Emblemata

OUTSTANDING PROVENANCE

4to (203x140 mm); 18th-century full calf, panels within a triple fillet in gilt, spine with five raised bands and gilt title on morocco label, marbled endleaves, gilt edges (joints and top of the spine partially restored); 331, (5) pp. With frontispiece, portrait of the Madonna di San Luca and 81 full-page emblems, all engraved by Giovanni Battista Coriolano (1595-1649), Oliviero Gatti (1598-1646) and Agostino Parisini (fl. 1625-1636) after drawings by Florio Macchi and Giovanni Battista Coriolano. Provenance: Jean-Baptiste Colbert (1619-1683), minister of finances of France under King Louis XIV, also renown for his celebrated library which was sold at Paris in 1728 (his ownership's inscription on the title-page); Richard Heber (1773-1833), English book-collector and founder of the Roxburghe Club of bibliophiles, whose library of 105,000 volumes was sold by auction at London in 1835 (his stamp on the front flyleaf); Beckford Library (pencil note on the front flyleaf, dated Dec. 20, 1882). Small repair to the lower margin of pp. 121/122 not affecting the text, otherwise a very good, fresh copy.

FIRST EDITION of this lively and richly illustrated emblem book, which often offers an interesting iconography on contemporary life in Bologna.

Giovanni Battista Coriolano and Oliviero Gatti, pupils of G.L. Valesio, are responsible for the majority of the illustrations. The engraved title and 26 of the emblems were engraved by Coriolano. The dedicatory plate and 52 of the emblems are the work of Gatti. The remaining plates were engraved by Agostino Parisini after Florio Maccio, a pupil of Lodovico Carracci.

Paolo Maccio (o Macchi o Mazzi), born in Modena, studied in Bologna, where he was later appointed professor in the local university. He published several orations and occasional texts related to academic life (cf. G. Tiraboschi, Biblioteca modenese, Modena, 1783-'86, III, pp. 103-104 AND VI, p. 131; see also S. Mazzetti, Repertorio di tutti i professori dell'Università e dell'Istituto delle Scienze di Bologna, Bologna, 1848, p. 207).

J. Landwehr, Romanic emblem books, Utrecht, 1976, no. 496; Catalogo unico, IT\ICCU\VEAE\002254; M. Praz, Studies in seventeenth-century Imagery, Rome, 1975, p. 409; Cicognara, no. 1913; A. Sorbelli, Storia della stampa in Bologna, Bologna, 1929, p. 140; L. Frati, Opere della bibliografia bolognese, Bologna, 1888-1889, no. 7447; L. Bolzoni & B. Allegranti, Con parola brieve e con figura: libri antichi di imprese e emblemi, Lucca, 2004, p. 48.