Lot 3: Carlo Baldassare Simelli (1811-1877) , Album of Views of Rome, 1860s

An album containing 39 albumen prints from wet-plate collodion negatives, presented one to a page, each numbered and/or titled in the negative. Oblong quarto, quarter morocco, with cloth boards, the spine gilt lettered 'Edifizi di Roma'. An ink stamp on the end-paper identifies this album as having been at one time in the Giordana Collection.

measurements note images each approx. 20 x 25.5 cm (8 x 10 in.)

Simelli was one of the group of photographers of Rome gathered in the 1860s around the English archaeologist John Henry Parker. The present album contains many variant images of single locations, as well as delightful and rare examples of sequential groups devised to climb a facade by showing one storey per print to give as complete a vertical rendering as possible.