First issue of 507 engravings by Vecellio including 20 concerning America. A very attractive copy preserved in its contemporary limp vellum.
Venice, 1598.
VECELLIO, Cesare. Habiti Antichi, et Moderni di tutto il’Mondo. Venetia, Gio Bernardo Sessa, 1598.
8vo [177 x 117 mm] of (56) ll., 507 ll. with a woodcut at the back of each one, (2) bl.ll. Handwritten ex-libris on the title. Bound in contemporary limp overlapping vellum, handwritten title in brown ink at head of the spine and on the upper and lower edges. Contemporary binding.
Second original edition, widely enlarged, of Vecellio’s work, illustrated with 507 woodcuts, that is to say 87 more plates than in the 1590’s edition. Vinet, Bibliographie méthodique et raisonnée des Beaux Arts, p. 266 ; Sabin 98732 ; Cicognara, I, 1819 ; Lipperheide 22 ; Colas 2977.
« Cesare Vecellio, born in 1530 in Cadore, dead in 1606 in Venice, was a skilled painter, as prove the cathedral of Bellune, the museum of Brera, the public palace of Cadore, the church of Saint-Antoine, near Cadore, etc. He was a cousin of Titian, and from this relationship is born the tradition saying that this great artist had given drawings for Cesare Vecellio’s book ». Vinet.
Each of the 507 full-page figures drawn by Cesare Vecellio and wood engraved by Christophoro Guerra represents the full-length costumes of men and women of the known world. each plate is surrounded by a nice wood engraved border.
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“The woodcuts are from drawings by Titian, according to a statement in the third edition, 1664”. Sabin. A tradition indeed attributed part of the drawings to Titian, who was the author’s cousin.
« What gives a great interest to this new edition is that it encloses for the first time 20 plates representing costumes of America’s inhabitants, which are not included in the 1590 edition. Thus, this work deserves to be classified among the ‘Americanas’. » (Bulletin Morgand et Fatout, n°10710).
These costumes from various countries of America include: noble Peruvians from Cusco, a Peruvian soldier, a Mexican, a noble Mexican, people from Virginia and Florida, women and teenagers from these same countries …
All these woodcuts represent a first class document about fashion among the different social classes at the time.
An attractive and very pure copy, wide-margined because it is preserved in its original contemporary limp vellum binding.
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