Relazione della Cupola dipinta dal Cavaliere Carlo Cignani, e scoperta l’anno 1706. in Forlì.

Forlì, Giovanni Felice Dandi (?), 1706].

8° (202x141 mm). [10] of [34] ll. Woodcut initials and tailpieces. Bound in modern pale pink wrappers. A very good copy. leaves slightly browned, staining to gutter of the last leaf, a bit soiling at blank margins. On 24 March 1683 Carlo Cignani (1628-1719), one of the most important late Baroque artists working in Bologna, began in the Forlì Cathedral the frescoes of the cupola of the chapel consacrated to the Madonna del Fuoco (Virgin of Fire), the Patron Saint of the town. In the chapel was located an early woodcut of Mary and the Christ Child, which was originally hung in a house used as a school, and had miraculously survived the fire broken out in the night between 4 and 5 February 1428, proving its special power. Few days after this prodigious event the image was transported in the Cathedral, and transformed in an icon of popular veneration, whose protection was asked against wars and earthquakes. For celebrating the event was published a collection of occasional writings, containing the description of the frescoes, lauda singing, and accounts of apparati. Collected under the title of Relazione della Cupola dipinta dal Cavaliere Carlo Cignani, the texts also had a separate circulation, and are all nowadays very rare: our copy contains - besides the description of Cignani’s work – the short oratories Il Trionfo del Cielo and Parole per l’Accademia de’ Filergiti di Forlì, both by the Chapel Master Gaetano de Stefanis.