The repositioning of the Vatican obelisk, large etching from 1586

Natale Bonifacio after Giovanni Guerra & Domenico Fontana:

The move of the Vatican obelisk.

Large etching printed on 3 leaves from 3 plates, Rome 1586. 51 x 115,5
cms. Darkened, some slight wear and insignificant loss along edges. Worn
later frame, sheet not inspected out of frame.

Based on Domenico Fontana’s drawings, showing his plans for moving the
300-tonne obelisk to a new position directly in front of St. Peter’s in
Rome. Contemporary impression. (In a slightly later state the name of
Grassi as publisher has been added, as well as a greek-key border and a
cloudy sky in the lateral panels. In the later state the number 53
(LIII), seen here in lower right corner, has been burnished away.)
Provenance: Swedish architect Ivar Tengbom (1878-1968), one of the
best-known representatives of the Swedish neo-classical architecture of
the 1910s and 1920s; with the Tengbom family to date.

See Pamela O. Long: Engineering the Eternal City. Infrastructure,
Topography, and the Culture of Knowledge in Late Sixteenth-Century Rome
(2018), pp. 189 ff (chapter 8).

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