Pietro Aquila (1650–1692) after - Ercole sostiene il globo terrestre (Tavola 3 dalla serie Imagines Farnesiani cubiculi)

Splendid and rare seventeenth-century engraving in etching and burin executed by Pietro Aquila, a refined interpreter of the Roman Baroque. The plate faithfully reproduces one of the decorative panels executed by Annibale Carracci for the Camerino Farnese. At the center of the magnificent oval composition rises the monumental figure of Hercules (called Alcide in the text at the bottom), caught in the act of replacing Atlas in supporting the weight of the celestial vault. On the sides sit in mirrored poses two elderly wise men equipped with astronomical instruments (an armillary sphere on the left and a compass with tablet on the right).
Below are engraved three Latin distichs commenting on the myth and the editorial references tied to the Roman printing house of Giovanni Giacomo de Rossi ("Annibal Carraccius pinxit in Aedibus Farnesianis").

Conditions: good as shown in the photo