Mortier (Pierre)

a pair of elevated perspective views of this striking and unusual pentagonal fortified villa, one a cutaway to reveal the internal structure and the circular inner courtyard. They were first issued by Joan Blaeu and his successors in the 1680s, before the French-born publisher, Pierre Mortier (1661-1711) acquired the plates and re-issued them at the beginning of the 18th century. The Villa Caprarola, or Villa Farnese, was commissioned by Cardinal Alessandro Farnese in 1504, as a rural retreat just outside Rome. Its dramatic architecture, the work of Antonio da Sangallo the younger and Baldassare Peruzzi, was always as more of a statement of the family’s power than as a tranquil retreat,

engravings on laid paper, each c.385 x 440 mm. (15 1/4 x 17 1/4 in), on full sheets with wide margins, both with very pale browning along a central vertical fold, the internal view with a few faint spots,