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Degli Habiti Antichi, et Moderni di Diverse Parti del Mondo Libri due, fatti da Cesare Vecellio, & con Discorsi da Lui Dichiarati.

VECELLIO, Cesare. Octavo (181x106 mm), [24], 499 leaves. Elaborate woodcut title-page border in the form of a cartouche, with allegorical figures of America, Asia, Africa and Europe at each of the four corners, 412 full-page woodcuts of costumes and two section titles set within 4-parts ornamental borders, five full-page woodcut views of Venice, one emblematic woodcut tondo within a ruled frame set on a full page, numerous woodcut ornamental head- and tailpieces, decorative initials of varying sizes, and small printers' ornaments. One small marginal restoratione on the first page of the preliminary leaves touching a few letters, lacking the final blank page; overall a very fine copy bound by Trautz-Bauzonnet in red morocco, gilt edges. First edition of this rightly famous and influential costume book, enlivened by a set of over 400 woodcut illustrations of dress and clothing from various parts of the world, with a rich complementary explanatory text. Cesare Vecellio (1521ca.-1601), a cousin of the celebrated Venetian painter Titian and a member of his prestigious atelier, was active in Veneto as a painter for most of his lifetime. In his final years, he dedicated himself to the publication of this history of costume with encyclopedic ambitions, both in geographical and chronological terms, encompassing the whole world known at the time and stretching its gaze from the Old Testament and the Classical world to the Renaissance. The treatise is divided in two books, one devoted to Venice, Rome, Italy and Europe, the other dwelling on Asia and Africa (a set of illustrations on America had already been planned in 1590, but only appeared in the second edition of the work, dating from 1598). A detailed index of items and geographical places is given at the beginning of the work, to orient the reader. The work stands out for the richness and quality of information, collected on the basis of a great variety of sources ranging from classical books, early travel narratives, voyagers' reports, oral testimonies of ambassadors, traders, merchants, soldiers, and the works of art Vecellio encountered during his activity as a painter. Although part of the repertoire of images have been attributed to Cesare's cousin, Titian, all the drawings are most probably the author's work. With his Habiti antichi et moderni, Vecellio renovated the genre of costume book, which had enjoyed enormous success all along the XVI century, as a result of the widening of geographical and cultural horizons that followed the discovery of the New Worlds. Differently from his Italian and European forerunners, Vecellio decided to accompany each illustration with a thorough description and a rich commentary on the subject represented: in this way, far from being a simple catalogue of particular ways of dressing, aiming at satisfying the reader's curiosity, the collection becomes an opportunity for broader reflection on the implications of clothing on society and on its relations to the cultural and political history of the part of the world each time concerned. Therefore, due to the special attention accorded to Venice and Italy in the first book, the Habiti antichi et moderni provides also an original insight into contemporary Venetian and Italian societies, which are not devoid of political vibrations. In Vecellio's reading, since rulers are those mainly responsible for changes in fashion, the extraordinary variety of XVI century Italian clothing is a direct consequence of Italian history, and of the political fragmentation and instability of the Peninsular states in particular. On a more general level, ?through the lens of the iconographic reproduction of dress and the text accompanying it, Vecellio's book opens a window onto the complexity of Italian and European Renaissance culture. Illustrating how fashion is linked to both individual and collective history, Vecellio's Habiti can be considered a precursor to modern ethnographic research' (E. Paulicelli, Mapping the World?).Gu
  • $13,109
  • $13,109
book (2)

Idea del buon scrittore, opera prima di Tomaso Ruinetti da Ravena a?beneficio de?desiderosi d?imitare le vere forme dello scrivere.

RUINETTI, Tomaso. Olong quarto (230 x 320 mm.), 44 engraved plates including engraved title page, potrait of Tommaso Ruinetti and the dedication to Paolo V. A few restioration in the white margins, a few spots, overall a good copy bound in modern brown calf. First edition of this rare calligraphic masterpiece. ?Tomaso Ruinetti's Idea del buon scrittore, engraved on copper by Christoforo Blanco in 1619 and published in Rome, is a handsome book which displays the speedy chancery style espoused by Scalino ? years earlier. The best piece of writing in the book is the privilege from Paul V. 22 November 1619, written in good conservative cancelleresca corsiva on Cresci's model. The dedication to Cardinal Aldobrandini is in cancelleresca corsiva corrente with flourishes but without loops.The ligature ?ch' is used only occasionally. The layout is so excellent that it became a model for his followers. Ruinetti's formula was a command of hand border, enclosing a dedication or superscription to an eminent Cardinal, with fast writing of cancelleresca corsiva corrente. The fast writing examples are well exemplified in plate8, whereis shown but he does not become addicted to looping until plate 25, where occurs. His plate 31, Alfabeti del Ruinetti per la S'ra Fontanella exhibits three lines of capitals, swash and inscriptional, and three of lower case; six plates (32-38) provide a conservative cancelleresca corsiva (39), cancelleresca corsiva antica, a capital and a lower-case sloped roman; 40 an upright antica tonda, which is quite tolerable. T book ends with a suite of the Latin capitals in the Sixtus V style'. (S. Morrison, Early Italian writing books ? Verona, 1990; pp.140-141)'Ruinetti was the first of the writing masters to use copper-plate engraving to reproduce not only a variety of scripts (as Hercolani had been first to do in 1574) but also the very elaborate borders showing 'strikings' or 'command of hand'. These calligraphic flourishes already threaten to dominate the page, and later writing masters were to take up this aspect of the copy books with great enthusiasm and virtuosity'. (The Art of Calligraphy, 185.) Bonacini 1585
  • $9,534
  • $9,534
La Historia d?Italia.

La Historia d?Italia.

GUICCIARDINI, Francesco. Folio (406 x 265mm.), [8], 665, [2] pages, woodcut printer's device on tile-page and on last leaf, Guicciardini's portrait on ?A? verso.  Early XIX century half vellum, spine gilt with two morocco lettering-pieces. Light worming, some leaves browned, a few spots, overall a good copy with contemporary manuscript annotations.  Very rare first edition of the ?first modern history of Europe'(PMM); Francesco Guicciardini magnum opus, the historical account of political events in Italy between 1490 and 1534. Published posthumously by Guicciardini's nephew, Agnolo, the first sixteen books are present in this early edition, the last four being unfinished at the time of Francesco's death, and only later published separately in 1564. According to Graesse, this edition contains three passages - in books 3, 4, and 10 ? which were suppressed in later editions. The work is dedicated to Cosimo I de Medici, bearing the Medici coat of arms on the title page.Guicciardini (1483-1540) was a politician, diplomat to Spain, as well as advisor to Pope Clement VII and Alessandro de' Medici, but most illustrious might be his legacy as historian. ?Guicciardini was incorruptible. He was almost fanatically concerned about his honour, which, as he once wrote, is a ?burning stimulus' to action. But he was a man of strong ambitions, and he was very conscious of his great gifts and talents? (Gilbert). A member of the Florentine elite, Guicciardini was a friend of Machiavelli, with whom he maintained an active correspondence until the latter's death. La historia di Italia reflects this exclusive environment, in which all light is focused on the leaders of states and governments, interweaved with Francesco's analysis of the political dynamics. He is still celebrated as having developed analytical historiographical methods through this work, by describing the politics of the Italian states of the Renaissance with the meticulousness of a detached observer and the insight of an insider analyst.?In 1538 when Francesco Guicciardini was fifty-five years old, he began to write a history of the preceding forty years. In the course of his lifetime he had written family memoirs and autobiographical notes, he had composed commentaries on works of others ? for example, one on Machiavelli's Discourses ? he had outline plans for an ideal constitution of Florence, and twice he had undertaken to write a history of Florence. But the Historia d' Italia stands apart from all his writings because it was the one work which he wrote not for himself, but for the public. When Guicciardini embarked on this last and largest of al his literary enterprises his political career had ended. He was aware that what was for him the greatest fame which man can attain ? the fame as a moulder of the political world ? had evaded him. But he still yearned for immortality, and he turned to the writing of history because he hoped that literary work might bring him the fame which had escaped him in politics. [?] Guicciardini wanted to produce a ?'true history'' in the humanist sense and this aim is evident on every page of the Historia d' Italia. [?]  Guicciardini intensified this sordid picture of his own times by alluding to the existence of better times. A brief account of the effects of the discovery of America gave him the opportunity to suggest the possibility of a world not tormented ?by avarice and ambition'. He made a few comparisons between his own time and antiquity, and in these passages he iterated the humanist notion of the unparalleled greatness of the classical world. [?] but averred that perfection is possible only at the beginning, and all things human are thereafter inevitably subject to corruption. To the men of the sixteenth-century the proof of this surrounded them: short-sighted people, vicious people, people of petty interests and aims dominated the political life off their time.' (Gilbert) Guicciardini understood that he could not only
  • $53,626
  • $53,626
book (2)

Li Sonetti canzone e triumphi del Petrarcha con li soi commenti non senza grandissima euigilantia et summa diligentia correpti et in la loro primaria integrita et origine restituti nouiter in littera cursiua studiossimamente impressi.

PETRARCA, Francesco. Two parts in one volume, quarto (209 x 131 mm.), 156, [8], 184 leaves with 7 full page woocuts, decorative initials. A restored tear on title page and two on the last page, a few spots but a very good copy bound in early XVIII century calf, spine in compartments with red morocco lettering piece, covers with gilt coat of arms.  Rare edition of Stagnino's publication of Petrarch's sonnets and triumphs. Two parts in one volume. The first half of the work includes a short biography by Antonio da Tempo and a woodcut illustration of Petrarch being crowned with a laurel wreath; the work's main body contains Petrarch's canzone and 316 sonnets with commentary by Francesco Filelfo and Girolamo Squarciafico. The second part of the volume is dedicated to the triumphs with commentary by Bernardo Lapini, with each of the six chapters opening with a woodcut illustration related to its theme: The Triumph of Chastity; of Death; of Love; of Fame; of Time; of Divinity. A total of seven full-page woodcut illustrations with beautifully clean line work. Marsand has described the present edition as ?reproduced almost in full conformity with that of the famous edition made in Padua in the year 1472, having been copied from a manuscript by the poet himself. Even as regards to the typography, it cannot be denied that much diligence and accuracy was used. Beautiful exemplar? (Marsand, p.32)Francesco Petrarca (1304- 1374) was one of the first to significantly solidify sonnet structure, where it works in conjunction with the rhyme scheme to emphasize the ideas of nehind the poem. ?The sonnet was not his creation, but it became his creature? (Spiller, p. 45), moulded to sing the praises of his unrequited love for a woman, Laura, written both during her life and after her death. The love motif prevails in the collection of poems, but political, patriotic and moral feelings dominate some of them. The latter motif overflows heavily into the second part of the work, written in terza rima and making large use of allegory. In the Trionfi we have a victorious procession in which there take part six leading allegorical figures: Love, Chastity, Death, Fame, Time, and Divinity. Chastity triumphs over its predecessor until finally Divinity reigns supreme as the symbol of peace and eternal love. The Rime of Petrarch is not only one of the most influential, but also one of the most complicated of European lyric achievements - more than eight hundred critical works on the subject have been published in the twentieth century alone.? (Spiller, p. 45) USTC 847803; Adams v.2 p.65 789; BM STC Italian p.503  C.57. C.24; Marsand, Biblioteca Petrarchesca pp.31-32; Not in Brunet; Spiller. The development of the sonnet: An introduction. 1992. 
  • $11,917
  • $11,917
book (2)

Diversorum veterum poetarum in Priapum lusus. P.V.M. Catalecta.

[PRIAPEA]. Octavo (156 x 90 mm.),  80 leaves with Aldus's device on title page and an verso of the lest leaf.Binding slightly rubbed but a  very good copy from the library of Rogier Peyrefitte (ex libris) bound in XVIII century calf, spine in compartments with gilt decoration, gilt edges.   Second stand-alone Aldine edition, a reprint of the 1517 collection of short comedic and erotic poems dedicated to Priapus, Roman god of fertility. The 80 epigrams, belonging to the Augustan Age (c. 43 BC - 18 AD) are thought to have originated from transcriptions of statues and temples, although some may originally have been the leisure products of aristocratic voluptuaries, and later compiled into this work. Largely lost for a millennium until the 14th century, it was accepted as the work of Virgil and their first appearances in print were in publications of his writings.Priapus originates from Asia Minor, seeping into Greek culture around the 4th century BC. First mentioned in Xenarchus' Middle Comedy, his status as a minor fertility god was incorporated into Greek literature as a mythico-political figure, and later adopted as a popular figure in Roman erotic art and Latin literature, such as Ovid's Fasti. Much about him is suggestive of ?lowness': as a minor god, he is rustic, associated with pastoral settings and made of wood, protects the gardens which are often presented as small and meagre.The Priapea follows the ithyphallic god's colourful adventures while protecting his gardens and vineyards, threatening any thieves with extreme obscenities with flashes of wit and humour. ?This collection sensitizes us to the emasculating liberation on offer in all poetry: every poem is, to some extent, a garden of earthy delights where readers can bask in a voluptuous range of bodily sensations. When that garden belongs to Priapus, it may be obscene or prone to invective flights that leave the reader's loins ?hollowed? (Pr. 51.4). But no matter how menacing the content, a poem will also encourage those loins to undulate in ways the ideal Priapic vir [man] was never meant to enjoy.? (Young, 2015) Written in Priapus' voice, the first epigram advises the reader to the work's explicit content, almost as if reading these poems was akin to trespassing the god's gardens: You who are about to read shameless jests of artless verse, lower thatbrow that befits Latium. The sister of Phoebus does not dwell in thisshrine, nor does Vesta, nor does the goddess who was born from herfather's head, but the ruddy guardian of gardens, more than usuallywell-endowed, who has his groin covered by no clothing. So, eitherput a tunic over the part that ought to be covered, or, with the eyeswith which you gaze upon this part, read on. ?[The] horticultural theft and retaliation allegorizes the experience of reading the Carmina Priapea itself. Obscene and rebarbative, this collection is a thorny garden of verse that readers are invited to explore - at their own risk [. This collection sets up a tension between the forms of bodily regulation Priapus represents and a divergent set of sensory experiences available through its poetic form. To be sure, it delivers a relentless lesson in Rome's traditional sexual norms; but this lesson is couched in a form that would have immersed its first readers (mostly elite and mostly male) in a torrent of patently ?unmanly' sensations.? (Young, pp.183-208)  USTC 802677; Adams v.2 2085 p.114; Brunet 359; BM STC Italian p.539 C.4 f.18; C.19. e.6; G.9831; E. M. Young.?The Touch of the Cinaedus: Unmanly Sensations in the Carmina Priapea? Classical Antiquity, 34(1), 2015, 183?208.)  
  • $4,767
  • $4,767
Tragoediae septendecim .

Tragoediae septendecim .

EURIPIDES 2 volumes, octavo (156 x 100mm), [268]; [190] leaves, Aldine dolphin device at end, Latin and Greek marginalia with notes in several contemporary hands, leaves numbered at head (both occasionally cropped).  Fine late XVIII century red morocco gilt, covers bordered with a gilt rule and repeated scrolled acanthus leaves, gilt fleurons to corners, spines with four raised bands richly gilt in compartments, green and blue morocco labels, inner dentelles gilt, marbled endpapers, all edges marbled. Provenance:  Earls of Macclesfield (armorial bookplates, Shirburn Castle blindstamp.). A very fine set.  Editio princeps of the most part of Euripides tragedies. Medea, Hippolitus, Alcestis and Andromache had been previously published at Florence ca. 1495 by Lorenzo de Alopa; Electra was not published until 1545. At the end of the second volume we find the Hercules Furens not mentioned in the title page, menwhile included in the collection are the Resus whose autorship is doubtful and the Cyclops which is a satire and not a tragedy. In his preface to Demetrius Chalcondylas, Aldus indicates the edition consisted of one thousand copies and announces the imminent publication of the scholia to seven of the plays, but these were not printed until Giunta's edition of 1534. The Greek type used by Aldus here is the same introduced for the first time six months earlier for the Sophocles. It is the smallest Greek type so far and better cut than the previous ones; it is probably the best Greek type used by Aldus. Aldus' edition remained the most important printed text of Euripides until the 18th century. The contemporary marginal notes give alternative readings, references to other authors, and translations of complex phrases. The text of the first volume is preceded by a sheet of manuscript with notes in Latin, Italian and Greek with relevant page numbers, in the same hand as did the numbering. The two 16th-century annotators were accomplished classicists. The first ? c.1550s ? glossed numerous passages with Latin translations, and had access to alternative versions of the text, as he corrected a few lines using variants. Since he generally mentioned his authorities, when he did not it may mean he had access to unpublished mss. He cross-referenced Horace, Plato, Cicero, Theocritus, Aristophanes and Sophocles. On the title of vol. 1 he noted the Pythian oracle's statement to Socrates, ?Sophocles is wise, Euripides is wiser, but of all men Socrates is wisest', found in Aristophanes. Interesting annotations pertain to the harsh rhetorical ?agon' in which Hermione accuses Andromache of being a witch and coming from a barbarian people prone to incest and polygamy. The annotator glossed Hermione with ?Asian women are poisonous', ?barbarians practice the works of Venus indiscriminately', ?women's libido is greater than men's' and ?there is no remedy against evil women'. A slightly later hand annotated passages in ink or pencil with references to Estienne's commentary on Euripides and Sophocles, published in 1568.  Renouard 43/10; Dibdin I 524
  • $35,751
  • $35,751
Tragoediae septem cum commentariis. [Greek] Edited by Johannes Gregoropoulos Cretensis].

Tragoediae septem cum commentariis. [Greek] Edited by Johannes Gregoropoulos Cretensis].

SOPHOCLES Octavo (145x93 mm), 196 unnumbered leaves, with the three blanks. Types 1:80 italic, 4:79 Greek, cut by Francesco Griffo. General title, Latin dedication to Janus Lascaris, epigrams of Simonides, Erucius and Diocorides the Alexadrian from the Antology, six divisional titles, woodcut dolphin and anchor device (Fletcher no. 2) on verso of last leaf, all leaves ruled in red. Light foxing, overall a good copy, bound by Roger Pyne in red morocco for Michael Wodhall, covers bordered with gilt floral tools, Wodhall coat of arms on front cover, inner dentelles gilt, spine richly decorated in gilt, gilt edges. Editio princeps of the seven surviving tragedies by Sophocles. This edition remained the most readily available source for study of Sophocles' text until the 19th century, when superior manuscripts became the subject of scholarly study. A portion of the printer's copy survives, as St. Petersburg ms. gr. 731. ?The Aldine is probably best known for the editor's intervention at Antigone 572. He appears to be the first scholar to propose that the line be given to the heroine, whereas the manuscript tradition is unanimous in assigning it to her sister Ismene ? The Aldine editor's now seems to have been an influential mistake.? (N. Wilson, From Byzantium to Italy: Greek Studies in the Italian Renaissance. Baltimore, 1993. p. 138-139). The Sophocles is the first Greek book issued in the aldine portable format and the first classical text printed in the smallest and finest aldine Greek type. ?Type 4 was a radical change not only in design, but in its typographical application. The small size of the new type must have suggested the need for a new simplicity, and Aldus's hand was an admirable model in this respect ? This final achievement of Francesco Griffo fully deserves the praise accorded to it by Mardesteig. It is true that our eyes turn to it with grateful welcome, unaccustomed as they are to the ligatures an abbreviations of the earlier types. But by any standards it is a masterpiece, not only of engraving skill executed with marvelous homogeneity on a minute scale, but also of exquisitely planned letter fit ?It is not surprising that after this no further development was undertaken: it was a ne plus ultra until the great French engravers of the mid-century, Garamond, Granjon and Haultin, bent their talents to the cutting of Greeks.?(N. Barker, Aldus Manutius and the development of Greek script and type, New York 1992, p. 89). The Sophocles is the first Aldine edition to mention the Greek New Academy in its colophon. In the dedicatory letter to Lascaris, Aldus describes a scene in his household as they sat in a semicircle round the fire with the members of the New Academy in the cold of winter. At some point Marcus Musurus, Lascaris' grateful pupil, spoke at length in his praise and remarked how pleased the master had been with Aldus's productions when he met him in Milan and Padua the previous July and August. Now that his New Academy is bringing out Sophocles' seven tragedies in small format, Aldus would like to associate the edition with Lascaris' name and dedicate it to him as a sign of great affection. Apart from Aldus and Johannes Cretensis, the other founding members were Scipio Fortiguerra, who drafted the statutes, Battista Egnazio, Paolo da Canal, Girolamo Menocchio and Francesco Rosetto. Aldus's Greek New Academy was both a Greek dining club where somewhat facetiously no language but Greek was allowed to be spoken and a serious new educational movement concerned with the advancement of classical culture. Ahmanson-Murphy 48; Renouard 34.6; Adams S-1438.
  • $32,176
  • $32,176
book (2)

La Divina Comedia Di Dante, di nuouo alla sua vera lettione ridotta con loaiuto di molti antichissimi esemplari. Con argomenti, et allegorie per ciascuncanto, e apostille nel margine. Et indice copiosissimo .

ALIGHIERI, DANTE 12mo (129 x 75 mm), early 19th cent. brown half calf, with gilt title and fillets on spine, boards covered with marbled paper, sprinkled edges, a clean, good copy, with the bookplate of Leo S. Olschki (light warterstain at gutter of last leaves). Giolito's woodcut device on title-page and (larger) on last leaf, pp. (36), 598, (2, with colophon and device).One of the rarest and most elegant 16th century editions of the Commedia, here appears for the first time the term of ?Divina? Although Dante had already beencalled ?Divino' for some time, the definitive title of the poem is due to Dolce (1508 - 1568), who composed the notes of this edition, never reprinted by Giolito. It is decorated with a large number of woodcut headings and initials, and typographical decorations, with a half-page woodcut portrait of Dante and twelve woodcuts at 2/3 of page; the text is in italics and the comment is printed in the margins in small type; each ?Canto' is preceded by an allegory and by the subject. Two issues of this edition are known, with significant variations in the typographic ornaments and in the layout of the text. Mambelli 39; Olschki cat. ?Letteratura dantesca? (Cat. LXXV, 1911), n.50; Bongi I, 475-476; De Batines, I, p. 90-91; Brunet, II,504: ?Edition bien imprimee et faite avec soin?; Adams D-101.
  • $5,958
  • $5,958
[The Commentaries.] C. Julii Cæsaris Quae Extant. Accuratissimè cum Libris Editis & MSS optimis Collata

[The Commentaries.] C. Julii Cæsaris Quae Extant. Accuratissimè cum Libris Editis & MSS optimis Collata, Recognita & Correcta. Accesserunt Annotationes Samuelis Clarke. S.T.P. Item Indices Locorum, Rerumque & Verborum Utilissimæ. Tabulis Æneis Ornata.

CAESAR, Gaius Julius Folio (465 x 288mm). 87 engraved plates, comprising: engraved double-page additional title, 61 double-page plates, many by C. Huijberts after Mantegna, including a famous image of a bison, 25 full-page plates including a folding portrait of the Duke of Marlborough by George Vertue (1684-1756); numerous engraved headpieces and vignettes in the text, initials. Faint even browning throughout but a very fine copy in contemporary red morocco, spine richly gilt in 8 compartments, dark-green morocco gilt lettering-piece in second, the others with foliate tools and volute cornerpieces, marbled endpapers, gilt turn-ins and edges. Provenance: 'L' (small circular stamp dated 1910 on rear free endpaper). First edition.?The most sumptuous classical work which this country has produced' (Lowndes) bound in contemporary red morocco with 87 attractive engravings by various artists, including the famous image of a bison that is sometimes missing or damaged. The Tonson's Caesar received contemporary praise from Joseph Addison as ?a Work that does honour to the English Press', having ?passed thro' the Hands of one of the most accurate, learned and judicious Writers this Age has produced. The Beauty of the Paper, of the Character, and of the several Cuts with which this noble Work is illustrated, makes it the finest Book that I have ever seen; and is a true Instance of the English Genius' (The Spectator no. 367, May 1712). The work is annotated by Samuel Clarke (1675-1729), a major English philosopher, especially renowned for his theories on the existence of God and the immortality of the soul. He also corresponded with Leibnitz and in 1706 translated Newton's Optiks into latin. Among his philological works is also an edition of the first 12 books of the Iliad. For the present edition, he chose Caesar's accounts of his campaigns in Gaul and Britain (58-50BC) and of his participation in the Roman Civil War (49-48BC) along with the remaining works on his military campaigns in Alexandria and Asia, Africa, and the Iberian peninsula. The volume is ?dedicated to John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough, the victorious English general at the Battle of Blenheim (1704) and instrumental to the military successes of the Grand Alliance more generally, this monumental volume establishes by a secular typology that Marlborough is the new Julius Caesar of Europe. Strange as that may seem from the long view of history, Samuel Clarke's cloying dedication to the Duke as the ?noblest, wisest, and strongest? of men (?Nobilissimo, Sapientissimo, & Fortissimo?) says as much from its opening paragraph, describing the ancient commander as ?outdone only by YOU [Marlborough] in glory and success, and in every part of the character of a consummate general? (?TUA solius armorum gloria & felicitate & laude omni superatum?).10 Understandably, then, Marlborough's portrait (by George Vertue after Godfrey Kneller), complete with a cartouche proclaiming him ?Illustrissimus, Potentissimus, et Excellentissimus,? occupies pride of place as the frontispiece of the volume.'  (Michael F. Suarez, Hard Cases: Confronting Bibliographical Difficulty in Eighteenth-Century Texts. pbsa 111:1 (2017): 1?30 © 2017 Bibliographical Society of America.)Brunet I, 1456; Lowndes I, p.344-345. 
  • $27,409
  • $27,409
book (2)

Cremona fedelissima città et nobilissima colonia de romani rappresentata in disegno col suo contado et illustrata d’vna breue historia delle cose piu notabili appartenenti ad essa et de i ritratti naturali de duchi et duchesse di Milano e compendio delle lor vite da Antonio Campo pittore e caualier cremonese al potentissimo e felicissimo re di Spagna Filippo II d’Austria

CAMPO, Antonio. Folio (402 x 265mm). Allegorical title-page  with figures, one winged figure is working on an inscription to Philip II, whose device appears at the head of the title and coat of arms below (with alterated date where it reads 1583),  portrait of Philip II in a medallion without cap and 55 small shields with the arms of the states belonging to the Spanish crown, allegory of Cremona on the verso of the second leaf, portrait of Antonio Campo, figure with the Carroccio proceeding from the gates of Cremona, 9 oval portraits of bishops or other illustrious personalities, 24 oval portraits of the dukes and duchesses of Milan with the portrait of Philip II wearing a  hat on p.112, plates depicting the baptistery and its plan, the facade of the Cremona Cathedral, the tower and its plan all engraved by Agostino Carracci;  the plan of Cremona folded several times and dated 1582, the map of the Contado and Diocese of Cremona engraved by David de Laude , text within woodcut border, woodcut initials and headpieces, with the blank leaf at the end of the third book. Early XVIII century stiff vellum with gilt title on spine, marbled edges. A small wormtrak in the upper white margin of the first five leaves, a very fine wide margined copy in eighteent century stiff vellum with brown morocco lettering-piece on spine from the library of the Zurla family from Crema.First edition of this magnifcently illustrated history of Cremona, one of the most beautiful illustrated books of the late Cinquecento. The work, divided in four books, contains the history of Cremona cronologically organized from the foundadion by the Romans up to 1585. A fifth book, devoted to the description of the Cathedral and other churches, announced by the author was never published. The book is illustrated by 33 medallion portraits of Cremona prominrnt citizens and the dukes and duchesses of Milan by Agostino Carracci;   many of the accompanying letterpress descriptions include a note as to the source of the image, including on page 104 a now lost portrait of Massimiliano Sforza by Leonardo da Vinci, then 'in casa di Francesco Melcio gentil'huomo Milanese'. Our copy belongs to the second -the correct one- issue of the book ?with only 56 lines in the address to the Consiglieri (shortened by the elimination of references to an unpublished fifth book on churches of Cremona), and with a second portrait of Philip II printed on O4v, rather than a masked-reprinting of the plate appearing on the title verso. The large city plani is also in the second issue, with the engraver signing himself ?David de Laude Crem. Hebreus?: a rather early reference to a Jewish engraver in the Renaissance' (Sotheby's The Cottection of Otto Schäfer, 1994). The title-page, the first portrait of Philip II, the allegory of Cremona, and the Carroccio are all signed by Antonio Campo as a designer. Cicognara 3977; Adams C 489; Mortimer Italian 100.  
  • $17,875
  • $17,875
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La reale medicide, esponente nella morte di Don Garzia i fatti piu? speciali di Cosimo Duca II. di Firenze . Tragica festa teatrale, illustrata di rami e d’istoriche annotazioni.

Quarto (240 x 180 mm.), 190 pages with 9 full pages illustarion engraved by Matteo Carboni: two allegory of the Medici family, one view of Palazzo Pitti and six portraits ( Cosimo, Eleonora, Francesco, Giovanni, Garzia and Ferdinando de'Medici). A very fine copy in contemporary boards with manuscript title on spine. First edition of Francesco Catani's (1755-1789) first published work, a tragic theatrical representation of the Medici family's history. The stage play was based on Garzia de' Medici's (1547-1562) death from Malaria when travelling to Spain, along with his brother Giovanni di Cosimo's and mother Eleonora of Toledo's death in the surrounding weeks. Each member of the family is presented through portraits engraved by Matteo Carboni, consisting in total of six illustrations: Cosimo I, Eleonora di Toledo, Francesco I, Giovanni di Cosimo I, Garzia di Toscana and Ferdinando I. The work includes further engravings by Carboni, being two allegorical tables with a motto and a  view of Palazzo Pitti in Florence. It is dedicated to Marquis Vincenzo Capponi, a Florentine patrician.La reale medicide was structured in five acts joined by cantatas, dithyrambs and dances which pertain very little to the solemnity of the piece. It was the first in a projected series of seven tragic theatrical festivals, of which only a second work was written the following year, the Bianca Capello. Both pieces were heavily criticised in the press, particularly in Catani's own journalistic publication Giornale fiorentino istorico-politico-letterario, a periodical ran in collaboration with Modesto Rastrelli, author of Morte di Alessandro de' Medici (1780). In particular, the play's contrived nature, lack of creativity and artificiality were emphasized, even advising the author to "change profession " (Catani, Francesco Maria Xaverio in Dizionario Biografico). Catani did not pursue further a career in theatre, focusing his energy on the publication of Giornale fiorentino with Rastrelli. The periodical contained roughly four themes: extracts from works, literary varieties, political reflections, and poetry. To this journalistic enterprise C. tried to associate various personalities including Benjamin Franklin, to whom he wrote on the 2nd of January 1778, inviting him to collaborate in a casual manner. Catani's later publications followed the previous political thematic, and were printed in his own house, in collaboration with Girolamo Betti with who he also carried out a trade in books.  Melzi, III, p. 394. 
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Vita di Michelagnolo Buonarroti pittore scultore architetto e gentiluomo fiorentino pubblicata mentre viveva dal suo scolare Ascanio Condivi.

Folio (350 x 230 mm.), [2], XXX, 160 pages, engraved potrait of Michelangelo dated 1546, 3 engraved plates, engraved vignettes, head and tailpieces in the text. Quires A-G slightly shorter; a very fine copy, untrimmed, in contemporary boards, manuscript title on spine. Large paper copy of the second enlarged and revised edition of the first separate biography of Michelangelo, first published in 1553. ?Painter and purported author of an early and generally reliable biography of Michelangelo in 1553. Condivi came from a merchant family in Ripatransone where he was raised. He attended school there for five years beginning in 1537. He moved to Rome around 1545, where he met the senior Michelangelo and entered his workshop. During the same time that Giorgio Vasari wrote his first edition of his Le vite de più eccellenti pittori scultori e architetti (1550, Condivi determined to write a biography solely of Michelangelo. This became his Vita di Michelagnolo Buonarroti, which appeared in 1553. Scholars today believe Michelangelo virtually dictated the entire text to Condivi (Gilbert). After a rich biography, Condivi ends with a series of anecdotes to illustrate the notion of respect that Michelangelo achieved in his own time. Vasari used Condivi's Vita to rewrite and correct the account that had appeared his own book for a second edition of 1568. In one extant edition of Condivi's book, an acquaintance clearly close to Michelangelo corrects some facts, giving us an account of the artist as well as recounting Condivi's difficulty in separating the myths from the truth on the artist, already with many legends existed. In 1554 Condivi married the niece of Annibale Caro (1507-1566), a friend of Michelangelo; possibly Annibale may have been the true author of the Condivi's Vita. Condivi returned to painting in his home in Ripatransone in 1554. As an artist, Condivi had ?an appalling degree of incompetence? (Wilde), even when Michelangelo assisted him. A Vergine con Bambino e Santi (after a cartoon by Michelangelo) is today housed at the Casa Buonarroti, Florence and a fresco is at the church of San Savio in Ripatransone. He died early as the result of an accident in 1574. Condivi's Vita contests the biography in the first edition of Vasari, including Michelangelo's arrogance and homosexuality. Condivi's contrived genealogy, though doubted by all scholars, attests to his closeness to Michelangelo, who, like Michelangelo, was self-conscious of his own illegitimacy. His omission of the artist's training, both in Ghirlandaio's studio and his contact with Bramante, continues the contemporary aura of Michelangelo as the complete, i.e., selfcontained, genius. However, the one autograph letter known of Condivi shows a writer of significant inarticulation. The Vita's high literary qualities has suggested to some that the work was written or co-authored by Caro (Wilde). A promised edition of Michelangelo's poetry by Condivi apparently never materialized. (dictionaryofarthistorians.org)  Gilbert, Creighton E. ?Introduction.? The Life of Michelangelo Buonarroti: Based on Studies in the Archives of the Buonarroti Family at Florence. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2002, p. xi; Wilde, Johannes. ?Michelangelo, Vasari and Condivi.? Michelangelo: Six Lectures. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1978, pp. 1-16.  
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Opere, divise in quattro tomi, in questa nuova edizione accresciute de molti cose inedite.

Four volumes, quarto (245 x 178 mm.), I: portrait of Galileo, [8], 602 pages and a folding table; II: [4], 564 pages; III: [4], 486 pages; IV: [8], 343 pages with numerous diagrams and illustrations in the text. Very minor marginal foxing, overall a very good set in contemporary stiff vellum, gilt title om spines.  Rare third edition of Galileo's complete collected works in four volumes, the first edition to include the controversial text of Dialogo sopra i due massimi sistemi del mondo. Published on the centenary of Galileo's death, this edition's title page is printed in red and black, with a portrait frontispiece of Galileo surrounded by mathematic and astronomic instruments engraved by Francesco Zucchi (1692 - 1764). Richly illustrated throughout, the first volume contains a fold-out plate, as well as numerous in-text diagrams. The work was edited and includes commentary by Giuseppe Toaldo (1719 ? 1797), Catholic priest and professor of astronomy at the University of Padua.Galileo Galilei (1564 ? 1642) ?initiated modern observational astronomy, which studies the universe as a physical structure; and he announced himself as a Copernican. By so doing and by asserting, with the evidence of his instrument (the telescope), that the universe was very unlike what Aristotle and the ancients had described, Galileo revived the smouldering Copernican dispute.? (PMM 113) His seminal works and crucial observations of the skies and tides are present in this four-volume compilation, among them Sidereus Nuncius, Il Saggiatore, and Istoria e dimostrazioni intorno alle macchie solari. As a champion of heliocentrism, he was investigated by the Roman Inquisition in 1615, and in 1616 the Inquisitorial commission declared heliocentrism to be "foolish and absurd in philosophy, and formally heretical since it explicitly contradicts in many places the sense of Holy Scripture". Galileo was ordered to abandon heliocentric theories and not to defend or teach such heretical ideas.The much controversial work here included for the first time, the Dialogo, ?is not, nor was it intended to be, a dry treatise in astronomy and natural philosophy. It is rather a polemical writing and, at the same time, didactic in support of Copernicanism. In writing it, Galileo remembered quite distinctly the long years of battles with the Aristotelians, their unshakable opposition to new ideas and to new discoveries.? (Fantoli, p.321) The Dialogue itself is conducted by three people: an open advocate of the Copernican doctrine, an obtuse and obstinate follower of Aristotle and Ptolemy, and an impartial participator open to conviction. Despite the initial approval in 1632 by the Viceregent of Rome, the Master of the Sacred Palace, the Vicar General of Florence, the Florentine Inquisitor and the government of the Grand Duke, within months of publication, the work was placed on the Index of Forbidden Books under suspicion of heresy, and there it remained until 1835. Uniquely, the Dialogue received the prescribed ecclesiastical permission to be printed in the present edition, that of 1744 - 91 years before it was removed from the Index. However, this was under the condition of stating in the introduction that ?the theory of the double motion must be regarded only as a mathematical hypothesis, to facilitate the explanation of certain natural phenomena. Besides this, the Dialogues had to be preceded by the sentence on and recantation of Galileo.? (Gebler p.313)A previously unpublished treatise on sight measuring methods, Trattato del modo di misurare con la vista, as well as some of Galileo's correspondence, Ventitrè lettere a diversi, delle quali sedici al Micanzio e tre al Gualdo, were also first published in this edition of his works.Despite Galileo's incarceration, in 1635 the Dialogues were sent to Paris in order to be translated into Latin and later English, eventually being published in Holland and widely circulated outside the range of the Index.
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Il Roccolo ditirambo di Valeriano Acanti Acc. Olimpico Vicentino.

Quarto (255 x 190 mm.), xxiv, 67 pages with allegorical vignette on title page, two more vignette in the text and a folding table, all engraved by Cunego. Two small defects on spine but a very good copy in ontemporary boards with manuscript title on spine. First edition of the earliest account of wines from the Veneto region, containing the first mention of Prosecco. One of the most important and rare works on the history of Italian wine, Il Roccolo ditirambo disguises itself as a dithyrambic poem in honour of Dionysus to sing the praises of Venetian enology.  The work is dedicated to Count Gelio Ghellini, patriarch of one of the most powerful families of Vicenza, on the occasion of the marriage of his daughter Elena to Count Simandio Chiericati and it is illustrated with a a fold-out engraving of a pastoral scene including vineyard plantations from count Ghellini's villa, as well as two small bucolic scenes at the beginning and end of the poem, engraved by Domenico Cunego from Verona.Publishing under the pseudonym and anagram Aureliano Acanti, the author Valeriano Canati (1706 - 1787) was an Italian priest of the Theatines order, as well as a poet, member of the Venetian Accademia Olimpica. Lyrically, Canati recounts the emergence of ?the son of Bacchus' from a subterranean cloister and his discovery of the idealistic rural scenery he encounters. Soon enough he encounters vineyards and plunges into a passionate and playful discovery of different wines, producing vivid descriptions of their colour, flavour, fullness as well as their effects on the drinker. Of note is the mention of Prosecco as a sweet and cloudy, but pure and healthy wine: ?Con quel melaromatico Prosecco.//Di Monteberico questo perfetto//Prosecco eletto ci dà lo splendido//Nostro Canonico. Io lo conosco//Egli è un po' fosco, e sembra torbido;//Ma pur è un balsamo sì puro e sano' (p.29).  Il Roccolo ditirambo is a fascinating work, both as a commemoration of late eighteenth century Italian enology and a historical record of colossal academic value.Extremely rare, only four copies have been auctioned in the past twenty-five years, and WorldCat records only three copies: The British Library, Staatsbibliothek Berlin, and Biblioteca intercomunale di Fiera di Primiero. Three facsimiles have been published, in 1971 by the Accademia italiana della cucina, Milan, in 2003 by Provincia di Vicenza, and in 2011 under ?La modernità del pensiero vitivinicolo di Aureliano Acanti nel Roccolo ditirambo (1754)? by Antonio Calò and Angelo Costacurta (Biblioteca La Vigna, Vicenza). Morazzoni 211.
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Romanorum fontinalia, sive nitidissimorum perenniumque, intra et extra, Urbem Romam, fontium vera, varia, et accurata delineatio.

Folio (385 x 235 mm.), woodcut printer's device on title, text printed in double column, 42 double-page engraved plates of the fountains of Rome. A very fine copy in contemporary English pannelled calf.  First edition printed in Germany of the compilation of engravings depicting Rome's fountains built between sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. This work is the first comprehensive and most refined survey of Roman Baroque fountains. With the purpose of showcasing the awe-inspiring spectacle of the fountain within the contact of Roman urban architecture, Falda drew influence from Jacques Callot, Niccolo Codazzi and theatre design to produce dazzling engravings.Giovanni Battista Falda (1643-1678) was an Italian architect and engraver and artist who produced a vast collection of engravings concerning various types of Roman architecture, both from antiquity and his contemporary. Originally from Valduggia, Falda was sent to apprentice in Rome at a young age,  working in the studio of Bernini and later partnered with the publisher Giovanni Giacomo de Rossi to produce series of architectural prints. It was from this partnership that the initial engravings on the fountains of Rome were first created, published in 1675 as "Le Fontane di Roma". This would become the base of the work, with an additional two plates published as Romanorum fontinalia by Jakob von Sandrart (Joachim von Sandrart's nephew) after Falda's death (issued simultaneously with a German edition, from the same printing press).The urban structure of Rome was intrinsically incorporated in the rendering of the fountains, not only providing context for the theatrical aquatic and architectural show, but presenting the magnificent urban views of Rome. The reproduction of papal Rome on portable sheets bound in albums was a political enterprise (Bellini, Per una definizione dell'opera incisa di G. Battista Falda, 1983). Such views were often sponsored in the seventeenth century by popes and the patriciate to commemorate their present status for future generations, documenting and promoting the glory of a city rooted in its ancient history but also developed with grandiose engineering and architecture. Optical deformations were allowed in order to represent more completely the structural details of the places shown. ?Faldas's work is part of an important tradition begun in sixteenth century, the celebration of Rome's urban typography? (Millard, Italian and Spanish Books, 1993, p.133). This practice ran side-by-side with Roman Vedutismo's reproduction of ancient art and sculpture, presenting grand idyllic scenes brimming with history.The emerging interest towards Roman ancient art and architecture by collectors throughout Europe fuelled the production of engraved scenes such as this collection of fountain views. The engravings include depictions of fountains in main squares of the city such as Piazza Navona, del Popólo, di Spagna, and Capitoline; the fountains in front of major churches, i.e. the Pantheon, the Basilica of Santa Maria in Trastevere, The Papal Basilica of Saint Peter in the Vatican, San Giovanni in Laterano, Santa Maria Maggiore; Baroque Palazzos such as Barberini, Muti, Mattei and Colonna; as well as the emblematic fountains of Acqua Paola, Ponte Sisto, Acqua Acetosa and Moses. This work presents its viewer with a complete and detailed tour of Rome's fountains, which captivated the curiosity of foreigners and become popular with the first waves of Grand Tour participants during the late 17th century. ?His works appealed to tourists keen to retain a detailed and accurate representation of those parts of Rome they had visited? (Millard, p.134). It contributed to the work's commercial success and the continuous reprints by Giuseppe Valadier between 1798 and 1815. Falda's engravings remain a landmark in Roman urban representation of the seventeenth century, of impressive aesthetic and historical value due to its simultaneously realistic and theatric
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[Life of the Virgin Mary]

Folio (399 × 288 mm), 17 engraved plates bound in  early XVIII century boards in a contemporary paper slip case with the ex libris of the Milanese family of Cavazzi della Somaglia.  The complete series of 17 very large numbered engraveings of the Life of the Virgin printed in c. 1685/90 from the original copper plates by Raimondi, after Dürer. Each print bears Dürer's AD monogram and the last also Raimondi's MAF monogram. Late 18th-century boards, in a paste-paper slipcase with an engraved label showing the coat of arms of the Count of Somaglia, [Don Gaetano?] Cavazzi in Milan. In very good condition and with large margins. Binding somewhat worn and with a few cracks and minor stains.The Life of the Virgin Mary engravings were made by Marcantonio Raimondi (c.1480 - c. 1527/34) soon after discovering the original woodcut prints by Albrecht Dürer (1471 - 1528) sold in Venice, in the Piazza San Marco. According to Vasari, Marcantonio spent all of his money to acquire the 17 prints available in 1506  and reproduced them faithfully. ?Marcantonio turned his attention to every detail of those prints with all diligence, and thus to copying [.] carefully studying stroke by stroke [.] copied there the sign which Albrecht had made on his works, that is, the letters A.D. He succeeded in capturing Albrecht's style to such an extent that the prints were believed to be by Albrecht, and were bought and sold as such, since no one knew that the prints had been made by Marcantonio. When this situation was described to Albrecht in Flanders, and when one of the said copies were sent to him, Albrecht was moved to such fury that he left Flanders and went to Venice, where he complained about Marcantonio to the Senate. However, he got nothing but the sentence that Marcantonio could no longer add the name or monogram of Albrecht to his work. Copying Dürer's monogram [.] was a publisher's acknowledgment of a model that was in any case not protected against copying in Venice, and placed along with Marcantonio's monogram and [the publishers] device on the last print in the series, a position fully analogous to the colophon of a book? (Pon, pp. 39-66). Despite Marcantonio having to refrain from using Dürer's monogram in future copies, others continued to do so, pushing Dürer to publish with his 1511 edition of The Life of the Virgin a warning to anyone who attempted to counterfeit his work: ?Beware, you envious thieves of the work and invention of others, keep your thoughtless hands from these works of ours.? (Pon, pp. 39-66).Despite drawing out such a response from Dürer, Raimondi's engravings were highly acclaimed for their high technical skill and beauty. ?What [was] new about Marcantonio is the direction that he created for the art of engraving, for under the influence of Dürer's prints he changed it from a medium that imitated pen and silverpoint drawing toward one that could approximate the effects of painting and sculptural form. In this specific sense, then, Marcantonio may be considered to have invented the means for reproductive engraving. Throughout his career he progressively developed a technique that could achieve painterly chiaroscuro effects and sculptural volumes. His clearly disciplined technique was one that could be simplified to the bare essentials of sequences of dense cross hatchings, more widely spaces parallel hatchings, and light flecks or dots to express tonal transitions from dark to light. Yet even Marcantonio's closest followers never were able to imitate the multiplicity of effects that he achieved with this technique which, in the finest impressions of his best works, create dense, luminous tones, varied textures, and pure rounded volumes. [.] Nurtured by his training in the late quattrocento humanist currents in Bologna, was his fascination with ancient sculpture, which in turn had an impact upon his overwhelming dedication to rendering rounded, sculptural, three-dimensional figures. The
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Historia del concilio tridentino di Pietro Soave Polano. Nella quale si scoprono tutti gl?artificii della Corte di Roma, per impedire che né la verità di dogmi si palesasse, né la riforma del Papato, et della Chiesa si trattasse

Folio (315 x 205 mm.), [8], 806, [10] pages, woodcut Royal arms on title, woodcut decorated initials. Contemprary oak boarded black fishskin gilt, spine in compartments with gilt tile, blue edges. A few spots, light foxing, joints cracking but a very fine copy on large paper from the libraries of the Venetian merchant Amadeus Svajer (ex libris) and Lord Amherst of Hackney (ex libris). Large paper copies of the first edition are very rare. First edition of this pivotal work of Modern historiography, containing a lucid and accurate reconstruction of the history of the Council of Trent. The Tridentine Council (1545-1563), which proved decisive in laying the bases for the Catholic Counter Reformation, was considered by Sarpi the most relevant event of his recent past and the event mainly responsible for the political situation of his years. Precisely in light of the dramatic consequences that it had on contemporary politics and ideologies, it was epically defined by the author as the ?Iliade del secol nostro? (?Iliad of our century?). The Historia is articulated in eight books, without any further subdivision in chapters or paragraphs, encompassing both the history of the Council and of its preparatory phases in an annalistic form. Paolo Sarpi (1552-1623) was a Venetian ecclesiastic, a diplomat and a state theologian of the Republic of Venice, and a polygraph. During Venice?s struggle with Pope Paul V (1605-1621), which cost the city a papal interdict, Sarpi wrote powerfully in support of the Venetian case, arguing that the Pope was infallible only in matters of faith. Sarpi?s basic tenet was that ?princes have their authority from God, and are accountable to none but him for the government of their people.? With his work, Sarpi hoped to assume an authoritative position in the European debate questioning the religious and political primacy of the Pope; in so doing, he proved to be one of the earliest advocates in Italy of the separation of church and state and, overall, a forerunner of Modern European thought. Written in Italian for an European public, the work was dedicated to James I Stuart, King of England. As a work of polemic against the outcomes of the Council, which strongly reasserted the Pope?s primacy over the Christian Church, Sarpi?s Historia was anonymously published in London under the pseudonym of Pietro Soave Polano (that is, the anagram of Paolo Sarpi Veneto), and was immediately put on the Index by the Roman Church. The manuscript was smuggled out of Italy with the help of the British Embassy and was soon translated into Latin, English and French; notwithstanding the early condemnation, the work was widely read for at least the next two centuries. Notwithstanding his anti-papal stance, Sarpi proves to be an attentive and reliable chronicler, carefully redacting his Historia after contemporary documentary information. In a patent contrast with the Italian production of his time, he intentionally adopted an anti-literary, but easy-understandable style, preferring a plain and rigorous syntax to the richly elaborated Baroque period style of writing.STC 21760; ESTC, S116701; Gamba 2080; PMM 118.
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Del Bever caldo costumato da gli antichi Romani

Octavo (157 x 104 mm.), [viii], 86, [10] leaves with the two blank leaves before the Tabula. Woodcut initials, one full page illustration of  a  heating apparatus, two smaller woodcuts in the text; a portrait of Persio pasted on title page verso. A very fine copy bound in contemporary limp vellum with maniscript title on spine form the library of Pietro Buoninsegni Senese (ex libris dated 1814). First edition of Antonio Persio's popular medical defence of the Roman habit of mixing hot water with wine, in Italian. This work was one of the first printed in Giovanni Battista Ciotti's Venitian publishing shop, bearing his publisher's device of Minerva armed holding a spear and shield on the title page. It includes a woodcut diagram illustration of an ?ancient vase' used to boil water for drinking. Antonio Persio (1542-1612) was a Platonic philosopher, and the son of sculptor Altobello Persio. Originally from Matera in Southern Italy, Persio moved to Naples to become a priest, working as a tutor for the Duke of Gravina's family. Through his connections, he became acquainted with the natural philosopher Bernardino Telesio (1509-1588), becoming the editor of the second edition of De rerum natura juxta propria principia (1570) and a lifelong follower of his philosophy. He moved frequently between Padua, Perugia, Venice and Rome, forming connections to Paolo Manuzio and his son Aldo, Camillo Caetani, Giorgio Correr, Tommaso Campanella and Galileo Galilei. By the end of his life, Persio had published seven works of which Del Bever caldo was the last. He was made member of the Accademia dei Lincei posthumously. (Persio, Antonio in Dizionario Biografico).Del Bever caldo builds on the debate concerning weather Romans used to mix wine with hot or cold water , discussed through a medical lens and based on Telesian's theory of hot and cold matter. "The ancient Roman custom of adding ice to drinks was revived in the sixteenth century and caused division among medical practitioners as to the effects of this practice on health." (Bitting, Gastronomic Bibliography, 1939, p. 366). Persio advocated for the mixing of wine with warm water, due to Telesian thought calling for similar elements to remain together, and mankind being hot by nature should only drink hot beverages. This is in sharp contrast with the previously ruling humoral theory, in which a presupposed healthy state was achieved through the balancing of contrasting hot-cold-dry-wet elements. Persio's publication functioned as a case study to this wider Telesian theoretical framework, which caused a spark in scholarly discussion. The Flemish philosopher Giusto Lipsio, an advocate for 'hot drinking', wrote to Persio in support of his ideas in 1603. In the same year, Tommaso Campanella wrote Apologia pro abbate Persio de calidi potus usu, a defence of Persio's work and Telesian philosophy.  BM STC It., p.500; USTC 847639; ICCUBVEE06525; Not in Brunet.