All’Ill. Sig. Francesco Maria Zambeccari come a suo singolar.mo Padrone Agostino Mitelli D.D.D.

Bologna (Ag.o Parisini For.), 1636.. 24 unnumbered etched plates, loose as issued, printed on buff-colored paper (watermarked with a paschal lamb in a circle surmounted by the initial A). 250 x 170 mm. (ca. 9 7/8 x 6 5/8 inches). Sm. 4to. Portfolio (modern gilt boards, 1/4 red morocco). This untitled suite of exuberant, often fantastical, decorative cartouches and other ornaments is one of four sets of prints by Agostino Mitelli (1606-1660), the renowned Bolognese quadratura painter, father of Giuseppe Maria Mitelli. Dated 1636, dedicated to Count Zambeccari,and printed and/or published by Agostino Parisini, it is known in several editions or issues. In one, the title-page was reworked with the “inscription Rousel exc.”; in another, with the name of Giovan Batista Paganelli, D.D. and a new dedication to Francesco Bandini. In the present copy, as in the set in the Victoria and Albert, one plate was reworked as a title-page in honor of the marriage of the Duke Paolo Spinola to the Princess Anna Colonna, and bears the date Perugia 1653; the arms of the two families are engraved on the tilted cartouches at top. The title-page also carries the credit, in the architrave below the dedication, “Gio. Jacomo Rossi formis Romae alla Pace, all insegna di Parigi.” The watermark is not in Briquet. Intermittent foxing and occasional light soiling; one plate with a clean tear at one corner, with old mend; a few light touches in pencil; nice impressions.