Plan of the Garden of Prince Ludovisi

DateFirst published 1677, MCCM edition published ca. 1688

MediumEtching

Credit LineArt History Department Fund

Dimensions11 15/16 x 18 11/16 in. (30.3 x 47.5 cm)

Object number1996.002 L

Label TextWhen his uncle became Pope Gregory XV (1621-1623), Ludovico Ludovisi was made a cardinal and, as befitted a cardinal nephew, began to purchase land for a villa and to acquire antiquities, buying up two celebrated collections that had been put together in the sixteenth century. Since his property, which lay in the valley between the Pincian and Quirinal Hills, was the site of the ancient Gardens of Sallust, he had the good fortune to uncover many buried antique masterpieces on his own land. Several of the statues were displayed in a wooded labyrinth (no. 5 on the plan) opposite the casino at the lower right. Just beyond this labyrinth in an uncultivated field, Falda has depicted an Egyptian obelisk lying on its side, another relic of the ancient gardens which was not re-erected until 1789. Today the cross-shaped casino at the left is the only remnant of the cardinal's gardens. It contains the magnificent ceiling fresco of Aurora that Cardinal Ludovisi commissioned from the Bolognese painter Guercino in 1621.
Exhibition HistoryGardens of Rome, Michael C. Carlos Museum, February 14 - May 17, 1998
Discovering Rome: Maps and Monuments of the Eternal City, Michael C. Carlos Museum, September 16, 2006 - January 14, 2007
Antichità, Teatro, Magnificenza: Renaissance and Baroque Images of Rome, Michael C. Carlos Museum, August 24 - November 17, 2013
Published ReferencesAntichita, Teatro, Magnificenza: Renaissance & Baroque Images of Rome (Atlanta: Michael C. Carlos Museum, 2013), 58 (checklist only).

ProvenanceEx coll. Rudolf Wittkower (1901-1971), Europe and United States. Purchased for MCCM by Emory University Art History Department from Peter Kraus [Ursus Books Limited], New York, New York.

InscribedUL in cartouche: PIANTA / DEL GIARDINO / DELL'ECCEL.(MO) SIGNOR PRENCIPE LVDOVISI / a Porta Pinciana / disegnato et Intagliato da Gio. Battista Falda / e dato in luce con diretione e cura / da G. Iacomo de Rossi . . . ; LR in cartouche: twelve item legend

Status

Not on view

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