Della Fiorenza difesa, poema eroica (canti ottto).Rome, Antonio Landini,

Fine engraved title-page by Johann Friedrich Greuter after Gregorio Grassi.

4to (245 x 170mm). [6]ff. 380pp. [1]f. Contemporary limp vellum gilt, covers panelled by two rectangular double-fillet frames with a small rosette stamp at each corner, inner panel with larger floral tool at corners, central arms of Cardinal Bernardino Spada, flat spine ruled in four compartments with floral tool in each, ink title on spine, remains of pink silk ties, g.e.

First edition of the posthumously published heroic poem on Florence by Villani (1590-1636), which is preceded by a dedicatory preface to Cardinal Francesco Barberini by the late author's nephew, Onofrio Ippoliti.

Finely bound in contemporary gilt vellum with the arms of the famous art patron Cardinal Bernardino Spada (1594-1661). It is possibly a product of the "Rospigliosi Bindery", a generic term used by Hobson to describe the workshop in Rome commissioned by the Rospigliosi family and other mainly ecclesiastical patrons which was at its height during the 1650s, 1660s and 1670s. Mirjam Foot records c. 90 bindings for patrons such as Popes Paul V, Alexander VII, Innocent XI and the Altieri, Borghese and Medici families to name just a few. Our binding is unrecorded by Foot who does, however, include another example with the Spada arms located at the Chester Beatty Library. Another "Rospigliosi" binding for Spada was in our catalogue 1297, no. 73. Recent research by Monsignor Ruysschaert of the Biblioteca Vaticana into the bindings commissioned for Christina of Sweden, c. 30 in all, has established the identity of the "Rospigliosi Bindery" as the workshop of Gregorio and Giovanni Andreoli. 

A little browned in places but generally fresh.

Ref: M. Foot, Davis Gift, I, pp. 327-336. 

Stock Code: 225129