A unique presentation of Franco’s plan of Venice

An unrecorded presentation of this rare plan of Venice rendered as a bird's-eye view, with the buildings shown in perspective, first published by Luca Bertelli in 1580 but this example from the 4th state of c.1610. This unique example has been augmented by two side panels with 90 portraits of doges by Francesco Valegio, and two panels containing Italian text descriptions about the city. Although the letterpress has the publication line of Daniel Bissuccio date of 1609, the last doge portrait is Marcantonio Memmo, who ruled 1612-15. Franco's plan originally had a vignette of a Doge and his wife in an extensive key. In the second state, published by Franco himself, this was updated to a vignette of the coronation of Morosina Morosini-Grimani as dogaressa in 1597. The following year the vignette was replaced with two small views of that coronation's ceremonies. For this state, dated by Moretto as c.1610, the key had been cut from the plate, along with c.10mm of the plan, so that a separately-printed, two-tier scene of Morosina Morosini-Grimani's coronation procession could be printed underneath. The final components of this broadsheet are the two panel of portraits of doges, engraved by Francesco Valegio. The British Museum has an example of Valegio's own map of Venice (1611, copied from state iii of Franco's map) with the text dated 1622 and the panels updated with four more doges (to Francesco Contarini, 1623). The amalgam of Franco's plan and Valegio's doges is an apparently unique survivor.