Saviero Manetti (1723-1784) (editor)
Lorenzo Lorenzi (act. c. 1760) and Violante Vanni (c. 1732-1776) (artists and engravers)
Pappagallo piccolissimo con la fronte, e gola rossa, Pl. 133
[Small parrot with red forehead and throat]
Pappagallo d: Parrucchetto verde scuro, con la fronte rossiccia, Pl. 126
[Dark green parakeet with pink forehead]
Pappagallo minore, o Parrucchetto con la sommitá del capo blú, e la fronte gialla, Pl. 127
[Smaller parrot, or parakeet with blue crest and yellow forehead]
Pappagallo minore, o Parrucchetto, dell'Indie Orientali col capo turchino, Pl. 129
[Smaller parrot, or parakeet, of the West Indies with turquoise head]
from Storia naturale degli uccelli trattata con metodo e adornata di figure intagliate in rame e miniate al naturale. Ornithologia methodice digesta atque iconibus aeneis ad vivum illuminatis ornate.
[Natural History of the Birds Treated Systematically and Adorned with Copperplate Engraving Illustrations, in Miniature and Life-Size]
Giuseppe Vanni, Florence: 1767-76
Hand-colored Etching
18 x 13.75 inches, overall
13.5 x 10.5 inches, plate mark
$3,200, set of 4

Set of four Florentine studies of colorful tropical parrots by Saviero Manetti, from one of the greatest sets of bird prints ever produced. Three are shown perched on branches, and the fourth in mid-flight.

The production of Manetti's five massive folio volumes must have been one of the most remarkable publishing ventures ever undertaken in Florence . Begun in 1767 and completed ten years later, it was larger, better engraved and more vividly coloured than any previous work on birds, but these are not its only claim to fame. The attitudes of the birds themselves give this book its unique character. Strutting, parading, posturing, and occasionally flying over its plate are birds whose real-life counterparts would surely disown them, and not without reason, for Manetti seems in these pictures to be depicting the human comedy, the habits and mannerisms of contemporary Italian society. Nonetheless his book may still be rated among the very greatest bird books. 

Saviero (also spelled Xaviero) Manetti was a physician and naturalist.  He was a graduate of the University of Pisa, member of the Royal Society and served as president of the Botanical Society of Florence, as well as being the director of the Florentine Botanical Garden from 1749 to 1782.  Manetti edited, wrote the descriptions, and organized the ambitious five-volume work of folio plates called Storia Naturale degli Uccelli (1767-76), commissioned by Maria Luisa, Grand Duchess of Tuscany, who had a passion for ornithology.  In the text, Manetti asserted that all the birds were drawn from life or from firsthand study of their skins. Lorenzo Lorenzi and Violante Vanni served as the artists and engravers, creating over 600 individual illustrations in a seven-year period.

Lorenzo Lorenzi was an engraver who was also a Tuscan abbot.  In addition to contributing plates to Manetti’s Storia Naturale degli Uccelli, he made engravings after Annibale Caracci, Giovanni Manozzi and other artists.

Violante Vanni was an engraver working in her native Florence in the mid 18th century, an unusual occupation for a woman of that era.  A student of the British artist Robert Strange, she engraved religious subjects and portraits, as well as contributing natural history plates of birds to Manetti’s Storia Naturale degli Uccelli.