper. Very faint soiling to upper margin. A large historiated initial, decorative head- and tail-pieces. With the arms of Cardinal Polignac on the title page. A very rare account of the elaborate transformation of Piazza Navona to celebrate the birth of the Dauphin Louis, son of King Louis XV of France (1715-1774) and his royal consort María Leszczyńska (1703-1768). The Rococo painter Pier Leone Ghezzi (1674-1750), charged with staging the events, had the piazza “restored” to its ancient (truncated)