Libro De La Gverra de Ghotti…fatto uolgare da Lodouico Petroni.
Venice, N. Zoppino d’Aristotile 1528.
8vo (155 x 99 mm.). 87, [1 blank] leaves. Title in a partly white-line woodcut frame with S.P.Q.R. and medallion portraits (above), Cicero (left), his enemy Catiline (right) and a battle scene (below).
CONTEMPORARY VENETIAN CALF (minor defects, rear panel stained), one gilt and three blind frames, a solid leaf tool at the outer corners, gilt central knotwork with a circular foliage and bloom tool above and below, blind-ruled spine with two bands, later manuscript title, old blue edges.
An Italian translation of Bruno Aretino’s De bello Italico adversus Gothos…or is it? After Aretino issued his Latin history of the Gothic War in 1441, his contemporaries soon noticed its clear reliance on Procopius of Caesarea’s first-hand account in Greek of the same conflict. But Aretino clarified events, improved prose style and omitted many antiquarian digressions, fantastic tales and mentions of the wider political context outside Italy. Accordingly, he argued, his treatment elevated it from mere commentary to true history and thus should be counted as an original work.
Lodovico Petroni (1409-79) translated it into Italian and filled in some narrative gaps that were missing from Aretino’s source manuscript. This is the second edition (first 1526). A good copy (some stains, worm trail affecting upper corner of title border and following leaf).
¶Cochrane, Historians and Historiography in the Italian Renaissance 18-9; Ianziti, “Writing from Procopius: Leonardo Bruni’s De bello italico” in Rinascimento 37 (1977) 3-27; Forrai, “Procopius Caesariensis” in Catalogus translationum XI: 214-6; EDIT16 CNCE 7676.
Price: $5,500.00