Details
BARLETIUS, Marinus (1450-1526). Historia de vita & gestis Scanderbegi. Rome: Bernardino dei Vitali, [ca. 1520].
2° (294 x 198 mm). Collation: AA a-z & \\j \\a A-O4. 164 leaves, O4 blank. Roman type (table headline in Gothic type), shoulder notes, title and privilege printed in red. Title within 4-part woodcut border with scenes from Roman history, full-page woodcut portrait of Scanderbeg in profile against a black background with legend in Italian (AA4v), woodcut initials, one criblé initial, pointing hand in the margin of I1r. (Light dampstaining to lower portions of pages, closed tear to fols. 96-97.) Modern vellum over pasteboard.
FIRST EDITION OF THE LIFE OF THE NATIONAL HERO OF ALBANIA. George Castriota (1403-67), son of the lord of Kroia, was in his youth handed over to the Turks as a hostage. Professing the Muslim faith, he served the Ottoman state for 20 years, earning the name Iskander Bey in deference to his miliary prowess, flatteringly likened to that of Alexander the Great. In 1443, at a time when Turkish domination was advancing in the Balkans, he proclaimed his Christian belief and revolted. The remainder of his life he devoted to guerrilla warfare against the Turks, seeking to unite the Albanian chieftains in resistance, and appealing for aid to the papacy and the states of Italy. His remarkable military success did not long outlive him; in 1474 his son sold the principality of Kroia to Venice, which ceded it to the Turks 4 years later.
Scanderbeg's legendary deeds were recorded in this life by Barlezio, who drew on both oral and written sources. The present edition is signed as having been printed in Rome by Bernardino dei Vitali ("B.V."), who worked primarily in Venice, with short stays in Rome, Naples and Rimini. A printing date of ca. 1520 is suggested by the fact that one of the initials and the type fount are found in Vitali's Rome 1522 edition of Marko Marulic's Epistola ad Adrianum VI; the upper and lower parts of the title-page border were used also in the Sessa-Ravani edition of Livy (Venice, 1520). The woodcut portrait of Scanderbeg, probably by a Venetian artist, is apparently based on a miniature portrait executed when Scanderbeg visited Rome in 1465. It has been frequently copied, appearing in reverse in German versions of Barlezio (Augsburg: H. Steiner, 1533, and subsequent editions), and reduced in size in Demetrius Francus's biography of Scanderbeg (Venice, 1584). Before the end of the 16th century, Barlezio's work was published in German, Italian, Portuguese, Polish, French, English and Spanish translations.
Adams B-216; BM/STC Italian, p. 72; Essling 2317; Göllner Turcica 33; Harvard/Mortimer Italian 43; Sander 780.
2° (294 x 198 mm). Collation: AA a-z & \\j \\a A-O4. 164 leaves, O4 blank. Roman type (table headline in Gothic type), shoulder notes, title and privilege printed in red. Title within 4-part woodcut border with scenes from Roman history, full-page woodcut portrait of Scanderbeg in profile against a black background with legend in Italian (AA4v), woodcut initials, one criblé initial, pointing hand in the margin of I1r. (Light dampstaining to lower portions of pages, closed tear to fols. 96-97.) Modern vellum over pasteboard.
FIRST EDITION OF THE LIFE OF THE NATIONAL HERO OF ALBANIA. George Castriota (1403-67), son of the lord of Kroia, was in his youth handed over to the Turks as a hostage. Professing the Muslim faith, he served the Ottoman state for 20 years, earning the name Iskander Bey in deference to his miliary prowess, flatteringly likened to that of Alexander the Great. In 1443, at a time when Turkish domination was advancing in the Balkans, he proclaimed his Christian belief and revolted. The remainder of his life he devoted to guerrilla warfare against the Turks, seeking to unite the Albanian chieftains in resistance, and appealing for aid to the papacy and the states of Italy. His remarkable military success did not long outlive him; in 1474 his son sold the principality of Kroia to Venice, which ceded it to the Turks 4 years later.
Scanderbeg's legendary deeds were recorded in this life by Barlezio, who drew on both oral and written sources. The present edition is signed as having been printed in Rome by Bernardino dei Vitali ("B.V."), who worked primarily in Venice, with short stays in Rome, Naples and Rimini. A printing date of ca. 1520 is suggested by the fact that one of the initials and the type fount are found in Vitali's Rome 1522 edition of Marko Marulic's Epistola ad Adrianum VI; the upper and lower parts of the title-page border were used also in the Sessa-Ravani edition of Livy (Venice, 1520). The woodcut portrait of Scanderbeg, probably by a Venetian artist, is apparently based on a miniature portrait executed when Scanderbeg visited Rome in 1465. It has been frequently copied, appearing in reverse in German versions of Barlezio (Augsburg: H. Steiner, 1533, and subsequent editions), and reduced in size in Demetrius Francus's biography of Scanderbeg (Venice, 1584). Before the end of the 16th century, Barlezio's work was published in German, Italian, Portuguese, Polish, French, English and Spanish translations.
Adams B-216; BM/STC Italian, p. 72; Essling 2317; Göllner Turcica 33; Harvard/Mortimer Italian 43; Sander 780.