Ciccarelli, Le vite degli imperatori romani, Rome, 1590, contemporary calf with gilt centrepiece

Ciccarelli, Antonio

Le vite degli imperatori romani... con le figure intagliate in rame da Giovanbattista de Cavalieri. Rome: Domenico Basa, 1590

4to (216 x 162mm.), engraved title-page, woodcut initials, engraved illustrations within woodcut frames, contemporary calf with a gilt arabesque centrepiece, title-page worn and laid down, a few portraits misprinted, lower corner of Eee1 torn, last few quires detached, last leaf torn with loss, rebacked, binding somewhat worn

FIRST EDITION. An illustrated biographical survey of Roman emperors from Julius Caesar to Rudolph II via the Byzantine Empire. Ciccarelli was a theologian and censor who had prepared an expurgated text of Il Cortegiano and produced a volume of papal biographies a few years before this collection of imperial ones. Both Ciccarelli and Cavalieri produced works for the high clergy of Counter-Reformation Rome.

LITERATURE:

Edit16 12153; cf. Mortimer, Harvard Italian 119 (Cavalieri's Romanorum imperatorum effigies, Rome, 1592, using the same plates)

PROVENANCE:

D.L. Cumming, signature on inside front cover