Villa Aldobrandina Tusculana, sive varii illius Hortorum et Fontium Prospectus by Barrière, Dominique

Folio containing engraved title page, dedication, and ad lectorem leaves followed by fine 19 engraved plates, comprising 11 full page and 8 double-page, depicting expansive views of the Villa Aldobrandini, various façades, fountains and garden grottos, and a number of scenes from Classical mythology, with a particular focus on the life of Apollo, including Apollo and the Cyclops, King Midas, and Apollo and Daphne, the final plate in the volume being a detailed map of the grounds of the villa with numbered legend. Some extremely minor scattered browning and foxing. Folio. Marbled paper wrpps. Minor handling wear, fading, some small restored areas of losses along spine and edges. Rome (n.p.) 1647. The Villa Aldobrandini is a Baroque villa in Frascati, Italy, overlooking the valley toward the city of Rome. Known as Belvedere, the villa was originally constructed in 1550 by instruction of the Vatican prelate Alessandro Rufini. In 1598, Pope Clement VIII gave the villa to his nephew, Cardinal Pietro Aldobrandini, as a reward for negotations he undertook with France which resulted in the peace treaty of 1595, and for his role in annexing Ferrara to the Papal States. This gift also allowed the villa to stay in the family. Beginning in 1598, Cardinal Aldobrandini commissioned the Roman architect Giacomo della Porta to convert the villa into living accomodations. The main part of the villa was complete by 1603, but work continued for another 20 years on various aspects of the villa and its gardens under the supervision of Carlo Moderno and Giovanni Fontana.
The villa is known for its gardens and their features, among which is the Teatro delle Acque, by Carlo Moderno and Orazio Olivieri. To provide the water for this feature and the rest of the gardens, an 8-kilometer-long aqueduct was constructed.
Dominique Barrière was a French painter and engraver who spent the majority of his career in Rome, where he became best-known for engraving images after Claude Lorrain and other landscape painters, and often etched his plates in the manner of Stefano della Bella. The list of his works includes views of the Villa Aldobrandini as well as several plates from the History of Apollo, after paintings by Domenichino and Giovanni Battista Viola.