Cuciniello/Bianchi - Costumi Civili e Militari della Monarchia Francese dal 1200 sino al 1820 - 1820

CUCINIELLO, Ciro & BIANCHI, Domenico
Civil and Military Costumes of the French Monarchy from 1200 to 1820... [Volume 1 / Part I] Naples (Napoli), Lithography by Cuciniello & Bianchi, no date 1820. Volume I only (in the complete series), folio edition (36cm x 27cm) in period half calf, marbleized with corners, spine with raised bands enriched with gold tooling and roulettes, title label in red morocco and volume mark (I). Wear to corners and edges. Losses to the boards.

The illustration includes the magnificent lithographed frontispiece hand-retouched (depicting a bodyguard of the Restoration and a crossbow knight of Saint Louis) as well as a very rich sequence of plates hors-texte drawn and hand lithographed with period coloring (Lo. Bianchi’s Lithography).
Plates no. 53, 75, 78 and 87 are missing.

Sumptuous collection of Neapolitan historical costume from the Romantic era, devoted to the evolution of civilian, courtly, and military dress of France from the Middle Ages to the Restoration. Designed and printed in Naples by the artists and lithographers Ciro Cuciniello and Domenico Bianchi, this work, of great aesthetic refinement, directly draws upon the grand studies of the French Monarchy while offering a brush-color finish that is particularly vibrant.

This first volume focuses on the medieval period (13th to 15th centuries), accurately illustrating the fleur-de-lis tunics of Capetian princes, the chain mail of the Crusader knights, the armorial bearings and the male city-dwellers’ hairstyles under Charles VII.

The Neapolitan workshop of Cuciniello & Bianchi represented the golden age of lithography in Southern Italy under the Bourbons of Naples. At that time, the Italian nobility was passionate about the history of French dynasties, linked by blood and treaties to the court of Naples. The production of these plates required meticulous craft: each plate was printed from a lithographic stone with India ink before being individually enhanced with watercolor and gouache by Neapolitan miniaturist ateliers, giving each copy a unique color nuance.