Biringucci, Vannoccio | Two early editions of Pirotechnia

Biringucci, Vannoccio

Pirotechnia. Li Diece Libri Della Pirotechnia… [Venice: Curzio Troiano Navò for Comin da Trino di Monferrato, 1559], 1558

Small 4to (202 x 150 mm). Title with woodcut border, woodcut illustrations and historiated initials; title page lightly toned and soiled with a paper repair at lower corner and an effaced ownership inscription, a few instances of soiling in text, light dampstaining at beginning and end of the text, a printing flaw to leaf C1 with two words and the signature supplied in manuscript, lacking the final leaf (X8) with the text and colophon completed in manuscript. In modern old-style brown calf, front cover titled and decorated in blind; light rubbing to extremities, a few scuffs to the upper board, fading to spine and along the top edge of boards.

The third edition of this early and important practical text on fireworks.

REFERENCES

Adams, B2083; Hoover, 131; Wellcome I, 874; Philip, C. Firework Books, B110.3; Schuh (2007), I, 592

PROVENANCE

Christie's South Kensington, 19 March 1999, lot 179

[Together with:]

Biringucci, Vannoccio

La Pyrotechnie, ou art de feu, contenant dix livres… Paris: C. Fremy, 1572

Small 4to (185 x 130 mm). Woodcut illustrations, headpiece, and initials; intermittent staining and soiling, a few minor instances of light spotting or toning, the title with a stain, a loss affecting a single letter, repaired with the letter added in manuscript, and a 20th century ownership inscription at top edge. Contemporary limp vellum; worn, with a large hole in the front cover, the ink spine title frayed and illegible; with medieval manuscript fragments used inside the binding to reinforce the spine.

The second French edition of Biringucci’s Pirotechnia, with the text reset in smaller type from the French 1556 edition.

REFERENCES

Duveen p.80; Wellcome, I, 875; Philip B110.7; Schuh (2007), I, 596