Niccolo Guidalotto da Mondavio (working 1636-1660s) Panorama of Constantinople Pen and ink 612 x 258 cm Provenance: Given by the artist in 1662 to Fabio Chigi, Pope Alexander VII (1599-1667). First recorded in the Chigi Archive in Rome in 1960s. The artist was ordained in 1636 and received a doctorate in theology. He was then a missionary in Wallachia and later became a friar at Mondavio. He achieved a reputation as a cartographer and in 1646 dedicated a manuscript atlas of the Mediterranean (Venice, Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana) to Giovanni Soranzo, the Venetian Ambassador to the Ottoman Empire. Arriving in Constantinople in 1647, where he was to remain until 1655 when he returned to Italy, Guidalotto was attached to the Venetian Embassy and was its chaplain. In 1659 he retired to the Friary of Mondavio, in the province of Pesaro. His reputation as an artist is entirely that of a cartographer and draughtsman. The Schorr Collection Catalogue Volume 1, page Detail of central section