Pietro Santi Bartoli was an Italian painter who lived in the 17th century. Since he was very much interested in archeology he went to Rome in his teens where he studied art and etching.
The book “Columna Cochlis M. Aurelio Antonio Augusto dicata eius rebus gestis in Germanica, atque Saramtica expeditione insignis, ex S. C. Romae ad viam Flaminiam erecta … ” published in 1704 in Rome holds the title of (supposedly) its preamble which is why it is a rather long title. This is the only written page in the book, it does not have a list of contents and is, except for this first page, completely illustrated. However, we can learn a lot from the book’s title. Even though my Latin got rusty since the Gymnasium I understand that this book seems to be about the dedication of a column to Marcus Aurelius Antonius Augustus for his great work, efforts and victories in the name of the Roman Empire. The following illustrations by Pietro Bartoli show as I suppose happenings of expeditions and conquests led by M. Aurelius. We can see many troops most probably advancing on some kind of quest for the Roman Empire.
The illustrations look not only like drawings, but it also seems possible for them to be engravings since Bartoli was a copper engraver as well as a painter. The book in size is quite large however it is not very thick. This makes sense since the illustrations will need large pages but not necessarily many of them.