Lot 334: RÈ, Vincenzo dal (artist, d.1762) -- Narrazione delle solenni Reali feste fatte celebrare in

RÈ, Vincenzo dal (artist, d.1762) -- Narrazione delle solenni Reali feste fatte celebrare in Napoli da sua Maesta il Re delle Due Sicilie Carlo Infante di Spagna... per la nascita del suo primogenito Filippo Real Principe delle Due Sicilie. Naples: [Stamperia Reale], 1749. Broadsheet (643 x 432mm), 16pp, letterpress 'Narrazione', title with engraved vignette, frontispiece, 15 plates by Giuseppe Vasi, Nicolas-Henri Jardin, Angelo Guiducci, Felice Polanzani and Luigi le Lorrain after Rè (comprising 3 double-page plans, 10 double-page plates and 2 folding plates), one headpiece and one initial (the final large folding plate, numbered XV, with old repaired tears affecting the image area), contemporary Italian sheep-backed blue paper-covered boards, spine gilt (small neat repairs to spine, extremities scuffed).

LARGE-PAPER ISSUE OF THIS FINELY ILLUSTRATED RECORD, WITH PLATES AFTER THE DESIGNS OF Rè, 'undoubtedly the most brilliant scene designer of the eighteenth century in southern Italy' (D. Oenslager. Stage Design p.81). The present large-paper copy includes the text on 16pp - the text was reset for the regular size copies and printed on 20pp. The work describes and depicts the initial plans and the two-week festivities celebrating the birth, on 13 June 1747, of Prince Philip, heir to Charles IV, king of the two Sicilies and later Charles III of Spain. The interior of the recently completed Teatro San Carlo was transformed into both a concert hall and a ballroom for the celebrations. Rè's designs record these temporary alterations, as well as the firework 'macchina', the decoration of the Castello Nuovo and the Palazzo Reale where a 'festa da ballo' was performed. Berlin Kat. 3078; cf. Lipperheide Si48 (20pp. issue); cf. Vinet 604 (20pp. issue).

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