320 - Poleni, Giovanni. Historical Memoirs of the Great Dome of St. Peter’s Basilica and of Its Damage and Repairs. Padua, Seminary Press, 1748. The only edition of this detailed description of St. Peter’s dome

Poleni, Giovanni. Historical Memoirs of the Great Dome of St. Peter’s Basilica and of Its Damage and Repairs. Padua, Seminary Press, 1748. The only edition of this detailed description of St. Peter’s dome Poleni, Giovanni. Historical Memoirs of the Great Dome of St. Peter’s Basilica, Its Damage, and Its Repairs. Padua, Seminary Press, 1748. Folio (457 x 315 mm); [8] pages, 470 columns, [1] page. 28 copper-engraved plates outside the text, 9 of which are folded (two old, obliterated stamps on the title page; water stains along the upper margin of some pages.) Contemporary binding in brown calfskin, covers framed with dry-stamped fat fillet, spine with 6 raised bands featuring friezes and title in gold, red edges (headband and corners with small, skillful restorations). Around 1740, several cracks were discovered in the Vatican dome, and a commission of experts deemed its structure unsafe and irreparably compromised. Giovanni Poleni was the only one to disagree, proposing to reinforce it with five large iron hoops. The project was carried out by the famous Neapolitan architect Luigi Vanvitelli, who also drew some of the plates in this volume. Cicognara 3842: “The author’s expertise in these matters spares us from having to comment on the exquisite craftsmanship of the work.” The only edition of this detailed description of the dome of St. Peter’s