DAL RE, Vincenzo. Narrazione delle solenni reali feste fatte celebrare in Napoli da sua maestà il Re delle due Sicilie Carlo infante di Spagna per la nascita del suo primogenito Filippo Real principe delle due Sicilie. Napoli, 1749
Imperial Folio,645x430 mm. Quarter vellum binding. Engraved frontispiece, pp. 16, 15 large plates on double page, some colored. Some repaired tears, restorations, frontispiece slightly trimmed. Good specimen.
First edition of one of the finest festival books of the 18th century. The volume is illustrated with 15 beautiful plates (some colored), engraved by Giuseppe Vasi, Angelo Guiducci, Felice Polanzani, Nicolas Desjardins and Luigi Le Lorrain from drawings by Vincenzo dal Re, court architect and stage designer. The very rich iconographic apparatus in the volume reproduces the masked balls, banquets and settings, including the San Carlo theater, made to celebrate the birth of Philip, eldest son of the King of the Two Sicilies Charles of Bourbon. Of particular interest are the plates depicting the San Carlo theater, where on that occasion Il Sogno di Olimpia by Ranieri de' Calzabigi with music by Giuseppe De Majo was staged (Vinet 604). The last plates depict the land of Cuccagna and a large fireworks machine.