Istoria degli scrittori fiorentini la quale abbraccia intorno à due mila Autori [...].

JESUIT AUTHORITY ON FLORENTINE WRITERS, WITH MEDICI PATRONAGE

Title printed in red and black, engraved device on title, woodcut initials and headpieces.

Folio (347 x 235mm.)  [12], 557, [1]p. Contemporary Italian vellum, red morocco label,  green silk marker, yellow edges.

Ferrara: B. Pomatelli, 1722.

 A handsome copy of this biographical dictionary by the Ferrarese Jesuit Giulio Negri (1648-1720) published after his death; as the address to the reader explains, ‘la morte dell’Autore accaduta, mentre cominciava ad imprimersi’. The introduction acknowledges that there have been many other attempts at such a work, but urges the reader to stick with this one, citing over two thousand writers listed (in fact, 1593) alphabetically by first name, and described in great detail. Replete with information, it was a popular reference work though should be used with caution; Pomatelli warns of numerous errors left uncorrected by the author before his death.

Little is known of Negri; born to a family of modest nobility in Ferrara, he entered into the local Compagnia di Gesù in 1665, aged 16 and was ordained in 1685. Surviving correspondence suggests that he transferred a year later to the collegio di S. Giovannino in Florence, from where he sought, and received the patronage of Grand Prince Ferdinando de’ Medici; he was made official historian and commissioned to compose this work.

Provenance: Armorial bookplate of A.R.A. Hobson, bibliographer and bookbinding historian.

De Backer/Sommervogel V, 1613, no.1. 

[OCLC: North America: Toronto, Boston Public Library, National Library of Medicine MD.  UK: Manchester, NLS, Cambridge, BL.]

Stock Code: 217959