Bembo, Prose, Florence, 1549, Parisian painted calf gilt for "F.B."

BEMBO, PIETRO. Prose di m. Pietro Bembo nelle quali si ragiona della volgar lingua scritte al cardinale de Medici che poi fu creato a sommo pontefice et detto papa Clemente settimo divise in tre libri. Florence: Lorenzo Torrentino for Carlo Gualteruzzi, 1549

THIRD AND FINAL EDITION OF THE WORK WHICH GREATLY IMPACTED THE DEVELOPMENT OF MODERN ITALIAN, IN A FINE PARISIAN BINDING. The arguments proposed by Pietro Bembo in this work encourage the adoption of Tuscan as the common and literary language. The patronage of Cosimo de' Medici and the choice of the Florentine printer, Torrentino, further cement the Tuscan capital as a literary centre alongside Venice.

This copy is in a fine Parisian binding executed for an unidentified F.B. Other extant volumes which also bear these initials include a copy of Pliny, Historia naturale (Venice: Brucioli, 1548) also offered in the Alde Burrus sale (lot 60) and a Book of Hours, Use of Rome (Paris: Regnault & Claude Chaudière, 1549), also in the Lucien Gougy sale. The latter volume afterwards belonged to Henry Davis (1897-1977); see Henry Davis Gift III, no. 54, the present volume cited in the note.

This copy bears the bookplate of Louis-Émery Bigot (1626-1689), the Rouen scholar and bibliophile who inherited his father Jean Bigot's library of over 6,000 volumes and amassed 10,000 additional volumes over his lifetime. His collection became one of the most important libraries in France. The entire Bigot family library was sold in 1706 to the booksellers Boudot, Osmont and Martin, and the Bigot Sale became the first book auction conducted in Paris for which a catalogue was printed and published, but this quarto edition of Bembo's Prose is not found in the catalogue.