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CRESCI, Giovanni Francesco. Essemplare di piu sorti lettere di M. Gio Francesco Cresci Milanese, Scrittore della Libraria Apostolica. Rome: Antonio Blado for the author, 1560.
PRINTED ON VELLUM. Oblong 4o (156 x 215 mm). Collation: [symbol]4 *-**4 A-H4 (#1r title, #1v papal privilege of Pius IV, dated V July, 1560, #2r author's dedication to Cardinal Borromeo, #3r author's preface alli lettori, *1r text, A4v blank except for border and manuscript verses, B1r preface to the writing samples, B1v woodcut writing samples). 44 leaves. Typographic title and text in italic type, printed within four different sets of four-part woodcut borders, 53 woodcut writing samples within fine woodcut arabesque borders, the samples cut by Giovan Francesco Aureri da Crema and concluding with 14 pages of white-on-black roman lettering including a 12-page alphabet in large capitals; 6 historiated woodcut initials of which two from a slightly larger series used in two writing samples, and one arabesque initial, G1r and H4v with arabesque ornaments only, woodcut border on A4v otherwise blank and containing MANUSCRIPT 14-LINE LAUDATORY POEM TO THE AUTHOR BY GIOVANNI BATTISTA FORTEGUERRI DA PISTOIA in brown ink in a neat calligraphic hand (the author's?). Numerous manuscript corrections in the same hand. (Small wormhole to upper margins of first 2 leaves catching border, occasional minor soiling to upper margins, a few small chips to lower edges, woodcut border on A4r just shaved at top, the leaves cut and bound slightly irregularly).
Binding: Contemporary Roman gold-tooled red morocco over pasteboard, covers with wide border of repeated scrolling vine tool surrounding inner panel with gold-stamped arabesque cornerpieces and central stamp of a cardinal's arms, the blank oval shield painted with the arms of the dedicatee CARDINAL CARLO BORROMEO, small fleur-de-lis ornament surmounting the shield also painted blue, spine with 4 raised bands, the 5 compartments filled with gilt foliate tools, remains of 4 pairs of silk ties, paper endleaves at front, vellum endleaves at back, 2 additional vellum flyleaves at both front and back (restorations to head and tail of spine and lower joint, corners and raised bands rubbed, vertical splits to leather of spine, the armorial block slightly worn); cloth folding box.
Provenance: Carlo Borromeo, Cardinal and Saint (1538-1584), dedicatee (binding and inscription (possibly by Giulio Cesare Borromeo) on front vellum flyleaf: "Libro del B[ea]to Carlo Borromeo Arcives[cov]o di Milano sopra il quale esso B[eat]o ha imparato scrivere"); Guilio Cesare Borromeo (1593-1638), count of Arona, son of the Cardinal's first cousin Renato Borromeo, given in 1609 to: Prete(?) Giovanni Bianco (the latter's inscription dated 17 April 1609 on front free endpaper).
THE DEDICATION COPY ON VELLUM OF THE FIRST EDITION. Cresci, a Milanese who spent most of his life in Rome, was copyist in the Vatican Library from 1556 to 1570 and later supported himself as a writing master. He was the author of three popular writing-books, of which the Essemplare was the first and most revolutionary. In it he quietly demolished the traditional chancery italic script, advocating the use of a new chancery cursive hand (cancellaresca testeggiata) better suited for the increased pressures placed on secretaries by the demands of politics and the accelerated pace of business in mid 16th-century Italy. In the foreword Cresci states his principles, discarding the chancery italic as too slow, because its letters are too narrow and pointed and the traditional italic pen is too broad and square, and advocating the use of a narrower pen, different pen strokes, and more fluid movements of the scribe. In the Essemplare Cresci restricted his writing specimens to the basic traditional book-hands and inscriptional capitals as well as his chancery cursive; he rejected the variety of often fanciful scripts used by previous writers as largely useless. Cresci's stance was decisive in the transition to a more fluid cursive hand, although he himself was later accused by the younger generation of scribes of being too conservative. Interestingly, Cresci chose the woodcut relief process to reproduce his writing samples because he found it more faithful to the original, since the woodcutter merely cuts away the superfluous wood around the master's writing, whereas the copperplate engraver, by tracing over the writing with his burin, destroys the original. The woodcutter Francesco Aureri da Crema is known only from this work and Cresci's next book, Il perfetto scrittore (1570).
Cresci's writing manual was reprinted seven times before 1601. THIS FIRST EDITION IS VERY RARE. Apparently the only copy in America is a single imperfect copy in the Newberry Library; the Hofer collection of writing manuals at Harvard, the British Museum, and the Berlin Staatsbibliothek have later editions only.
When his uncle Cardinal Angelo de'Medici became Pope Pius IV in early 1560, the 22-year old Carlo Borromeo was created Cardinal of the administration of Romagna and the Marche of Ancona, and quickly became one of the leading statesmen of the pontifical court. An influential participant in the deliberations of the Council of Trent, Borromeo dedicated his career to church reform. He was canonized in 1610.
The repeated scrolling leafy tool forming the borders on this binding appears, similarly deployed, on two volumes of manuscript archives, one in the Vatican Archives, stamped with a Farnese cardinal's arms (de Marinis 661, pl. CXVIII), and the other on a manuscript of 1569-1574 in the Capitoline Archives, with the tool turned on its side (Legatura romana barocca, pl. 2).
COPIES PRINTED ON VELLUM OF ANY EARLY CALLIGRAPHY MANUAL ARE EXTREMELY UNUSUAL. Bonacini 415 (citing a copy on vellum with Art Ancien in Lugano [in 1953], probably this copy); Johnson p. 37:10; A.S. Osley, Luminario--an introduction to the Italian writing-books of the 16th and 17th centuries (Nieuwkoop 1972), pp. 69-76; Osley, Scribes and Sources--Handbook of the Chancery Hand in the 16th century (Boston 1980). pp. 114-16; Morison,S. Early Italian Writing Books Renaissance to Baroque (Boston, 1990), pp. 96-103; cf. Becker 25 (1578 edition).
PRINTED ON VELLUM. Oblong 4
Binding: Contemporary Roman gold-tooled red morocco over pasteboard, covers with wide border of repeated scrolling vine tool surrounding inner panel with gold-stamped arabesque cornerpieces and central stamp of a cardinal's arms, the blank oval shield painted with the arms of the dedicatee CARDINAL CARLO BORROMEO, small fleur-de-lis ornament surmounting the shield also painted blue, spine with 4 raised bands, the 5 compartments filled with gilt foliate tools, remains of 4 pairs of silk ties, paper endleaves at front, vellum endleaves at back, 2 additional vellum flyleaves at both front and back (restorations to head and tail of spine and lower joint, corners and raised bands rubbed, vertical splits to leather of spine, the armorial block slightly worn); cloth folding box.
Provenance: Carlo Borromeo, Cardinal and Saint (1538-1584), dedicatee (binding and inscription (possibly by Giulio Cesare Borromeo) on front vellum flyleaf: "Libro del B[ea]to Carlo Borromeo Arcives[cov]o di Milano sopra il quale esso B[eat]o ha imparato scrivere"); Guilio Cesare Borromeo (1593-1638), count of Arona, son of the Cardinal's first cousin Renato Borromeo, given in 1609 to: Prete(?) Giovanni Bianco (the latter's inscription dated 17 April 1609 on front free endpaper).
THE DEDICATION COPY ON VELLUM OF THE FIRST EDITION. Cresci, a Milanese who spent most of his life in Rome, was copyist in the Vatican Library from 1556 to 1570 and later supported himself as a writing master. He was the author of three popular writing-books, of which the Essemplare was the first and most revolutionary. In it he quietly demolished the traditional chancery italic script, advocating the use of a new chancery cursive hand (cancellaresca testeggiata) better suited for the increased pressures placed on secretaries by the demands of politics and the accelerated pace of business in mid 16th-century Italy. In the foreword Cresci states his principles, discarding the chancery italic as too slow, because its letters are too narrow and pointed and the traditional italic pen is too broad and square, and advocating the use of a narrower pen, different pen strokes, and more fluid movements of the scribe. In the Essemplare Cresci restricted his writing specimens to the basic traditional book-hands and inscriptional capitals as well as his chancery cursive; he rejected the variety of often fanciful scripts used by previous writers as largely useless. Cresci's stance was decisive in the transition to a more fluid cursive hand, although he himself was later accused by the younger generation of scribes of being too conservative. Interestingly, Cresci chose the woodcut relief process to reproduce his writing samples because he found it more faithful to the original, since the woodcutter merely cuts away the superfluous wood around the master's writing, whereas the copperplate engraver, by tracing over the writing with his burin, destroys the original. The woodcutter Francesco Aureri da Crema is known only from this work and Cresci's next book, Il perfetto scrittore (1570).
Cresci's writing manual was reprinted seven times before 1601. THIS FIRST EDITION IS VERY RARE. Apparently the only copy in America is a single imperfect copy in the Newberry Library; the Hofer collection of writing manuals at Harvard, the British Museum, and the Berlin Staatsbibliothek have later editions only.
When his uncle Cardinal Angelo de'Medici became Pope Pius IV in early 1560, the 22-year old Carlo Borromeo was created Cardinal of the administration of Romagna and the Marche of Ancona, and quickly became one of the leading statesmen of the pontifical court. An influential participant in the deliberations of the Council of Trent, Borromeo dedicated his career to church reform. He was canonized in 1610.
The repeated scrolling leafy tool forming the borders on this binding appears, similarly deployed, on two volumes of manuscript archives, one in the Vatican Archives, stamped with a Farnese cardinal's arms (de Marinis 661, pl. CXVIII), and the other on a manuscript of 1569-1574 in the Capitoline Archives, with the tool turned on its side (Legatura romana barocca, pl. 2).
COPIES PRINTED ON VELLUM OF ANY EARLY CALLIGRAPHY MANUAL ARE EXTREMELY UNUSUAL. Bonacini 415 (citing a copy on vellum with Art Ancien in Lugano [in 1953], probably this copy); Johnson p. 37:10; A.S. Osley, Luminario--an introduction to the Italian writing-books of the 16th and 17th centuries (Nieuwkoop 1972), pp. 69-76; Osley, Scribes and Sources--Handbook of the Chancery Hand in the 16th century (Boston 1980). pp. 114-16; Morison,S. Early Italian Writing Books Renaissance to Baroque (Boston, 1990), pp. 96-103; cf. Becker 25 (1578 edition).
Sale room notice
The collation for this lot was printed incorrectly. Quire A contains two leaves, not four, bringing the total leaf count to 42 leaves, not 44.
This book was offered by Jacques Rosenthal in 1927 in his catalogue 87, as item 206.
This book was offered by Jacques Rosenthal in 1927 in his catalogue 87, as item 206.