MICHELI, Pier Antonio (1679-1737)-TARGIONI TOZZETTI, Giovanni (1712-1783)
Folio (311x215 mm). LXXXVIII, 185, [3 blank] pp., [1] folding (Ichnographia horti Florentini) and VII engraved plates. Title printed in red and black with the large engraved arms of the dedicatee, the emperor Francis I, in the center. The Appendix ad Petri Antonii Michelii catalogum plantarum horti cesarei Florentini by G. Targioni Tozzetti opens with a separate half title on p. (103). With several engraved headpieces and initials. The headpiece on p. (XIII) and the folding plates are engraved by Marcantonio Corsi after Antonio Falleri. Later stiff vellum with morocco lettering piece on spine. Title page slightly soiled, a few marginal staining, small tear to the folding plate, but a very good, clean copy, uncut with deckle edges.First edition published posthumously, with a dedication to the grand duke of Tuscany and a long preface on the history of the garden by Micheli's pupil and successor Giovanni Targioni Tozzetti.The Orto Botanico of Florence was founded on 1 December 1545 by Cosimo I de' Medici. It is Europe's third oldest botanical garden after those in Pisa and Padua, and was laid out by the landscape gardener Niccolò Pericoli to a botanical system and plantings chosen by Luca Ghini. However, it was not until 1718, when Micheli became the garden's first director, that it really came to prominence.Born in Florence in 1679, Pier Antonio Micheli came to the study of plants thanks to two scholars of the Vallombrosa Abbey, B. Biagi and B. Tozzi. The latter, in particular, was instrumental in introducing Micheli to the Florentine scientific milieu, where he found a powerful patron in L. Magalotti, who introduced him to Cosimo III. Between 1703 and 1710 Micheli made numerous journeys on behalf of the grand duke. The most fruitful for improving his botanical knowledge and forging scientific relationships outside Tuscany was the trip that took him to Rome and then to the Kingdom of Naples in 1710. In 1716 Micheli became a promoter of the Florentine Botanical Society. Two years later he obtained the direction of the botanical garden of S. Marco. In 1729 he published in Florence his best-known work, the Nova plantarum genera iuxta Tournefortii methodum disposita, quibus plantae MDCCC recensentur, scilicet fere MCCC nondum observatae, reliquae suis sedibus restitutae, which he planned to follow up with a second part, that, however, he never managed to complete. In the autumn of 1736 Micheli made a trip to the territory of the Venetian Republic and in particular to Mount Baldo. The fatigues of the trip proved fatal to him, and he died in Florence on January 2, 1737. Micheli also experimented on fungi and deduced that they reproduced through spores, and not from spontaneous generation. He was also an avid plant and mineral collector (cf. A. Ottaviani, Micheli, Pier Antonio, in: ?Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani?, vol. 74, 2010, s.v.).Italian Union Catalogue, ITICCUUBOE74377; Gentilini 1985, 158; Pritzel, 6203; Nissen BBI, 1305; Moreni, II, pp. 76-77.
PTOLEMY (fl. 2nd cent. AD)-RUSCELLI, Girolamo (c. 1500-1566)-MOLETI, Giuseppe (1531-1588)
WITH 64 ENGRAVED MAPSThree parts (each with a separate title page) in one volume, 4to (mm 212x152). Geografia: [8], 358, [2] pp.; Espositioni et introduttioni universali di Girolamo Ruscelli sopra tutta la Geografia di Tolomeo: [28] leaves, [4: Tavola universale, con la descrittione di tutto il mondo] pp., 27 and XXXVI engraved numbered double plates; Discorso universale di M. Giuseppe Moleto matematico: 47, [49] pp. Signatures: *4 A-YY4; ?-?4 +2 1-272 (2A-2Z2 A1-D42) I-XXXVI2 (3A-Nn2); 4A-4F4 5A-5F4. The edition contains several woodcut diagrams and illustrations in the text (including two portraits of Ptolemy), and overall 64 engraved double-page maps, of which 27 are Ptolemaic and 37 are new. Ziletti's device on title pages, Valgrisi's device after plate XXXVI (l. Nn4v). Later vellum with inked title on spine (endleaves renewed). Tear anciently repaired to l. ?4 with no loss, slightly uniformly browned, some light occasional marginal foxing and staining, short margins, but overall a good copy.Second Ruscelli edition of Ptolemy's Geography, a reprint of the first issued by Vincenzo Valgrisi in 1561. A third edition, revised and corrected by Giovanni Malombra and with the addition of a map (Territoria di Roma), was printed by Ziletti in 1574.Ruscelli was responsible for the Italian translation of the text and for the maps, which he drew reproducing on a larger scale those published by Gastaldi in his 8vo edition of Ptolemy's Geography appeared in 1548. The most important innovation introduced by Ruscelli is the division of the modern globe into two circular hemispheres depicting the New World and the Old World; a feature previously used only by François de Malines in 1528 and later become popular with the famous Mercator globe of 1587. Particularly innovative is also the map of the Arctic regions, in which Ruscelli correctly separates Greenland from Norway, usually depicted as forming a single land.When in 1559 Pius IV commissioned Pirro Ligorio to have a gallery in the Vatican painted with geographical maps, Ruscelli's modern maps were chosen as models for the frescoes.Girolamo Ruscelli, of humble origins, was born in Viterbo and became one of the leading editors of the Cinquecento. He was first active in Rome, where he founded the Accademia dello Sdegno together with Tommaso Spica and Giovanni Andrea dell'Anguillara. He later settled in Venice working for such publishers as Sessa and Valgrisi. He was a friend of Bernardo and Torquato Tasso, Lodovico Dolce and Pietro Aretino. The last two were to become his rivals in several bitter controversies. He edited the works of Boccaccio, Petrarch and Ariosto and translated Ptolemaeus' treatise on geography. While in Venice he had contact with other academies (della Fratta, dei Dubbiosi, della Veniera and della Fama), and was interested in issues such as the systematization of the Italian language (cf. P. Procaccioli, ?Costui chi e' si sia'. Appunti per la biografia, il profilo professionale, la fortuna di Girolamo Ruscelli, in: ?Girolamo Ruscelli. Dall'accademia alla corte alla tipografia. Atti del Convegno internazionale di studi, Viterbo, 6-8 ottobre 2011, Roma, 2012?, pp. 13-76; and C. Di Filippo Bareggi, Il mestiere di scrivere: lavoro intellettuale e mercato librario a Venezia nel Cinquecento, Rome, 1988, pp. 78-80; 296-301).Giuseppe Moleti, born in Messina, Sicily, was an Italian mathematician who held the chair of mathematics at the University of Padua before Galileo (cf. A. Carugo, Giuseppe Moleti: mathematics and the Aristotelian theory of science at Padua in the second half of the 16th-century Italy, in: ?Aristotelismo veneto e scienza moderna. Atti del 25° anno accademico del Centro per la storia della tradizione aristotelica nel Veneto?, L. Olivieri, ed., Padua, 1983, I, pp. 509-517). He also played a key role in the reform of the calendar promoted by Pope Gregory XIII. Moleti also wrote an important dialogue on mechanics and in 1562 (Venice, Valgr
MOLZA, Francesco Maria (1489-1544)
CELEBRATING ERCOLE II AND FERRARASingle leaf (305x203 mm) written on both sides, respectively 32 and 34 lines, in an elegant and clear humanistic hand. Traces of folding, minimal repairs, but well preserved.According to F. Pignatti, a major scholar of Molza, the manuscript is probably not in his own hand, but certainly comes from his workshop, as evidenced by the correction at line 27, where the word ?nitet? is replaced in the margin by the word ?ardet?, which is the variant accepted in the first printed version of the Carmen, included in the first edition of Molza's collected works, Delle poesie volgari e latine (Bergamo, 1747, I, pp. 246-247), edited by P.A. Serassi.The date of composition of the poem and of writing of the manuscript has to be placed between 1534, when Ercole II (1508-1559), the son of Alfonso I d'Este and Lucrezia Borgia, became fourth duke of Ferrara, Modena and Reggio Emilia, and 1544, the year of Molza's death.The poem is a celebration of the military virtues of Duke Ercole, frequently compared to his eponymous Greek hero Hercules, and of the beauty and power of the city of Ferrara.Molza was born in 1489 in Modena, where he received his first education. After studying for a while in Bologna, where he published his first Latin poem in the collection Collettanee grece, latine, e vulgari per diversi auctori moderni nella morte de l'ardente Seraphino Aquilano edite da Giovanne Filoteo Achillini (Bologna, 1504), he completed his studies in Rome between 1505 and 1511. In 1512 he was forced to marry an older woman to please his father that was complaining about the libertine life he was having in Rome and also in order to settle some family's disputes. After a period in which he lived as a guest of Camilla Gonzaga in Novellara, he went back to Rome, where in 1529 he was appointed secretary of cardinal Ippolito de' Medici. The following years of Molza's life were spent around the figure of the cardinal and his beloved Giulia Gonzaga, whose circle of artists and humanists became the most important of Rome. Molza also followed Ippolito to Bologna in 1530, when the Pope Clemens VII and the Emperor Charles V met for the latter's coronation. In Rome he became a member of the Accademia dei Vignaiuoli. Like some of its other members (Berni, Giovanni Della Casa, Poalo Giovio, Agnolo Firenzuola, Lelio Capilupi, Mattio Franzesi, Giovanni Mauro d'Arcano, Annibal Caro, ecc.), Molza specialized in the production of burlesque and satirical poetry. After Cardinal Ippolito's death in 1535, Molza found himself without a patron and travelled frequently between Rome, Florence, Modena and Bologna, until Paolo Sadoleto, Jacopo's brother, found him a position as secretary of cardinal Alessandro Farnese in 1538. In the same period he became a member of the Accademia della Virtù, founded by Claudio Tolomei, and composed his most famous poem, La Ninfa Tiberina, that was printed in 1538 without the author's permission together with other compositions, like the Stanze per il ritratto di Giulia Gonzaga. In the last years of his life, Molza started suffering of syphilis, the disease that would eventually kill him in 1544 in Modena, where he had made return to the year before. Despite the attempts by his older son Camillo to publish a collected edition of his works, this did not appear in print until the end of the 18th century (F. Pignatti, Molza, Francesco Maria, in: ?Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani?, vol. 75, 2011, s.v.).
