An attractively engraved panorama of the Great Fire of London in 1666. Any panorama from the seventeenth century of London is uncommon. This image is of city as viewed from Southwark on the south bank. Both the Globe and Swan theatres are illustrated in the foreground. The heads of executed individuals on pikes can be seen at the entrance to London Bridge. The fire is at its full extent and was published eight years following.

Scouloudi identifies it as a variant of the Claes Jan Visscher view of 1616. It accompanied the third part of Galeazzo Gualdo Priorato’s ‘Historia di Leopoldo Cesare …’, published by Battista Hacque in Vienna, 1670-74. A three-volume work detailing the history of the military campaigns of Emperor Leopold I (1640-1705), the Holy Roman Emperor, King of Hungary and Bohemia. It is very rarely found complete. It is heavily illustrated with 232 portraits and 107 folding maps, plans and town views all engraved by F. van den Steen, C. Meijssens, G. Bouttats and others after J. Toorenvliet, A. Bloem and others. This engraving is unsigned.

Galeazzo Gualdo Priorato (1606-78) was an Italian military historian and writer. Born in Vicenza, he served in Flanders before taking part in the war against the Huguenots in France. At times he wrote under the patronage of Cardinal Mazarin of France, Leopold I and Christina, Queen of Sweden. Provenance: Reiss & Sohn 21 October 1999 lot 2651; private English collection. Graesse (1922) III, 166; Lipperheide (1965) Ci 38; Scouloudi (1953) p. 35.