Beschreibung:

LEONARDI, Domenico Felice. Le Delizie della villa di Castellazzo discritto in verso . Milan: Giuseppe Richino Malatesta, 1743. 2° (365 x 236mm). 24 double-page engraved plates by Marc' Antonio Dal Rè, including one portrait dedication to Giuseppe Arconati Visconti and 23 views of the gardens and rooms of the villa, all plates COLOURED BY A CONTEMPORARY HAND AND HEIGHTENED WITH GOLD, on guards. (Tiny split at fold of first plate, 2 plates very slightly trimmed along upper plate mark, not affecting image.) Modern buff paper boards. A lavish celebration and record of a grand Rococo Italian garden newly designed after the French fashion. An elaborate garden in the Italian style had been laid out at Castellazzo in 1627 under Count Galeazzo Arconati, which became fashionable with Lombardy society. In the early 17th century the Frenchman Jean Gianda was commissioned to redesign the gardens, and Giovanni Ruggeri to transform the house. The new garden became even more famous, as attested by the publication of the present work with engravings by Dal Rè. The Delizie depicts scenes both of the garden and of the new interiors, appropriately peopled with fashionable society; the actual lay-out of the garden is preserved in one plate. The garden survives today virtually intact, including its rococo zoo, making it "the only one of its kind to have been preserved in Italy" (G. Masson, Italian Gardens , 1987, p.252). The present copy is particularly fine and clean, with vivid contemporary colouring heightened with gold. Berlin Kat. 3495.