Details
BOLOGNA 1529 - Nel anno 1529 ad 5 de novembrio fece la intrada in bologna el serenissimo et potentissimo imperator Krlo .5. con tutti li soi baroni. Venice: 1st July 1530.
Oblong royal broadsheets (395 x 555 mm and slightly smaller), 12 woodcut illustrations (of 16), all but the last with xylographic text. ALL COLORED BY A CONTEMPORARY, PROBABLY GERMAN, HAND, with occasional strengthening of lines in pen and black ink. (Lacking the first four sheets, cable-ornament borders at head and foot cut away, sheets 5-16 slightly cropped at sides incidentally affecting image, more seriously the image and text at the right-hand edge of sheet 13, defects in plates 5, 14 and 16 repaired, other damage and repair in all plates, mostly at the margins, some browning or staining, all sheets backed with 19th-century paper obscuring any watermarks.) Hinged into mounts, red cloth portfolio. Provenance: 19th-century clipping mounted on verso of sheet 5, briefly describing this set, perhaps from a catalogue of W. Drugulin's Leipziger Kunst-Comptoir, no. 390 - L'Art Ancien (sold to Gourary 1959).
This grand series of anonymous woodcuts of Charles V's magnificent entry into Bologna, before his interview with Pope Clement VII and coronation as Holy Roman Emperor, is OF LEGENDARY RARITY. No more than four other sets are recorded and ONLY THE GOURARY SET IS COLORED. The cropped British Library set is included in an album assembled by Carlo Antonio dal Pozzo (1606-89), shelf-mark 134.g.10; the British Museum Print Room set lacks three sheets; the Map Room set of the University Library of Ghent is equally imperfect, but the Uffizi Gallery set in Florence is complete (a presentation copy of William Stirling Maxwell's 1875 facsimile is included with this lot, executed in a process that involved photography by Pietro Corrado Smorti and lithography by Ferdinando Lasinio). The imprint on the penultimate sheet of the Gourary set incorporates the complete date, while the Uffizi state omits the year and shows other small variations on most plates.
Although these remarkable woodcuts were executed and printed in Italy, the artist was almost certainly German, but no credible attribution has been advanced. The entry of CHARLES V (1500-58) into Bologna on 5th November 1529 is not to be confused with the events surrounding his double coronation on 22nd and 24th February 1530. Gaetano Giordano, Della venuta e dimora in Bologna del sommo Pontifice Clemente VII. per la Coronazione di Carlo V. (Bologna 1842) Documenti xvii, p. 14-19; P.J. Goethghebuer, "Sur l'entrée de l'empereur Charles-Quint à Bologna en 1529", in: Messager des sciences historiques, des arts et de la bibliographie de Belgique (Ghent 1855) p. 75-85; Vinet 552. Not in Watanabe, where more than a dozen other publications on Charles V's entry and coronation in Bologna are listed.
Oblong royal broadsheets (395 x 555 mm and slightly smaller), 12 woodcut illustrations (of 16), all but the last with xylographic text. ALL COLORED BY A CONTEMPORARY, PROBABLY GERMAN, HAND, with occasional strengthening of lines in pen and black ink. (Lacking the first four sheets, cable-ornament borders at head and foot cut away, sheets 5-16 slightly cropped at sides incidentally affecting image, more seriously the image and text at the right-hand edge of sheet 13, defects in plates 5, 14 and 16 repaired, other damage and repair in all plates, mostly at the margins, some browning or staining, all sheets backed with 19th-century paper obscuring any watermarks.) Hinged into mounts, red cloth portfolio. Provenance: 19th-century clipping mounted on verso of sheet 5, briefly describing this set, perhaps from a catalogue of W. Drugulin's Leipziger Kunst-Comptoir, no. 390 - L'Art Ancien (sold to Gourary 1959).
This grand series of anonymous woodcuts of Charles V's magnificent entry into Bologna, before his interview with Pope Clement VII and coronation as Holy Roman Emperor, is OF LEGENDARY RARITY. No more than four other sets are recorded and ONLY THE GOURARY SET IS COLORED. The cropped British Library set is included in an album assembled by Carlo Antonio dal Pozzo (1606-89), shelf-mark 134.g.10; the British Museum Print Room set lacks three sheets; the Map Room set of the University Library of Ghent is equally imperfect, but the Uffizi Gallery set in Florence is complete (a presentation copy of William Stirling Maxwell's 1875 facsimile is included with this lot, executed in a process that involved photography by Pietro Corrado Smorti and lithography by Ferdinando Lasinio). The imprint on the penultimate sheet of the Gourary set incorporates the complete date, while the Uffizi state omits the year and shows other small variations on most plates.
Although these remarkable woodcuts were executed and printed in Italy, the artist was almost certainly German, but no credible attribution has been advanced. The entry of CHARLES V (1500-58) into Bologna on 5th November 1529 is not to be confused with the events surrounding his double coronation on 22nd and 24th February 1530. Gaetano Giordano, Della venuta e dimora in Bologna del sommo Pontifice Clemente VII. per la Coronazione di Carlo V. (Bologna 1842) Documenti xvii, p. 14-19; P.J. Goethghebuer, "Sur l'entrée de l'empereur Charles-Quint à Bologna en 1529", in: Messager des sciences historiques, des arts et de la bibliographie de Belgique (Ghent 1855) p. 75-85; Vinet 552. Not in Watanabe, where more than a dozen other publications on Charles V's entry and coronation in Bologna are listed.