The title “Opera di Francesco Borromino “ reveals what kind of building the book will talk about. We know that we will see pictures of an opera, which was a religious building back then. Furthermore the title explains that the Opera is referred to a man called Francesco Borromino. We can assume that he either owns or built this opera.
At the Beginning of the Book there are a few pages with text of religious content. Afterwards follows a picture of Francesco Borromino, who is entitled as a cavalier and fames architect. So we know now that Francenso Barromino presumably built the opera. The main part of the book are illustrations of the opera. The whole book is not organized in specific chapters due to the fact that there are a lot of illustrations in the book and no big text parts.
There are a lot of different illustrations in this book. The book starts with some general pictures of the whole building from a far perspective. Afterwards we get to see more detailed drawings and plans of some parts of the opera. For example only the dome and it’s detailed decorations are illustrated separately in one drawing.
The book is very large but also thin. I think it represents also the form of the opera. The building has very high domes and its stretched out. But maybe it’s also really big, so the observer of the book can see all the detailed little parts like columns or statues of the building. The bigger the book, the bigger and more detailed could been drawn the illustrations.
The Italian Author is called Sebastiano Giannini. He lived in Rom and was a copper engraver and publisher. His works mainly focused on architecture and buildings in general. I think he wanted to show his detailed point of perspective and how he experienced the buildings.