[VENICE]. L'Italie illustrée en CXXXV figures en tailles douces in folio. Dessinés et gravés par les plus fameux graveurs des Pays-Bas avec les explications en Francois & en Latin.

Folio (390×265mm), 2 parts in one volume. Allegorical frontispiece, three title-pages and 135 double-page engravings with explanatory captions. Bound in contemporary mottled calf, spine in compartments with gilt decorations and title lettered in gilt on morocco lettering piece, red edges. A very fine copy.

A rare set of 135 fine prints illustrating Italy's major cities, and primarily Venice, to which most of the engravings are devoted. The first part of the volume, titled Représentation des vues et des morceaux d'architecture des principales villes d'Italie, comprises 20 plates. The first three depict a Lombard carroccio, Monte Cassino with its abbey and a view of Lerici. The remaining plates depict landmarks of Milan — such as the church of Santa Maria presso San Celso, piazza San Fedele, with Palazzo Marino and the church of San Fedele, the Castrum Portae Jovis (the Sforza Castle), and the Milan Cathedral façade — and of Naples and its surrounding area, including Pozzuoli, Cape Miseno and Posillipo. The second part of the volume, titled Vues des palais, bâtimens célèbres, places et mascarades de Venise, is entirely dedicated to Venice and contains 115 plates of views of its numerous churches and patrician palazzi, the Doge's Palace, Piazza San Marco, and the Grand Canal. The final section depicts scenes of everyday life in seventeenth-century Venice, including the Carnival and the various performances and games that were customary during religious and civic celebrations. The editor of this book, Pieter van der Aa (1659–1733) was a Dutch printer and cartographer active in Leiden. He is primarily known for his editions of travel accounts, his maps of Africa and the numerous atlases he printed. He also printed works on botany, medicine, and antiquities. Notably, he collaborated with Lodovico Antonio Muratori on the 30-volume Thesaurus antiquitatum et historiarum Italiae. The engravings for the Italie illustrée were executed after drawings by Giuseppe Garavaglia and Filippo Biffi. Biffi, a landscape painter and architectural draughtsman, was probably the son of the Milanese painter and engraver Carlo Biffi (1605–1675).

Brunet III, 472–73; Cicognara 4027: "Potrebbe questo libro piuttosto intitolarsi come apparisce da un secondo frontespizio, Vedute di Venezia; poiché quasi tutto il volume è consacrato a questa città: rappresentata in 115 tavole, non ne restando che 20 alle vedute di altre principali città dell'Italia"; Graesse III, 439.