THE HISTORY OF VISCONTI FAMILY

FIRST EDITION IN LATIN

[Biography - Visconti family - Milan (Italy)] Giovio, Paolo. Pauli Iovii Novocomensis Vitae duodecim vicecomitum Mediolani principum. Ex Bibliotheca Regia. Lutetiae (Paris): Ex officina Rob[erti] Stephani [Robert Estienne], typographi Regii, 1549.

4to (220x150 mm); contemporary limp vellum (little tears along the front cover lower edge and the back cover upper edge); pp. 199, (1); black types title-page with a woodcut device; 10 large woodcut portraits of the dukes of Milan and other noble members of the Visconti family, each having the Lorraine cross of Geoffroy Tory (1480-1533), signed with a small cross of Lorraine; historied head-letters by Geoffroy Tory too.

A detailed biography of the Visconti family, that governed in Milan (Italy) from 1277 to 1447, in its first edition in Latin, then translated in Italian and published in Venice in the same year, 1549 (appresso Gabriel Giolito di Ferrarii).

Preface by the author, with dedicacy to Henri d'Orleans, Dauphin of France, made in Rome on the 4th day of the calends of April, 1547.

Paolo Giovio (1483-1552) was an Italian physician (in 1517 he was appointed as personal physician by the Cardinal Giulio di Giuliano de' Medici, the future pope Clement VII), historian, biographer, and prelate (he was also apppointed Bishop of Nocera Umbra, near Perugia).

Provenance: Some handwritten inscriptions at title-page, among which only one is readable (ex bibliotheca / ff. Praedicatoru[m] / Aureliane[n]siu[m] / 1692 ).

References: IT\ICCU\CFIE\006259. OCLC, 43131314 (copies in USA, UK, France, Spain). Renouard, p. 75.20 ; Mortimer, French, 248 ; Adams, G694.

Reinforced title-page and last leaf; other old reinforcing repairs at some leaves' edges; minor water stains not disturbing the reading. Overall, a good copy in its original limp vellum binding.