[Rarebooks] FS: The Life of Michelagnolo Buonarroti

[Karen Howell]

Offered today

CONDIVI, Ascanio (1525-1574).

The Life of Michelagnolo Buonarroti.

Boston, MA: Merrymount Press, (1904).

No Limitation Statement.  Small 4to.  212 x 161 mm.  x, (86), [2] pp.  Engraved frontispiece portrait of Michelangelo, title page and colophon printed with red ornaments, title-page printed within a triple-ruled border, decorative initials, printed on laid paper; text clean, unmarked.  Gray printed paper over boards, fore- and bottom edges untrimmed, translucent acetate dust jacket; binding square and tight, some light toning to covers, some light foxing to top edge.  Very Good.

Ascanio Condivi was an Italian painter and writer.  He is primarily remembered as the biographer of Michelangelo.  Condivi's Vita di Michelagnolo first appeared in 1533, an authorized account of Michelangelo's life over which the subject had complete control. 

Translated by Herbert P. Horne, "and newly printed at Boston in the United States of America at the Merrymount Press, by Daniel Berkeley Updike, 1 September, 1904, with the types and ornaments designed for him by the translator."  From the colophon.  "Among the important assets of the Merrymount Press was a superb selection of typefaces and a carefully chosen body of printers' ornaments, gathered during a period when good type was not easily available.  No other printing house at that time had a comparable collection.  Two types were especially commissioned.  In 1904 Herbert Horne, an English designer, completed Montallegro.  Horne stipulated that the first volume in which the type appeared was to be designed by him.  This was accomplished in The Life of Michalagnolo Buonarroti.  The type is a mannered, anachronistic face which Updike used in the volumes of the Humanist's Library."  Reference: Blumenthal, The Printed Book in America, pp. 59-60.

$ 85.00 net.

Postage: $ 3.50 Media Mail within the Continental US. International shipping or priority mail at cost.

Terms of Sale: CWO, Credit Card or PayPal accepted. Returns accepted with advance notice, within 10 days of receipt.

John Howell, ABAA, ILAB, IOBA

www.johnhowellforbooks.com

310 367-9720