Cesare - Quae Extant Omnia - 1737

BRITANNIA AMONG HISTORY, PROPAGANDA AND MYTH: CAESAR ILLUSTRATED, IN THE SIGN OF THE EMPIRE
This elegant Venetian edition from 1737 of Caesar’s works represents one of the most refined moments in the eighteenth-century reception of the classical text, where erudition, iconographic apparatus, and editorial ambition fuse into a high-quality product. The presence of engraved plates, such as the one depicting Roman Britain with ethnographic figures, visually translates the Caesarian narrative, turning the historical text into a nearly theatrical and symbolic account of Roman domination. The Latin-Italian bilingual edition, edited by Francesco Baldelli, reflects a didactic and divulgative intention typical of Venetian Enlightenment, while at the same time preserving a strong celebratory frame of the Roman imperial power, filtered through the late Baroque aesthetics of engraving.
MARKET VALUE
Complete copies of this 1737 Venetian edition, with engraved plates and in good condition, generally fall into a price range between 700 and 1,000 euros, with higher values for particularly fresh copies, with intact spines and well-preserved contemporary bindings.

PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION AND CONDITION
Contemporary binding in yellow bone vellum with corners, gold lettering on a spine label. Copper-engraved frontispiece with a portrait of Caesar, title page in red and black with a copper plate vignette, 5 plates off-text (some folded), numerous engraved figures in the text. Pages with some browning and foxing. In old books with a multi-century history, a few imperfections may be present, not always noted in the description. Pp. (2); 2nn; 686; 2nn; 40; (2).

FULL TITLE AND AUTHOR
Quae Extant Omnia, Italic version.
Venice, Albrizzi, 1737.
Gaius Julius Caesar.

CONTEXT AND SIGNIFICANCE
This edition fits into the long editorial tradition of Caesar’s works, which from the Roman princeps of the fifteenth century traverses Humanism and reaches the eighteenth century as a foundational text of European historical and political culture. The value of this Venetian print lies not only in the typographic quality of the Albrizzi workshop but especially in the iconographic apparatus, which translates the narrative of the conquest of Gaul and Britain into images. The plate presented here, dedicated to Roman Britain, is particularly significant: it combines cartography, ethnography, and the symbolic construction of otherness. The figures of the Britons — druids, warriors, and pictured women — embody a view that is both anthropological and propagandistic, in which the barbarian world is ordered and made legible through the Roman gaze. The image is not mere illustration, but a tool of historical and ideological interpretation: Caesar thus becomes not only author but director of an imperial imagination that spans centuries.

BIOGRAPHY OF THE AUTHOR
Gaius Julius Caesar (100 B.C. – 44 B.C.) was a Roman general, politician, and writer, a central figure in the transformation of the Republic into the Empire. His works, especially the Commentarii de bello Gallico and de bello civili, represent a model of Latin prose for clarity and rigor, but also instruments of political propaganda aimed at legitimizing his military campaigns and his personal power.

PRINTING HISTORY AND CIRCULATION
Caesar’s works were among the most frequently printed classical texts since the invention of printing. Bilingual editions with vernacular translations spread especially between the 17th and 18th centuries, addressing a broader and less specialist audience. The Albrizzi edition of 1737 stands out for the quality of the engravings and for the didactic layout of the facing text, fitting into the vibrant Venetian production of the time, which combined humanistic tradition with a taste for illustration.

BIBLIOGRAPHY AND REFERENCES
EDIT16 (for sixteenth-century Caesarine tradition, typological comparison);
ICCU / OPAC SBN: records related to Venetian editions of Caesar in the eighteenth century (search for Albrizzi, 1737);
Brunet, Manuel du libraire, II, col. 482-486 (entries on Caesar and major editions);
Graesse, Trésor de livres rares, II, p. 58;
Adams, Catalogue of Books Printed on the Continent, C-432 (for Caesarine editorial tradition);
British Library Catalogue, records for illustrated eighteenth-century editions of Caesar;
USTC (Universal Short Title Catalogue), comparative data on European eighteenth-century editions.