[Rarebooks] fa: PAOLO GIOVIO - LE VITE DI DICENOVE HUOMINI ILLUSTRI - Venice: 1561

[ArCh]

Auction ending Sunday, September 25. Images and more details can be found at the URL below or by searching for the seller name arch_in_la. 

https://tinyurl.com/2ok9x2l2

Many thanks,
Ardwight Chamberlain
Ann Arbor, MI, USA


Paolo Giovio: Le vite di dicenove huomini illustri, descritte da monsignor Paolo Giovio, et in diversi tempi et luoghi stampate; Cioe, di dodici Visconti, & di Sforza, duchi di Milano. Di Leone decimo, & d'Adriano sesto pontefici. Di Pompeo cardinal Colonna. Di Ferrante Davalo marchese di Pescara. Del Gran Capitano. Et d'Alfonso primo da Este, duca terzo di Ferrara. Venetia: appresso Giovan Maria Bonelli, MDLXI [1561]. First edition thus; 4to (21cm) bound in seventeenth-century calf, gilt-lettered morocco spine label; woodcut printer's device on the title-page, woodcut historiated initials; [48], 352, [1] pp.

First collected edition and the first edition in Italian (i.e., not in Latin) of these lives of illustrious men (Sforza, Leo X, Alfonso I d'Este, etc.) written by Paolo Giovio (1483-1552), a church prelate, historian, biographer, collector of art and antiquities, and physician to Pope Clement VII. Bound without the separate life of Cardinal Pompeo Colonna often found at the end. Binding with rubbing and wear, front and rear joints cracked with both boards loosening but held by the cords; front free-endpaper (blank) detached but present, contents with occasional light spotting and soiling, a few leaves with light damp-staining to the edges, front paste-down with an early owner's signature (J. Johnson), else very clean and sound.