2069 - Larderel,F.de.

Larderel,F.de. Album des diverses localités formant les établissemens industriels d'acide boracique fondés en Toscane (1818) par le comte de Larderel. Paris, imprint Lemercier (c. 1851). Gr.fol. With lithogr. title in gold, within a lithogr. frame with oak leaves, mounted lithogr. portrait of Larderel by L. Desmaisons and 24 tinted lithogr. views by Eug. Ciceri and Bachelier after E. Chelli each with lithogr. captions. Blind embossed black hmaroquin with gilt stamped title "Album". (rubbed, stained, gel. partly chipped). First edition of this splendid album. - Not in Cremonini. Not in Abbey. - All plates in the present copy after Chelli, indicating a first edition of the album. ╔Included are:╗ 1) Château du Comte de Lardarel à Pomarance; 2) Détails de l'industrie boracique; 3) Localité de Monte Cerboli en 1818; 4) Larderello; 5) Localité de Castel Nuovo en 1818; 6) Castel-Nuovo; 7-8) Localité du Sasso en 1818; 9-10) Localité de Monte Rotondo en 1818; 11-12) St. Frédéric; 13-14) St. Édouard; 15-16) Lago/Lac; 17-18) Lustignano; 19-20) Serrazzano; 21) Livourne en 1828; 22) Palais de Livourne. - Boric acid was already known to the Etruscans and Romans, who used it in pharmacy and to work enamel. Thermal baths were built at the springs of the "Devil's Valley", from which "lagoni" or geysers emerged. This knowledge was lost and only rediscovered in 1777. But it was not until 1818 that it was used in the volcanic landscape of Monte Cerboli by the French industrialist and engineer François-Jacques Larderel (1789-1858), considered the father of geometry, who emigrated to Tuscany and made a fortune by developing a technique for extracting boric acid from the mud of hot Tuscan springs by evaporation. This album is a unique testimony to early industrialization in Italy. The lithographed views show the Tuscan landscape as an uninhabited romantic wilderness before the construction of Larderel's factories and afterwards as a populated industrial landscape to demonstrate industrial progress. Due to the great success of his technique, Larderel was knighted by Grand Duke Leopold II of Habsburg-Tuscany in 1846 and appointed Count of Monte Cerboli. The hamlet near Pomarance, the origin of the industrial settlement, was renamed Larderello in his honor. - Endpapers and separating leaves somewhat foxed, title page loosened, the plates as a whole fresh and with only a few marginal stains.