A search for similar books to a fully ‘illustrated’ or most probably etched book is quite difficult. However since I know a few aspects when thinking about this book I tried to search in those areas.
In my first search I simply put the author’s name ‘Pietro Santi Bartoli’, the theme ‘design’ and Xenotheka library as Alice’s brain. Which did not lead me anywhere. Swapping Alice’s brain for every other brain there was to chose from, I did not get to a result. So I changed the theme of discussion to “etch” while hoping that his profession and the way of creating this book might bring me somewhere. What I found was a book by Haskell Penny called “Taste and the Antique”. Penny discusses the recording of a marble statue, the Hermaphrodite. This reminded me of the fact that Bartoli was in fact a sculpturer and an artist. Bartoli suggested that the Hermaphrodite “..was discovered near the Baths of Diocletian in the gardens of S. Maria della Vittoria..”. Penny mentions him quite a few times and draws from Bartoli’s comments on the Hermaphrodite and its affairs.
In a second attempt to find similar writings I put in ‘Marcus Aurelius Augustus”, who the ‘columna cochlis’ in Bartoli’s book was for, the theme ‘roman’ and remained with the Xenotheka library. I came across a book by Tschudi called “Baroque Antiquity”. Tschudi analyses elements of fantasy in archeological views of antiquity. For example he talks about Lauro’s archeological visions which fail as references but rather now emerge as complex architectural messages. Tschudi raises the question why the column of Marcus Aurelius Augustus did not collapse with the rest of Rome. Lauro’s explanation for this was that the God’s must have preserved the monument. A less scientific observation but rather a personal interpretation.