Italy.- Bartoli (Pietro Santi) and Giovanni Pietro Bellori. Colonna Traiana eretta del Senato e Popolo Romano, engraved title, engraved dedication to Louis XIV, publisher's letterpress dedication, 7 engraved diagrams of Trajan's Column unnumbered as issued, including the 3-part view of the column in its entirety, not joined, 119 numbered engraved plates of the frieze, with 16 pp. letterpress text description of Alfonso Chacón and index, excellent richly inked impressions on thick laid paper watermarked with single encircled fleur-de-lis, short tear to title, scattered spotting, most marginal or to letterpress text, contemporary half-calf, rebacked, a little rubbed, oblong folio, Rome, Giacomo De' Rossi, [n.d but probably eighteenth century]

⁂ An impressive, edition of Bartoli's engraved masterpiece, based on his own drawings of Trajan's column. Bartoli was able to inspect the column up-close in the 1660s when King Louis XIV of France commissioned the erection of scaffolding in order to make a cast of the whole frieze. The publication was an immediate success, and copies were produced throughout the 18th and early 19th century.