Rervm Venetarvm Historiae Libri XII.
Paris, M. Vascosan 1551.
4to (215 x 156 mm.). [v], [xiii], 311 leaves and TWO-SHEET SCHEMATIC BROADSIDE (see below).
Contemporary gilt-ruled ivory vellum (tiny tear at the crown of the spine), flat spine gilt-ruled as a single panel, CONTEMPORARY GILT-LETTERED SPINE TITLE, manuscript spine title, all edges gilt.
Second Edition, a piracy published the same year as the first. The Venetian Senate selected Bembo as their official historiographer to compose an account of the Republic from the end of the late 1480s to the present day. He finished just before his death. BOOK SIX CONTAINS A DESCRIPTION OF COLUMBUS AND HIS ACTIVITIES IN THE AMERICAS.
Vascosan included in this elegant edition a two-sheet broadside by Jean de Bosc outlining the structure of the Venetian government and providing a list of doges from 706 to 1539. It was apparently intended for Contarini’s 1543 De Magistratibus Venetorum but never included in that edition. A good copy (upper margin browned, some foxing, broadside with small tears at the stub), four contemporary marginal notes in a neat italic hand discussing, i.a., military technology and the origins of syphilis. Early initials P.B.L. on the title, bookplate of Henry U. Brandenstein.
¶Cochrane, Historians and Historiography in the Italian Renaissance 227-31; Alden
Price: $1,500.00