Prev / Next

Books, Autographs & Prints / Part I

Tuesday 30 March 2021, 03:00 PM • Rome

135

Chiesa Cattolica - Platina, Bartolomeo

Of the lives of the popes, 1666

Estimate

€ 100 - 200

Sold

€ 128

The price includes buyer's premium

Information

Venice, Brigonci, 1666. In 4th. 2 parts in 1 volume. Eye, woodblock mark on the title page with a small framed view of Venice, woodblock headings and initials, numerous illustrations in the text, rare old hand notes, light browning, sporadic blooms and redness, rare and slight halos, slightly trimmed, small tear at g4 , k5 and 6 mounted between i2 and i3, ink blots with gap and loss of text at N8, halo at O1, tear without loss of text at 2G4-5, tear at the bottom outer margin of 2O6 with marginal loss of text; in the second part woodworm hole in the upper margin from k4 to L2 (pp. 143-156) which marginally damages the mirror of the text, missing L3-6 (pp- 157-164), coeval half leather binding, title imprinted in gold within gusset on the back, green spray cuts, small hole and tear in the back on the top, slight defects and abrasions to the plates. Traces of ex libris in the end cap and title page.

Specialist Notes

Uncommon seventeenth-century edition of this famous history of the popes which contains The ecclesiastical chronology of the reuerendo father f. Honofrio Panuinio . Platina was not only an educator, but also a Renaissance humanist, a scholar of literature and popular traditions. Under the papacy of Sixtus IV, he was appointed director of the Vatican Library in 1478 where he wrote the Liber de vita Christi ac omnium pontificum , a collection of biographies of the popes who lived until then, of which the present work is translation. In the same years he published the De principe , the De vera nobilitate and the De false et vero et bono . His main work, however, remains a short treatise on gastronomy, the De honesta voluptate et valetudine .