Visconti, Il museo Pio-Clementino, Rome, 1782-1807, 7 volumes, later half calf

Visconti, Giambattista and Ennio Quirino Visconti

Il Museo Pio-Clementino. Rome: Ludovico Mirri, 1782-1807

7 volumes, large folio (645 x 455mm.), half-titles, engraved titles, 7 engraved frontispiece portraits of Pius VI, one double-page plan (in volume 7) and 378 plates (of 379), one printed table in volume 7 (at p.76), with an additional leaf b1 in volume 4, near-uniform later half calf (vol.1 slightly different), UNCUT, lacking plate 40 in vol.7, lacking b1 vol.3 (preface), c2 vol.4 (preface), and Dd1 vol.4 (index), some half-titles soiled, first few leaves of vol.1 slightly stained and occasional staining elsewhere in vol.1, vol.1 binding very worn, others rather worn

A detailed and comprehensive visual record of the classical sculptures and reliefs of the Museo Pio-Clementino, now part of the Vatican Museums, which had its origins in the early sixteenth century and was much expanded in the late eighteenth century by popes Clement XIV and Pius VI. The descriptions are by the prefect of antiquities, Giambattista Visconti, and the director of the Capitoline Museums, Ennio Quirino Visconti.