Girolamo Francini and Prospero Parisio

Dedicated to Cardinal Ranuccio Farnese, this guidebook was published in the Jubilee year of 1600. Following in the footsteps of the innovative editions created and illustrated by Girolamo Francini (Franzini) since 1588, this edition is the first one to include important additional material by Prospero Parisio detailing the principal churches of Rome. Illustrated largely by the Roman publisher and bookseller Girolamo Franzini, the woodcuts belong to a greater corpus of illustrations owned by the Franzini family and used in other publications. Francini’s books are often considered as the first art-historical introduction to Rome of their kind. This edition gives one of the earliest descriptions of Michelangelo’s Christ Carrying the Cross at Santa Maria sopra Minerva.

Complete digitized book: IIIF Digital View (National Gallery of Art Library, Special Collections)