A small collection of books Seven books with engravings by Suor Isabella Piccini.

Price $5,000 net

Please contact me at – Jamesgray2@me.com

 

Isabella Piccini (1644–1734) who was the daughter of the Venetian engraver Giacomo Piccini (d. 1669), who trained her in the art of drawing and engraving in the styles of the great masters, particularly Titian and Peter Paul Rubens. In 1666 she entered the Convent of Santa Croce in Venice and took the name Suor (Sister) Isabella. She continued to work as an engraver, accepting numerous commissions from Venetian and other Italian publishers to illustrate; Classical texts, Liturgical books, Biographies of saints, and Prayer manuals, Scientific books, Travel books, Histories. Most of these publications were issued in small format and in small press runs and some are quite rarely seen.

However, as a Franciscan nun dedicated to a life of poverty, she divided her earnings between her convent and her family living in Venice. Her long and productive career ended with her death at the age of ninety.

PLEASE contact me if you are interested to be offered them as they turn up at jamesgray2@me.com

1. 825J Tesauro Emanuele 1591-1677

La filosofia morale derivata dall’alto fonte del grande Aristotele stagirita. dal conte … don Emanuele Tesauro

Venetia : appresso Nicolò Pezzana, 1671.

Duodecimo: cm 7.5 x 15. Signatures: A-Z12 Aa-Gg¹². Water stain on the lower margin of some pages of the final index. Some writing on the endpapers. Bound in modern paper boards.

With illustrated frontispiece engraved with etching by Isabella Piccini (1644–1734) signed SIPF (Suor Isabella Piccini Franciscan) she was the daughter of the Venetian engraver Giacomo Piccini (d. 1669), who trained her in the art of drawing and engraving in the styles of the great masters, particularly Titian and Peter Paul Rubens. In 1666 she entered the Convent of Santa Croce in Venice and took the name Suor (Sister) Isabella. She continued to work as an engraver, accepting numerous commissions from Venetian publishers to illustrate liturgical books, biographies of saints, and prayer manuals. However, as a Franciscan nun dedicated to a life of poverty, she divided her earnings between her convent and her family living in Venice. Her long and productive career ended with her death at the age of ninety.
First Venetian edition (original edition: Turin, Zapata, 1670/1) of this treatise on moral philosophy by Emanuele Tesauro, reprinted many times until the eighteenth century, written in honor of the future Vittorio Amedeo II, whose education Tesauro had been charged with. This is the last work composed by the octogenarian author before his death on February 26, 1675, a summary re-exposition of Aristotelian ethics, intended especially for the education of Princes. After the first 3 books dedicated to the analysis of the purpose and essence of virtue, of moral acts and habits, the A. dedicates several chapters to the opposite virtues and vices including fortitude, temperance, liberality, magnificence, magnanimity, modesty, meekness, affability, truthfulness, modesty, indignation, justice, prudence. There is also a chapter dedicated to jokes that serve to enliven conversation between “civilized and honorable people”. Jokes must always obey the laws of judgment by observing the principles of virtuous mediocrity. He is the author of a number of ingenious metaphors not lacking in wit, which are central to his poetry. Umberto Eco refers to him as inventing the “Metaphor machine” which are central to his poetry. He himself called metaphor the mother of all wit. His most famous book is “Aristotelian Telescope” published for the first time in 1654, the book is considered to be an important foundation for the journey of modern European aesthetics.

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2). 827J Miselli, Giuseppe (courrier) (1637-1695

Il Burattino veridico, overo istruzzione generale per chi viaggia con la descrizzione dell’Europa…e con un’essata cognitione delle monete più utili e correnti in detti luoghi, con la notizia d’alcune parole più necessarie in varie parti d’Europa…con la tavola delle poste.

Venetia : presso Combi e La Noù, 1685                             

Duodecimo,14 x 8 cm. Signatures. Π⁴,A- ¹²   This copy is missing the 16 final index pages.Bound in full contemporary limp parchment with handwritten titles on the spine.

Begins with Italy and the “Curiosities”, followed by descriptions of the other Italian provinces and European countries. The second section comprehensively documents the contemporary postal system (up to Constantinople with prices for “Victualien”, common coins and customs duties, plus a travel dictionary in six languages including Turkish. Concluding 80 itineraries by post with brief notes and descriptions of places. After many journeys made for his profession, alone or in the retinue of nuncios, princes, ambassadors. First published, Il Burattino veridico overo Instruzione generale per chi viaggia, Rome, per Michel’Ercole, 1682.  It is a small book an economical edition, but not without frontispiece. It also it is comprised of papal privileges on printing and sales, dedicated to the Marquis Filippo Nerli who was at the time general director of the Pope’s Post Office. The success was immediate and led to the exhaustion of the print run, with a new edition in 1684 put on the market by the bookseller Nicolò L’Huillè, in turn followed by six reprints in Venice (this one with frontispiece By Isabella Piccini )and Bologna,. The usefulness of this small but extraordinary guide lay in the precise and practical description of the various states, regions and cities of Europe, in the information useful to the traveler, in particular on coins, and in a handbook of terms of immediate use in six languages ​​(Italian, Spanish, French, German, Polish and Turkish); the author added tables with the post stations along the main roads; in short, it represents a text of great interest for the history of tourism.

BIBL. – Tomassetti, III, p. 293, V, p. 365; AIS, n. 1395; Pappuccia – Clementi 1990, pp. 48, 94, 108-109, 161, 171; Miselli 1993.

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3). 826J Publius Papinius Statius 1st Century.

P. Papinii Statii Opera ex recensione et cum notis I. Frederici Gronovii.

Venetiis : apud Nicolaum Pezzana,1712.

Deocecimo, cm.13.8 x8 signsatures. A-S12 Bound in contemporary vellum. This edition has a very nice impression of the frontispiece by Isabella Piccini.she was the daughter of the Venetian engraver Giacomo Piccini (d. 1669), who trained her in the art of drawing and engraving in the styles of the great masters, particularly Titian and Peter Paul Rubens. In 1666 she entered the Convent of Santa Croce in Venice and took the name Suor (Sister) Isabella. She continued to work as an engraver, accepting numerous commissions from Venetian publishers to illustrate liturgical books, biographies of saints, and prayer manuals. However, as a Franciscan nun dedicated to a life of poverty, she divided her earnings between her convent and her family living in Venice. Her long and productive career ended with her death at the age of ninety.

This Pezzana edition is a copy (which is uncommon) of the 1653 Elzevir edition of the complete works of Papinius Statius, with commentary of Johannes Grovonovius. Statius the Latin Roman poet from the first century, secretly converted to Christianity because of Virgil’s Fourth Eclogue, which he took to foretell the birth of Christ. Of Statius, whose surviving poetry there exists an epic in twelve books entitled the Thebaid, a collection of occasional poetry entitled the Silvae, and an unfinished epic, the Achilleid.

Gronovius (1611-1671) was a Professor of History at Deventer, the Netherlands. In 1665 he was appointed as the 6th Librarian of Leiden University.

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4). 823J Quinti Horatii Flacci (65 BCE–8 CE)

Quinti Horatii Flacci opera : denuo emendate.

Venetiis Apud Nicolaum Pezzana 1688    

Duodecimo 12.5 x 7cm  Signatures: A-I¹². This copy is bound in contemporary calf rebacked. Engraved title page featuring a harpist and cherubim riding atop swans, signed “Suor Isabel. F.”

Horace was in Athens when the Roman civil war broke out after Julius Caesar’s assassination in 44 BCE, and from there he joined Brutus’ army as a military tribune from 44 to 41 BCE when (he says) he ran away from the Battle of Philippi. He “counted himself lucky to be able to return to Italy, unlike many of his comrades-in-arms,” and was accepted into a circle of writers including Maecenas, who later gave him a farm thereby securing his financial position. This security gave Horace leisure time to work on poetry (which was vastly impacted by the Sabine region in which his farm was located) and maintain his personal freedom. He declined close relationships that might commit him to others, including an influential post offer by the Emperor Augustus.  Though Horace treasured his privacy, he maintained a close friendship with Maecenas for thirty years and died several months after him without having ever married.  In the 30s BCE, Horace wrote and published iambic poetry collectively known as the Epodes and the Satires, and then turned to lyric poetry referred to as his Odes. It is for the “perfection of form” and “depth and detail of his self-portraiture throughout” these poems that Horace secured his “position as one of the greatest of Roman poets.”[6] His poems often addressed the key ancient topic of friendship, as well as his country and countryside, all of which he greatly loved. Horace was so well respected and his works appreciated that his Odes were used in schools before his death. He is still “the most quoted of Latin poets.”

 “Horace” in The Oxford Companion to Classical Literature, ed. by M.C. Howatson (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011).  “Horace” in Oxford Dictionary of the Classical World, ed. by John Roberts (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007).

             Mills College checklist of Horace; 418

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5). 829J.  Martialis, Valerius

M. Val. Martialis ex museo Petri Scriverii

Venice: apud Nicolau Pezzana, 1726                 

Duodecimo, 12.5 x 7.5 cm. Signatures: A-K¹²  Bound in contemporary vellum, hand written author name on spine and ownership note on endpaper De Baggionis..October 1737. Engraved title signed “suor Isabella P.F.”

“It is feeling and force of imagination that make us eloquent.”

The great Latin epigrammist’s twelve subsequent books capture the spirit of Roman life in vivid detail. Fortune hunters and busybodies, orators and lawyers, schoolmasters and acrobats, doctors and plagiarists, beautiful slaves and generous hosts populate his witty verses. We glimpse here the theater, public games, life in the countryside, banquets, lions in the amphitheater, the eruption of Vesuvius. Martial’s epigrams are sometimes obscene, sometimes affectionate and amusing, and always pointed.

Edited by Petri Scriverius (1576-1660), an independent scholar, remains best known for this, his edition with commentary of the Roman epigrammatist Marcus Valerius Martialis. His edition possesses additional interest to scholars because of quotations from Josephus Scaliger (1540-1609). And Hugo Grotius (1583-1645), Paolo  Giovio(1483-1552)

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6) 812J Vergil, Polydore, 1470?-1555.  tr Baldelli, Francesco,; active 16th century. 

Di Polidoro Virgilio da Urbino De gli Inventori delle cose. Libri Otto. Tradotti per Francesco Baldelli, con due Tavole, una de’ Capitoli, e l’altra delle cose più notabili. Consagrati al Merito de Nobilissimi Virtuosa di questa Patria.

In Brescia : Per Domenico Gromi, 1680     

Quarto  21 x 15 cm. Signatures: π⁴ a⁴ ²a⁴ b-e⁴, A-3B⁴./ Title in red and black. Engraved frontispiece. allegorical frontispiece engraved in copper by the famous artist Isabella Piccini.  Woodcut printer’s device on title page .; decorated and historiated initials, tailpieces./ Includes index

Bound in a beautiful contemporary binding in rigid parchment with title stamped in gold on the spine. Small coat of arms on the title page. Some slight foxing on the outer edges of the first and last 4 leaves, irrelevant and overall in good to excellent condition. 

This translation is of great intellectual originally from Cortona, Francesco Baldelli, of the most famous work of the great naturalized English humanist from Urbino, Polidoro Virgili (Urbino, 1470 – Urbino, 18 April 1555). Polidoro Virgili (or Virgilio, also known as Polydore Virgile or Polydore Vergil ) was an Italian naturalized English priest, historian and humanist. He is also known as PV Castellensis or Castellesi. A forerunner of scientific historiography, he is particularly known for having published, commissioned first by King Henry VII and then by Henry VIII, the history of the British Isles as well as a history of inventions. William Shakespeare uses his works to historically frame his theatrical plays set in England. De Inventoribus (Paris, 1499). Written in just three months it deals with the origin of everything. An authentic encyclopedic work, in it the author develops numerous anecdotes on the origins of science, astrology, music, divination, games, sport, religion, heresies. One part concerns agriculture, wheat, fruit, foods, game, the discovery of grapes and the art of producing wine, etc. It originally consisted of seven volumes, increasing to 8 in 1521. This second book is dedicated to Guido’s tutor, Lodovico Odasio, of Urbino. This work becomes very popular and is soon translated into French (1521), German (1537), English (1546) and Spanish (1551). All editions, however, except those that follow the text sanctioned by Gregory XIII in 1576, are placed on the index of prohibited books. In the first book he deals with the origin of the gods and investigates the meaning of the word “god”. He also discusses topics such as creation, marriage and religion. The second book covers, among other things, law and military science, but also money and precious metals. The third book proceeds to discuss trade in agriculture, architecture and other activities. Since this book gained great popularity, Virgili added five further books dedicated to the initia institorum rei Christianae. This book also serves an important purpose: it is a concession to the Church which had declared his work heretical and depraved, not criticizing it but analyzing it with a scientific method. Virgili, thus, was well ahead of his time. He himself considered Inventoribus and Adagia to be his masterpieces. It is these, rather than the Anglica Historia that make Virgil a celebrity, both in England and on the continent. His later fame is also based on these works. Rare edition in beautiful contemporary binding.

Brian P. Copehaver wrote an exemplary work on De Inventoribus Rerum, The Historiography of Discovery in the Renaissance…, his argument being that De Inventoribus Rerum was an important and influential work of the Renaissance.  He wrote:

“Polydore’s effort to display a number of points of view on the origin of music is typical of the first three books of De Inventoribus, which contain chapters on cosmology, human origins, philosophy, astrology, geometry, weights and measures, numbers, medicine, pharmacy, magic, divination, time-keeping, books and writing, memory, the horse, metallurgy, coining, unguents, glass, sculpture, painting, agriculture, arboriculture, viniculture, animals, textiles, architecture, towns, monuments, and many other topics of interest to students of the historiography of science, technology, and medicine in the Renaissance. For all of them Polydore used essentially the same method: he tried to list and to sort out the various priority claims to be found in a most impressive range of sources, 155 titles by 88 classical, patristic, and early medieval writers.”

Polydore deals with a large number of interesting subjects, including: literary genres, astrology, magical arts, divination, the origin of laws, the calendar, printing, mnemonics, military art, games, metals, coins, glass and amber. The third book, dedicated to agriculture, deals with subjects such as: the cultivation of trees and vines; the art of producing wine; hunting and fishing; linen, silk, carpets and textile arts; architecture, construction of labyrinths, pyramids and obelisks; theatre, commerce. 

Elisabetta Piccini, or rather Sister Isabella Piccini, is one of the rare and very little-known female engravers. She was born in 1644 in Venice to a family of Venetian engravers. In 1666, in her early twenties, she entered the Franciscan convent of Santa Croce in Venice where she could practice her art in complete tranquility. Her works were much sought after by the publishers of the time and appreciated by the public.

7). 1). 620J  Saint Augustine (354-430).  Jean de Fécamp (early 11th century). Henricus Sommalius SJ (1534-1619)

Divi Avrelli Avgvstini Hipponensis episcopi Meditationes, Solioquia & Manuale. Meditations B. Anselmi cum tractatu de humani generis redemptione. D. Bernardi Idiotae viri docti, de amore diunio. Omnia ad mss. exemplaria emendata, & in meliorem ordinem distributa, opera ac studio R.P. Henrici Sommalii Societatu Iesv Theologi. 

Venetiis: Apud Nicholaum Pezzana 1718

Duodecimo, 12 x 6cm. Signatures : A-Q¹²  Bound in later sheep gilt spine. The imprint of this book appears to me quite suspicious, and might deserve a bit more research. Most other copies have the original engraved t.p. dated 1691; This copy has been fudged, either in ink or in the plate toward 1718. The engraver of the plate is the Venetian nun Sister Isabella / Elisabetta Piccini (1644–1734) she was the daughter of the Venetian engraver Giacomo Piccini (d. 1669), who trained her in the art of drawing and engraving in the styles of the great masters, particularly Titian and Peter Paul Rubens. In 1666 she entered the Convent of Santa Croce in Venice and took the name Suor (Sister) Isabella. She continued to work as an engraver, accepting numerous commissions from Venetian publishers to illustrate liturgical books, biographies of saints, and prayer manuals. However, as a Franciscan nun dedicated to a life of poverty, she divided her earnings between her convent and her family living in Venice. Her long and productive career ended with her death at the age of ninety.

The artist signed the frontispiece engraving (in translation) “Sour (Sister) Isabella

Henricus Sommalius had been a member of the Societas Jesu since 1551 , and was the first rector of the Jesuit college in Douay. He edited several editions of works by medieval theologians and church fathers. Among them are Albertus Magnus : Paradisus animae siue de virtutibus libellus , Antverpiae, Plantiniana, 1602; Aurelius Augustine : Confessions , Douay, 1608; the pseudo-Augustinian Soliloquium, Mediationes und Manuale, Douay, 1607. He wrote the famous edition of Thomas von Kempen ‘s Opera omnia (a Kempis), first edition in 1600, Antwerpen with Nutius, where the second edition was also published in 1607 and the third in 1615, which as first complete edition applies. [1]Further reprints then in various places, such as the 7th edition in Cologne in 1680, and finally in Cologne in 1759, published by Eusebius Amort , It seems possible that the curent edition of “Augustine’s Meditatios” was printed in 1701 without printer or place or date and then re-issued to accompany the a’Kempis? 

DeBacker’Sommervogel Vol. VII Col.1381 No5.