Antonio Lafreri

While it reproduced an ancient bust that was wrongly identified as Aristotle, this imposing profile portrait published by Antonio Lafreri in Rome nonetheless had a fundamental influence on the Aristotle iconography of the Late Renaissance. Lafreri’s print is a reproduction in reverse of an engraving by Enea Vico from 1546 after the bust discovered by the merchant and humanist Cyriacus of Ancona (Ciriaco de’ Pizzicolli) on Samothraki and incorrectly designated as Aristotle. The attribution of the present engraving is uncertain; Hollstein recorded Cornelis Bos as the author. In Lafreri’s register the work is listed as Effigie d’Aristotile (Z. 554).

Initial engravings dating to the 1540s with the address of Antonio Lafreri as the publisher confirm that the French artist from Burgundy was active in Rome. Following his cooperation between 1553 and 1563 with Antonio Salamanca, who was thirty years older and whom he would subsequently eclipse, Lafreri became one of the most influential publishers in the Roman print market in the second half of the 16th century. The numerous reproductive engravings of ancient and modern buildings along with artworks, maps, portraits and prints on other subjects that were issued by his publishing house could be acquired separately by collectors and compiled as they pleased. From 1573 onwards Lafreri published frontispieces entitled Speculum Romanae Magnificentiae which gave these disparate works a name and subsequently created the misleading impression of a coherent and structured series of prints. However, it was left to the heirs of the publishing house and the copper plates to attempt a bundled edition and fixed compilation in the new editions that were issued (see Rubach, p. 100 ff.). These were occasionally arranged in accordance with the index of the plates drawn up by Lafreri around 1577 that is now in the Biblioteca Marucelliana in Florence (reprinted by Rubach, p. 425 ff.). The rare sheet is on offer here before the address of Pietro de’ Nobili in a magnificent, velvety impression with fine plate tone and margins around the distinct platemark. Unobtrusive smoothed horizontal central fold, minor ageing and slight traces of handling, otherwise in excellent condition.