The Sistine Chapel of Michelangelo. ANONIMO. Descrizione delle principali pitture della Cappella Sistina al Vaticano. Roma, Tipografia della R. C. A., 1839In folio, 390x265 mm; quarter calf binding with corners, gilt title on label and gilt ornaments on spine. Pp. 49, [3]. Double titlepage in italian and french. Woodcut vignette on titlepage. Text on double columns and in italian and french. Nice copy with wide margins.

First edition. An anonymous work, whose authorship is recognized by Baron Valerio Camuccini, one of the most important painters of Italian Neoclassicism. To Camuccini, at the behest of Pope Pius VIII, was entrusted by the reorganization of the Vatican Pinacoteca from 1830. The work describes the main paintings in the Sistine Chapel, a chapel that had to turn out to be magnificent and worthy of the Pontifical palace and to give prestige to the world capital of Catholicism. Great attention is devoted to the wonderful cycles of frescoes along the long sides of the chapel, which represented the life of Moses and Christ, to the famous Universal Judgment by Michelangelo and to numerous other paintings by the greatest artists of that time such as Perugino, Botticelli, Ghirlandaio, Cosimo Rosselli and Pinturicchio.