Paruta, Della perfettione della vita politica, Venice, 1599, Spanish red morocco gilt for Nuñez de Guzmán
Estimate
3,000 - 5,000 GBP
Lot Details
Description
PARUTA, PAOLO. Della perfettione della vita politica... Libri tre. A' quali vi sono state aggiunte le Postille ne' margini, & ampliati gli Indici. Venice: Domenico Nicolini da Sabbio, 1599
A FINE SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY SPANISH ARMORIAL BINDING FOR NUÑEZ DE GUZMÁN. The present volume is the third edition of Paolo Paruta's influential early modern text in favour of the vita activa over the vita contemplativa (the first edition of this text to feature printed shoulder notes and extensive indices).
The book was bound after 1645, when Ramiro Nuñez de Guzmán succeeded to the titles and estates of his first wife's father, Gaspar de Guzmán, Count of Olivares. By this date, he had ceased to be Viceroy of Naples, returned to Castile, and begun a reorganization of the royal household in Madrid. From the post-mortem inventory we know that his library consisted of more than 5000 volumes, with 420 manuscripts and a substantial collection of maps.
The instruction to the bookbinder for lettering the spine "Paruta/Rep:" is cited by Bernard M. Rosenthal, "Early owners' instructions to their bookbinders" in Bibliophilies et reliures: Mélanges offerts à Michel Wittock, edited by Annie de Coster & Claude Sorgeloos (Brussels 2006), pp. 410-419 (p. 417 no. 10).
4to (226 x 165 mm). Roman type, 30 lines plus headline. collation: a-f4 (f4 blank) A-3O4: 244 leaves. Title-page with woodcut device, manuscript instructions to the binder for lettering of spine to verso of last leaf, manuscript notes in a nineteenth-century hand to front free endpaper. (Some spotting, some dampstaining at inner margin).
binding: Spanish armorial binding for Nuñez de Guzmán (231 x 175 mm), commissioned shortly after 1645, red morocco, gilt frame composed of tendrils, with leaves and flowers within gilt fillets, gilt leafy spray at corners, upper cover with large arms block of Guzmán impaled with those of his second wife, Anna Caraffa, Duchess of Sabbioneta, surrounded by an acrologic inscription, lower cover with his emblematic impresa of a plant growing between reeds and a starry sky with the motto "REVOLVTA FOECVUNDANT" above within a shield with the same acrologic inscription, spine with 3 bands, upper compartment with 3-line title, others with large gilt ornament, gilt edges. (Some staining, a couple of small wormholes to spine).
provenance: Don Ramiro Nuñez de Guzmán, duke of Medina de las Torres (1602-1668), viceroy of Naples, arms on binding, the remains of his library acquired on his death by—William Godolphin (1635-1696), English ambassador to Madrid—Carmelo Adamo, eighteenth- or nineteenth-century inscription on front pastedown—Z. Neal, later inscription. acquisition: Purchased in 2001 from Bernard Quaritch, London. references: USTC 846922; Edit16 CNCE 31926
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