Les Aventures de Télémaque fils d'Ulysse. Nouvelle Edition Enrichie de Figures en taille-douce et de Notes Historiques, Politiques, et Morales.
Venise: chez Guillaume Zerletii, 1768. Two volumes. 8vo. 230 x 155 mm. (9 x 6 inches). xlviii, 272 pp.; 262, 2 pp. Engraved frontispiece, two engraved title-pages, folding map and 24 vignettes. Bound in contemporary paste-paper boards, soiled but sound; some staining to lower right corner of some of the leaves. With faults an acceptable copy.
Appears to be the first edition printed by Zerletti, who published a more expensive edition in 1788. This is the first appearance of the engravings by Giovanni Volpato (1740-1803), a professional engraver from Bassano, who worked with the Remondinis' publishing house. "In 1762 he was brought by Bartolozzi to Joseph Wagner's shop in Venice" and worked with several printers until 1772 when he moved to Rome to run his own shop and open a school of engraving. In 1786 he published a book with 36 plates entitled, Principi del Disegno. Raphael Morghen was among his many pupils in Rome.
The in this edition of Les Aventures de Télémaque Volpato’s his engravings are in the classical style and some of them demonstrate his skill capturing the moment and highlighting the action of the scene. He is best remembered for series of plates after the frescos in the Vatican.
Hind, Short History of Engraving and Etching p. 209. Claudia Lazzaro, Eighteenth Century Italian Prints, from the Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Marcus S. Sopher, 1980, p. 37. See Morazoni p. 229 for a description of the 1788 edition by Zerletti. (94). Item #94
Price: $125.00