De gli habiti antichi, et moderni di diverse parti del mondo libri due. Venice, Daman Zenaro, 1590
VECELLIO, (Cesare)
WILMERDING COPY OF THIS FAMOUS COSTUME BOOK
Decorative woodcut title-page border with cartouche embracing allegorical figures of America, Asia, Africa and Europe, 412 full-page woodcuts of costumes (with captions) and two section titles, all within full ornamental woodcut borders, 5 full-page woodcut views of Venice, one emblematic woodcut on a full-page (c8v).
8vo. [24] 499ff. (lacking final blank). Full green morocco richly gilt à la fanfare, spine gilt, g.e., by P. Ruban (c.1900). 1590
The first edition of this famous early costume book, an ambitious anthology of dress from all over the known world and "by far the largest, most diverse, and richest in commentary of all the costume books printed up to 1590" (Rosenthal & Jones). The woodcuts were designed by Cesare Vecellio (c. 1521-1601), a relative of the great artist Titian, who from a misleading statement on the title-page of the third edition of 1664 was falsely presumed to have contributed to the illustrations as well. Vecellio's sources for the costume plates were varied including, for example, the paintings of Bellini and Carpaccio for Venetian dress, and a whole host of visual materials in the private collections of his wide network of collectors and artists. He also used a variety of sources, ancient and contemporary, for his page or more of commentary on each costume which including a detailed description of the clothing represented. Vecellio is also justly famous as the artist of the fore-edge paintings supplied on books for his patron Odorico Pillone's family library in Belluno and also published a magnificent book of lace designs.
In his description of a Bolognese nobleman we learn from Vecellio that the illustration was cut by Christoforo Guerra (Christoph Krieger), of Nuremberg, and presumably he worked on the other woodcuts also. The illustrations show Krieger's considerable influence, since he had "trained in the professional traditions of the German Formschneider, and may well have imposed a certain calligraphic order on those drawings" (see: Rosand & Muraro, p. 267-8).
Most of the illustrations occur in the long first part and are devoted to the countries of the whole of Europe, ranging from those as far away as Russia, Sweden, Greece and Turkey, as well as Italy itself which naturally features strongly with costume from ancient Rome to modern Venice; in the second part are 59 woodcuts of the ruling class, warriors and women of Africa and Asia, including Persia, the East Indies, Ethiopia and China
Provenance. Bookplate of Clarence H. Clark, a wealthy Phildelphia banker who held, among other posts, that of Director of the Department of Archaeology at the University of Pennsylvania. His library was sold in Philadelphia 1909/10. Bookplate of Lucius Wilmerding, sold as lot 640 in the sale of his collection, Parke-Bernet, New York, 6 March 1950.
Minor restoration to last two leaves, resulting in a loss of a few letters, and a tiny piece of border, one or two tears expertly repaired, a little browned in places.
Adams V314. Colas 2976. Lipperheide Aa33. Titian and the Venetian woodcut, (Exhibition catalogue, ed. Rosand & Muraro, 1976). M.F. Rosenthal & A.R. Jones, The Clothing of the Renaissance World (2008), an English translation of Vecellio's work.
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