Information
[Sl], 1550 [ie Genoa, circa 1635]. In 4°. 220 x 175 mm. Portrait of the author on the first title page, figure in the text on a double page, uniform but usual browning in this edition. Contemporary binding in stiff parchment with grooving and title in gold on a tag on the spine.
Specialist Notes
A fine example of this famous 17th century forgery known as the “Testina”.
"In the editorial history of Machiavelli's works, the so-called Testina has a notable importance. It is the edition, followed by a series of reprints, of the first and most complete collection of All the works of Nicolo Machiavelli, citizen and secretary of Florence, divided into V parts, and again reprinted with the utmost accuracy, published without indication of the place of printing and with the date 1550; on the frontispiece a portrait is shown (hence the name). (...) The false date of 1550 was not chosen by chance by the editors of T.: it is in fact prior to the inclusion of M.'s works in the Index (1557 and 1559)....The editions of T. had a huge print run (about five thousand copies in less than fifty years, "an enormous influx for an age in which culture remained, without any doubt, an elitist fact", Bertelli, Innocenti 1979, p. LXV) and a widespread diffusion 'exterminated', as demonstrated by its presence in libraries throughout Europe (Bertelli, Innocenti 1979, p. 80)". (Enciclopedia Machiavelliana, Treccani, sub vocis).
"In the editorial history of Machiavelli's works, the so-called Testina has a notable importance. It is the edition, followed by a series of reprints, of the first and most complete collection of All the works of Nicolo Machiavelli, citizen and secretary of Florence, divided into V parts, and again reprinted with the utmost accuracy, published without indication of the place of printing and with the date 1550; on the frontispiece a portrait is shown (hence the name). (...) The false date of 1550 was not chosen by chance by the editors of T.: it is in fact prior to the inclusion of M.'s works in the Index (1557 and 1559)....The editions of T. had a huge print run (about five thousand copies in less than fifty years, "an enormous influx for an age in which culture remained, without any doubt, an elitist fact", Bertelli, Innocenti 1979, p. LXV) and a widespread diffusion 'exterminated', as demonstrated by its presence in libraries throughout Europe (Bertelli, Innocenti 1979, p. 80)". (Enciclopedia Machiavelliana, Treccani, sub vocis).
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Condition report
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