Lucernae Fictiles Musei Passerii

First of 3 volumes in folio. ff. [9], pp. xxviii, ff. cv, pp. 92.

Contains numerous engravings: the frontispiece in this volume is a portrait of the Archbishop Friderico Lantio de Ruvere, engraved by Carlo Gregori after Giuseppe Menabuoni; emblematic title vignette by Giovanni Battista Passeri, engraved by Vincenzo Franceschini. The plates, also head- and tail-pieces, are engraved after Giuseppe Menabuoni by mainly by Vincenzo Franceschini, also by Sante Manelli, Joseph de Benedictis, Giuseppe Benedetti, Jos. Papini, Antonio Pazzi, Carlo Faucci, Bernardo Sansone Sgrilli, Giovanni Medici (signing: Joseph Medici, G. Medici, J. Medici), Ni. Lebrun and Niccolò Mogalli.

First edition of an illustrated overview of Giovanni Batista Passeri's collection of "antique" oil lamps. The collection was famous in its days as the best of its kind, but scholars have subsequently proved Passeri to have been the most gullible of collectors and that his collection consisted almost entirely of fakes.

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