De le lettere familiari del commendatore Annibal Caro.

Woodcut arms on titles of both volumes, with ornaments and historiated woodcut initials throughout. 

2 vols. in one. 4to (193 x 144mm). [8], 160pp. (of 176, lacking pp.37-44, pp.117-24); [8], 264pp. (of 272, lacking pp.69-76). Quarter calf, speckled, with marbled paper over pasteboards, gilt bands and morocco label in second compartment with gilt-lettered title, speckled edges (boards considerably bumped and chipped, tail of spine worn and slight worming and minor cracking to joints). 

Venice, Bernardo Giunti,

Incomplete. Bernardo Giunti's 1587 edition of the important letters of Annibale Caro (1507-66), a reprint of his 1581 edition. Brought to press by his nephews and first published at the Aldine press between 1572 and 1575, Caro's letters, written 1537-66, provide an invaluable account of the intellectual and political life of mid-sixteenth century Italy. This reprint is almost identical to the 1581 edition although, as Gamba notes, the blank circles that should accompany the text of the letter to the Duchess of Urbino (Vol. 2) - concerning the emblematic devices of the nobility - have not been printed, and the space left for them remains blank. Giunti dedicates the first volume to Francesco Tiepolo; in the second, Annibale's nephew Lepido Caro addresses the Cardinal of Como. 

Provenance: Sticker for the 'University Place Bookshop' in New York on lower portion of front paste-down; annotation in eighteenth-century hand, brown ink, in Italian, in first few pages and 'Miguel' written on verso of final leaf. 

Physical state: Discolouration of title page and final leaf, with general foxing.

Adams, C743. Gamba, no.273.

 

Stock Code: 227663