Item #09715 Epistolarum Petri Bembi, Leonis Decimi Pontificis Max. nomine scriptuarum, lib. XVI. Pope Leo X.
“THE STANDARD FOR LEARNED AND DIPLOMATIC CORRESPONDENCE” — ERDMANN

Epistolarum Petri Bembi, Leonis Decimi Pontificis Max. nomine scriptuarum, lib. XVI.

Basle, Ambr. and Aur. Froben 1566.

8vo. 686, [14], [4 blank]p.

Contemporary blind-decorated pigskin (worn, two corners slightly defective); three rules flank a roll of cherub heads, busts and foliage, inner double-rule frame. The central rectangle of each panel has a two-scene stamp of the Virtues: Faith, Hope, Charity and Patience figure on the front panel and Justice, Prudence, Strength and Temperance on the rear. The spine is decorated with a stylized lily roll, manuscript title; dark red edges.

As papal secretary to Leo X, Bembo drafted and sent these five hundred eighty-one letters to, i.a., Raphael, Boiardo, Bibbiena, the kings of England, Hungary, Poland and Spain, daughters of friends, Lucrezia Borgia (with whom Bembo had a notorious affair)…. Bembo’s poem on Lago di Garda and five of his private letters to Erasmus, Longolius and Budé conclude the volume. In good condition, name excised from the title, early purchase inscription of G.E. Krefft on the title, nineteenth-century bookticket of B. Couissinier
¶Estreicher, Bibliografia polska XII: 461; VD 16 B 1660; see Erdmann's Ars epistolica 65.

Item #09715

Price: $950.00