Books printed in Italy
First edition of the most interesting illustrated gastronomic book from the Renaissance, illustrated with 28 superb plates.
SCAPPI, Bartolomeo. Opera di M. Bartolomeo Scappi, cvoco secreto di Papa Pio Quinto, divisa in sei libri. Nel primo si contiene il ragionamento chef a l’Autore con Gio suo discepolo. Nel secondo si tratta di diverse vivande di carne, si di quadrupedi, come di volatili. Nel terzo si parla della Statura, e stagione de pesci. Nel quarto si mostrano le liste del presentar le vivande in tavola, cosi di grasso come di magro […].
[Venice, 1570].
4to [195 x 142 mm], (6) ff., 369 ff., (7), 28 full-page woodcuts. First 3 leaves reinforced in the margin, outer white margin of the title-page reinforced, wormhole in inner margin of the last 15 ff. without loss, 2 plates slightly trimmed and bound upside down by the binder. Bound in half-calf with the old spine from the 18th century reused, red edges.
Rare first edition of the most interesting illustrated gastronomic book from the Renaissance.
Simon, Bibliotheca Gastronomica, 1356 ; Graesse, Trésor de Livres rares et précieux, 290 ; Vicaire 771-773 ; Brunet, V, 180-181 ; Mortimer, Italian Books, 467; Wellcome 5811 (pour l’édition datée) ; Oberlé, Les Fastes de Bacchus et de Comus, n°75 (for the 1605 edition).
This work was written by the personal cook of Pope Pie IV. It is dedicated to Matteo Barbini, a famous Venetian cook.
It’s the most detailed Italian gastronomic book from the 16th Century.
“Scappi’s book is one of the most interesting of the sixteenth-century cookery books. The [28] plates are so attractive that copies containing them all are extremely rare; they represent all kinds of kitchen utensils, kitchen interiors, furniture, fireplaces, etc., whilst a double-page plate represents the various dishes and wines brought by servants to the examiners before being sent in to the Cardinals sitting in Conclave, in 1549” (Simon).
Scappi’s book is difficult to find complete and in good condition. The illustrations are so interesting that copies still containing the plates have become very rare.
The illustration of the utmost interest is composed of a portrait of the author and 28 detailed plates depicting interiors of kitchens, food being prepared, kitchen utensils and furniture.
A good copy of this rare work, of the highest interest for history of gastronomy, complete with all its plates in the first state.
Price: € 29 500
******
Rare relation of the Jesuit missions to Japan at the end of the 16th Century,
preserved in its original limp vellum.
FROES, Luis. Lettera annua del Giappone dell’anno MDXCVI. Scritta dal P. Luigi Frois, al R.P. Claudio Acquauiua Generale della Compagnia di Giesù. Tradotta in Italiano dal P. Francesco Mercati Romano della stessa Compagnia.
In Padova, Appresso Francesco Bolzetta, 1599.
Small 8vo [155 x 101 mm], 124 ff. Bound in contemporary limp vellum, handwritten title on the spine. Red morocco slipcase. Handwritten ex libris on title-page.
Rare edition of this letter addressed from Japan by the Jesuit missionary Froes to Father Acquaviva in 1596.
This remarkable account gives a detailed description of the progresses made by the Christian missions in Asia in the years 1595-1596, and of the state of the Church in Japan just before the persecutions.
Pages 82; not in Cordier.
Luis Froes (1528-1597) is a Portuguese Jesuit who was intended for the missions and who followed Father Barzeo on his trip to the Indies in 1548. After a one-year mission in Malacca, Froes came back to Goa and in 1563 he was sent to Japan : his evangelical successes followed him.
A very attractive copy of this work preserved in its contemporary limp vellum.
This book is not recorded in any French institution.
OCLC only lists 3 copies: at the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, at the University of Maastricht and at the Universtity of Minnesota.
The only other copy to appear at auction in the last thirty years was sold for £ 7 800 on the 25th of June 1992 by Sotheby’s London, that is to say € 13 000 more than 15 years ago.
Price: € 25 000
******
The earliest illustrated book on dancing and ballets to be published in folio.
Milan, 1604.
NEGRI, Cesare. Nuove inventioni di balli, opera vaghissima di Cesare Negri milanese detto il Trombone, famoso e eccellente professore di ballare, nella quale si danno i giusti modi del ben portar la vita, et di accomodarsi con ogni leggiadria di movimenti alle creanze, et gratie d’amore. Convenevoli a tutti i cavalieri et dame, per ogni sorte di ballo, balletto, et brando d’Italia, di Spagna, et di Francia. Con figure bellissime in rame, et regole della musica, et intavolatura, quali si rechieggono al suono et al canto. Divisa in tre trattati…
Milano, Girolamo Bordone, 1604.
Folio [33 x 22 cm], bound in marbled calf, decorated spine with raised bands, red edges. Italian binding towards 1720.
The first illustrated book on dancing to be published in folio.
The first edition under this title.
Second edition, that reproduces the milanese one from 1602, which is nowadays unobtainable.
Références : Brunet, IV, 34 et Supplément II, 13 ; Cicognara, N°1725 ; Fétis, VI, 295 ; Eitner, VII, 166 ; Hoepli, Cento libri preziosi, etc).
« Les deux ouvrages sont rares et assez recherchés » écrit Brunet IV, 34.
No copy of the 1602 edition has appeared on the market for more than 30 years and only 2 copies of the present edition are recorded during the same period of time. One of them was sold for 15 000 $ about ten years ago.
The work which is dedicated to Philip III of Spain is illustrated with the full-page portrait of the author and 58 superb full page engravings showing ballets and dancers, drawn by Mauro Rovere and engraved by Leon Pallavicino.
The present copy bears the rare cancel sticked on page 182.
The present copy is unwashed and preserved in its Italian binding, produced about 1720. It comes from the Neapolitan collection P. Drayton (Naples 1857).
Price: € 29 000
******
Pompeian wall paintings
depicted in 20 highly interesting superb chromolithographs.
CERILLO, Edoardo. Dipinti murali di Pompei. Medaglie Istituto d’Incoraggiamento di Napoli Esposizioni di Londra e Milano. Illustrazione per l’Arch. Ingre. Edoardo Cerillo. Versione francese pel cav. Giulio Cottrau.
Proprieta Cav. Uff. Pasquale d’Amelio, Napoli, n.d. [1886].
Large folio [630 x 445 mm], (1) l., ix pp., 20 pp. of text and 20 numbered chromolithographs. Some slight foxing. Preserved in sheets, as issued, in the editor’s portfolio.
A rare work dedicated to Pompeian wall paintings discovered in the 18th and 19th centuries.
The text that comes with the plates is printed in two parallel columns, both in Italian and in French, and the Italian preface was written by Giulio de Petra.
The magnificent illustration consists of 20 large chromolithographs produced after the Italian architect Edoardo Cerillo and engraved by Vincenzo Loria (1850-1939). They represent: la Maison de la Princesse Marguerite, la Maison de Vedius Siricus, la Maison de la petite fontaine en mosaïque, la Maison d’Arianne ou des chapiteaux colorés, la Maison d’Arianne abandonnée, la Maison de Marc Lucrèce, la Maison de la paroi noire, la Maison du poète tragique, la Maison de Castor et Pollux, la Maison d’Orphée, la Panthéon, la Maison du notaire, la Maison de Salluste, la Maison d’Apollon, la Maison de Vedius Siricus, la Maison de la Reine d’Italie, la Maison d’Elpidius Sabinus, la Maison d’Adonis, la Maison du Decumanus Maior, les Thermes Stabianes.
“The 20 large plates finished last year by Richter & Co., of Naples, and issued by Cavalier Pasqualé d’Amelio, with Italian and French comments in parallel columns, bring into prominence the architectonic side of Pompeiian wall painting. The colors are very close to the originals during the first days of their recovery from the darkness of 2000 years, before the hot Neapolitan sun has bleached some of the pigments and induced a delicacy of tone which was not meant by the painters. The text is written by an architect, Edoardo Cerillo, who is not only well read in the great literature that deals with this famous little buried town, but has ideas of his own, and bold ones. He calls attention to the value of these compositions, invented to give variety and change to plain walls, not so much for their artistic beauty as for the lessons they contain concerning the architecture of Rome, Greece and the Orient. Hence the publication is of special interest to the architect and decorative artist; for to the one it shows the variety and grace of buildings now impossible to reconstruct from any other sources, and to the other the possibility of introducing bold and beautiful effects on blank walls by the use of colors. The 20 plates in chromo-lithography, together with ample descriptive and critical text, appears in large, loose sheets in a portfolio, cost $75 a set, and form a limited edition. If the publisher receives encouragement here the American edition will be 100 copies”. (The New York Times, 20 juin 1887).
No copy of this work is recorded in ABPC.
A precious handsome volume of special interest to the architect and decorative artist.
Price: € 19 500
