first edition Quarter Calf. Marbled Boards.
Roma
Roma: A. Depolette. First Edition Presumed. Quarter Calf. Marbled Boards.. Very Good Plus. N.d., circa 1840. Large paper version: folio, 34 by 23.5 cm. With 62 hand-colored costume plates, plus engraved title page with hand-colored vignette and dedication page with hand-colored portrait of Pope Pio IX. These images of Vatican dress, both which cover both ecclessiastic and military costume, are generally encountered in a far smaller, leporello format, with also fewer images -- typically thirty plates. In this other guise, the target audience were the many tourists who paid a visit to Rome and were enamored with a pocket souvenir. The diminutive leporello assuredly exudes enormous charm that has not diminished over nearly two centuries, but the images really do not quite match these original Marroni engravings with their excellent detailing and glorious hand-coloring, and we would stress, the coloring is not only brilliant, but also it would appear not to have lost one bit of lustre from the day it was applied to paper. Scuffs to leather. Newer marbled paper pastedown on boards. A small amount of scattered light soiling and/or foxing, mostly in the early leaves, such as there is.
(Inventory #: 005297)