ROMA - Vatican City; F. Panini / F. Barbazza - VEDUTA DELLA BIBLIOTECA VATICANA edificata da Sisto V con l'architettura di Domenico Fontana [...] - 1761-1780

"VIEW of the Vatican Library built by Sixtus V with the architecture of Domenico Fontana, and containing most of the manuscripts and books that were in the other already erected by Niccolò V and by Sixtus IV"

In Rome from the Calcography of the Reverend Chamber of the Apostolic near the Innocenzian Curia in the year 1767

Francesco Panini delineated
Francesco Barbazza engraved

From: Vedute delle quattro principali basiliche e monumenti di Roma nel XVIII secolo, Calcografia Camerale, Roma 1767

The title refers to the various developments and enlargements of which the Library benefited, after the Papal return to Rome, with Niccolò V Parentucelli granting access for consultation of the precious parchment codices, his successor Sixtus IV Della Rovere even authorized external lending and embellished the reading rooms, up to Sixtus V who, to address the lack of space, commissioned his trusted architect, Fontana, to build a new sede, which is the one now housing the library.

Engraving, etching and burin on heavy unsized paper, with the verso blank, good margins, weaknesses in the paper and abrasions visible especially on the verso.

Size: 47x72 cm the printing plate (mirror of the print)

Francesco Panini, or Pannini (1745-1812), a Piacenza native, was a skilled landscape painter particularly attentive to Roman architectures that he immortalized in his works, much admired by contemporaries and others.
Francesco Barbazza worked in Rome as a landscape engraver, especially of those designed by Panini.