This is a stolen book!

BELLORI, Giovanni Pietro. Descrizzione delle immagini dipinte da Rafaelle d'Urbino nelle camere del palazzo Apostolico Vaticano.

Rome, Giovanni Giacomo Komarek., 1695.

Folio (305 × 204 mm.). [3] leaves, 112 pages, title page with engraved arms of pope Innocent XII. Engraved initials and headpieces, small woodcuts throughout the text. Full-page engraved portrait of Raphael, within an architectural frame, signed by Carlo Maratta, at the bottom a cartouche with the famous epitaph by Pietro Bembo. Contemporary stiff vellum with gilt decorations; spine in compartments decorated with stylized floral tools. Some browning here and there, overall a very fine copy with the always missing portrait.

First edition, rare. An ecphrastic work divided in two parts, each with a separate title page: the first part describes the frescoes commissioned by pope Julius II in the Apostolic Palace, the second part, dedicated to Francesco Farnese, duke of Parma and Piacenza, describes the stories of Cupid and Psyche at Villa Farnesina. Bellori can inform us extensively about these frescoes because he was a close friend of Carlo Maratta, who led the restoration of both cycles. With this work Bellori, who believed Raphael was the supreme Renaissance artist, contributed to spread his myth, which shaped the artistic taste of the next two centuries.

Cicognara 3369; Gamba p. 511; Schlosser-Magnino p. 464.