Giovio, Historiarum sui temporis tomus primus, Florence, 1550, contemporary Florentine brown morocco gilt
Estimate
3,000 - 5,000 GBP
Lot Details
Description
GIOVIO, PAOLO. Historiarum sui temporis [tomus primus]. Florence: Lorenzo Torrentino, August 1550
FIRST EDITION OF A SEMINAL WORK OF MODERN HISTORIOGRAPHY IN A CONTEMPORARY FLORENTINE BINDING, WITH AN INTRIGUING MANUSCRIPT DEDICATORY SONNET. A clue as to the sonnet's addressee is given through repeated instances of punning on the Lady's name: "Se sei Selvaggia come havrò mai speme" (Who made you heiress of the name Savage) (line 5), immediately after the volta "Se sei Salvaggia come havrò mai speme" (If you are Savage how will I ever have hope?) (line 9), and in the final line "Il piu ferin d'ogni selvaggio seme" (The most wild of every savage seed) (line 14). In a literal sense, the puns point to the addressee's likely identity as a member of the Selvaggio family, whilst also cleverly playing with the idea of the Lady having a cratylic name, casting her as cruel both by name and by nature. This Petrarchan trope of the cruel female lover extends to a 1-line inscription on the verso of the endleaf, written in the same hand: "Ò Che dolce languir per donna ingrata" (O how sweet to languish for an ungrateful woman). This inscription appears to be a direct quotation from the lyrics of a madrigal by the Franco-Flemish composer Cipriano de Rore (1515-1565).
This fine binding was produced by a workshop with apparent connections to the Medici court. Another binding, which is less elaborate, and smaller, but decorated with the same tools and distinctive edge gauffering, covers a copy of L'Ethica d'Aristotile printed by Torrentino in 1550/1551, possibly the dedication copy for Cosimo de’ Medici (Breslauer, Catalogue 104, item 33; subsequently Quaritch, Catalogue 1178, item 9). The centrepiece is also found on Legature papali, no. 37, plate XXXV (De Marinis 1183), a manuscript presented to Pope Clement VII.
first edition, printed on large and heavy paper, part one (only, of 2), large folio (409 x 260 mm). Roman type, 53 lines plus headline. collation: π4 A-K6 L4 M-Z6 Aa-Dd6 Ee4: 168 leaves. Title-page with woodcut device, woodcut initials, dedicatory sonnet in manuscript in an early modern hand to front free endpaper and 1-line inscription in the same hand to lower endleaf. (Large tear extending across M2 with torn section of leaf crudely re-attached at margins, spotting and dampstaining.)
binding: Contemporary Florentine binding (415 x 279 mm), mottled olive brown morocco, paneled in gilt and blind with a wide border of leafy volute tools with fleurons and small leaf tools at corners, in centre a large ogival centrepiece composed of repetitions of an arabesque wedge-shaped tool framed by a cartouche of leafy volutes and a classical-plinth tool, spine tooled in gilt with disc-and-star pallets and small leaf tool in compartments, traces of 4 pairs of ties, edges blue-green wash gauffered in gilt with a semé of small stars and crescent moons. (Rebacked and recornered retaining most of original spine.)
provenance: Anonymously composed dedicatory sonnet in Italian in an early modern hand, apparently addressed to a lady of the Selvaggio family, to front free endpaper—late-seventeenth-century armorial (sable, three tilting spears / lance de tournois fesswise, or, with an unfinished cadency borne in chief and a noble helmet in profile) in polychrome wash on upper pastedown—erased nineteenth-century ownership inscription to title-page and traces of removed bookplate to verso of front free endpaper—K.J. Hewett (1919-1994), London-based antiquities dealer, booklabel to rear pastedown—Patrick King, Catalogue 17, no. 25. acquisition: Purchased in 1999 from Patrick King, Stony Stratford. references: USTC 833173; Edit16 CNCE 21172
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