[Baratta, Alessandro (artist) and Orazio Nardino (text)].

[THE ASCETIC HERO OF MIRACLES: A VISUAL VITA] [La vita e miracoli del Gloriosissimo Padre Santo Francesco di Paola] Engraved title: Nacque questo glorioso padre santo Francesco di Paola nell' anno del signore M. CCCC. XVI. (...) la cui vita qui si descrive [The Life and Miracles of the Most Glorious Holy Father Francis of Paola. Engraved title: This glorious holy father, Francis of Paola, was born in the Year of Our Lord 1416 (...), whose life is here described].

N.p.: n.p. [after 1796]. Quarto (27.5 × 20.5 cm). Contemporary decorative paper interim wrappers; with 64 copper-engraved plates on wove paper by Alessandro Baratta. Without the title page of the earlier editions; front wrapper with an old ownership inscription in ink; rear wrapper becoming detached; leaves occasionally with faint foxing; else very good. Item #54481

Later edition on wove paper of the rare series of engravings depicting the life of the founder of the "Order of Minims" (Ordo Minimorum), a mendicant order whose ascetic rule extended that of the Franciscans by, among other things, imposing a strict prohibition on all foods of animal origin as well as regulations of silence. The designation Minimorum reflects the brothers’ view of themselves as more minor than the Franciscans. Today, the order is perhaps best known to a wider public through the "Paulaner" brewery in Munich, founded by members of the order in the seventeenth century.

Alessandro Baratta’s engravings, with verses by Orazio Nardino, were first published in Palermo in 1622 and subsequently reissued in Naples in 1627. The present edition on wove paper, however, cannot predate the late eighteenth century, since paper without a laid lines became possible only after 1757. Because this new type of paper proved particularly well-suited to the printing of engravings, its manufacture spread rapidly throughout Europe. In Italy, Giambattista Bodoni was the first to print on the French "Carta d'Annonay" in 1781. Italian production began in 1796 at Fabriano under Pietro Miliani, who imported papermaking moulds from France (Monika Estermann and Frieder Schmidt, Die Buchkultur im 19. Jahrhundert, vol. 2, Hamburg, 2016, pp. 405–406).

Baratta, who today is known above all for his sixteen-folio-sheet perspective view depicting Naples ("Fidelissimae urbis neapolitanae"), had already made a name for himself before the first printing of the engravings for Francis of Paola's Vita with a similar series dedicated to Saint Cajetan's Vita. Earlier, he had already worked as an engraver at the court of the Spanish viceroy in Naples. For a panegyric dedicated to the Viceroy Pedro Fernández de Castro (a patron of Miguel de Cervantes), Baratta produced in 1616 the title page, the map of the province of Terra di Lavoro, the view of the main façade of the Royal Palace of Naples, as well as the floor plan and exterior views of the Royal University building. Already during his Roman apprenticeship (1606–1612), he had produced a portrait of the Neapolitan naturalist Fabio Colonna for the work "Minus cognitarum stirpium," printed by Guglielmo Facciotti, whose copper engravings of plants, fossils, and animals were in all likelihood also executed by the then twenty-three-year-old. While Baratta is regarded above all as one of the most important copper engravers in Naples on account of his topographical works, his numerous commissions from various ecclesiastical patrons were also important elements of post-Tridentine, Counter-Reformatory image politics. (On this and what follows, see: Paola Carla Verde, L'iconografia asservita al potere: L'opera e i committenti dell'incisore e topografo Alessandro Baratta alla corte vicereale di Napoli nella prima metà del XVII secolo, in: Librosdelacorte.es, year 8 (2016), no. 13, pp. 105–139).

Baratta produced the print cycle on the life of the founder of the order and great miracle worker at a time when both the city authorities and the viceroy Antonio Álvarez de Toledo were striving to establish Francesco di Paola as the patron saint of Naples under Spanish rule. The numerous miracles of the hermit, who was highly popular among the people of southern Italy, appeared almost like a hinge between the interests of the state on the one hand and those of even the poorest subject on the other. Thus, the strict ascetic is also said to have acted miraculously in the struggle against the Ottomans by distributing blessed candles to the soldiers. According to legend, the only soldier who refused to accept the candle died in battle, while all the others survived. Baratta depicts the dying soldier in Roman armor amid a battle scene. Francesco di Paola was also regarded as a wise political advisor. That he worked primarily at the court of the French king is, however, not presented by Baratta and Nardino without a framing narrative. Thus, an engraving shows how Francesco receives from King Ferdinand of Naples the permission to travel with an ambassador to the court of Louis XI.

The subsequent dangerous sea voyage once again shows which patron saint the southern Italian sailor should invoke for intercession. The most famous and frequently depicted maritime miracle, however, is that in which the founder of the order, together with a friar, crosses the legendary Strait of Messina between the Italian peninsula and Sicily while seated upon a cloak. On other occasions, he "commands" "the winds and the sea," like the ancient Etruscan Neptune, the calming of the "dark, violent storm," and "at once their cruel and savage fury subsides." Yet the range of his miracles could hardly be greater. Through Francesco’s intercession, people are saved from fatal workplace accidents, healed of illnesses such as deaf-mutism and blindness, plague, leprosy, and cancer, preserved from famine, freed from demons, and not only people, but even burned and dismembered animals, are brought back to life. Francesco di Paola is, in the abundance of his miraculous deeds, a generalist.

As of July 2026, KVK and OCLC list six copies of various editions in North America.

Price: €2,500.00

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