Nerini, Felice
De templo et coenobio Sanctorum Bonifacii et Alexii historica monumenta.
Roma, “ex Typographia Apollinea apud heredes Jo.Laurentii Barbiellini in Foro Pasquini” 1752.
Full Description
4to. xxxi + (1) + 600 + (12)pp, 13 engraved plates (some folding), 1 engraved text ill., also engraved vignettes. Contemporary full vellum. A good, clean, unrestored copy.
A good monograph devoted to the early mediaeval church of SS Alessio e Bonifacio on the Aventine Hill in Rome, written by Felice Maria Nerini (1705-1787), the scholarly abbot of its accompanying Hieronymite monastery. Nerini’s narrative only takes the church’s history up to the mid fifteenth century, but this does not matter, for the monograph’s importance is as a record of the church’s architectural character and of the works of art in its interior prior to a comprehensive restoration carried out at the expense of Cardinal Angelo Maria Quirini in 1750. Nerini records in his introduction that it was his intention to produce a second volume dealing with the more recent history of the church and monastery, but Nerini had not allowed for the fact that he would be promoted from his abbacy to become General of the Hieronymite Order, and the second volume never appeared. The volume’s numerous plates include perspective views from drawings by Carlo Nolli of its interior and exterior before restoration. The volume ends with a 12-page Neo-Latin poem written in praise of Nerini and of Cardinal Quirini by the contemporary Roman writer Fabio Devoti. Schudt 828 ; Cicognara 3803 ; not in Olschki, Choix.