Raffaele Tufari - La Certosa di S. Martino in Napoli - 1854

A rare and highly sought historiographical-artistic monograph entitled The Certosa of S. Martino in Naples - Historical and Artistic Description, by Raffaele Tufari, printed in Naples in 1854 at the Giovanni Ranucci Typograph y. The volume, described as an Illustrated Edition with notes and biographies of the various artists whose works are shown in the church and in the cenobium, offers a rich treatment of the Neapolitan Carthusian complex with in-depth discussions of leading sculptors and painters such as Giuseppe Sanmartino, Massimo Stanzione, Luca Giordano, and Jusepe de Ribera called the Spagnoletto, enriched by an enchanting fold-out topographic plan of the Certosa di San Martino with a numbered legend and by a preface with a period-engraved view. The copy is bound in a solid half-leather binding with decorative relief reptile-effect cardboard boards and a red leather label with the title and author in gold on the spine, in generally good condition with the usual light natural foxing and browning of nineteenth-century paper that do not affect the clarity of the engravings and the text, constituting a source of fundamental historiographical importance for scholars and collectors of Neapolitan art, local history, and religious architecture of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies. In 8vo, pp. XI + 304 n.