Details
GIANNOTTI, Donato (1492-1573). Libro della republica de Vinitiani. Rome: Antonio Blado, 1540.
4° (203 x 128 mm). Collation: A-Z Aa-Dd4. 108 leaves. Italic type. Woodcut initial on A2r, 4-line initial space with printed guide letter on A4r. Full-page woodcut diagram on Dd3r of the Sala del Consiglio in the Doges' Palace in Venice, woodcut printer's device on Dd4r. Manuscript correction to woodcut caption (Dd4r). (One or two marginal wormholes.) 19th-century half vellum, edges speckled red (a few small wormholes).
Provenance: shelfmark I III 36 on title, repeated on verso.
FIRST EDITION. The Florentine Donato Giannotti was an idealistic political thinker of the generation following Machiavelli. During the republic of 1527-30 Giannotti held one of the chancellery posts formerly filled by Machiavelli, and as the latter had been, he was exiled upon the return of the Medicis. His two most important political treatises, the Libro della republica de' Viniziani and Libro della republica fiorentina (not published until 1721), are arguments for the establishment in Florence of a republican system of government (including the three principal upper classes but excluding the plebei) on the grounds of efficiency rather than any moral imperative. In the present work, composed in 1526, he "rejected Machiavelli's pro-Roman bias by pointing out that the Venetian state enjoyed more 'tranquility and peace' than did Rome. He compared its constitution to a pyramid, at the base of which was the Consiglio Maggiore, surmounted by the senate, the Collegio... and at the summit the elected Doge. No single element could gain control; both the patricians and the popoli were content, and sedition was thus avoided" (Brand and Pertile, Cambridge History of Italian Literaure, p. 197). Giannotti modified his views in his later works, proposing for Florence a more restricted republicanism than that practiced in Venice.
BM/STC Italian, p. 300.
4° (203 x 128 mm). Collation: A-Z Aa-Dd4. 108 leaves. Italic type. Woodcut initial on A2r, 4-line initial space with printed guide letter on A4r. Full-page woodcut diagram on Dd3r of the Sala del Consiglio in the Doges' Palace in Venice, woodcut printer's device on Dd4r. Manuscript correction to woodcut caption (Dd4r). (One or two marginal wormholes.) 19th-century half vellum, edges speckled red (a few small wormholes).
Provenance: shelfmark I III 36 on title, repeated on verso.
FIRST EDITION. The Florentine Donato Giannotti was an idealistic political thinker of the generation following Machiavelli. During the republic of 1527-30 Giannotti held one of the chancellery posts formerly filled by Machiavelli, and as the latter had been, he was exiled upon the return of the Medicis. His two most important political treatises, the Libro della republica de' Viniziani and Libro della republica fiorentina (not published until 1721), are arguments for the establishment in Florence of a republican system of government (including the three principal upper classes but excluding the plebei) on the grounds of efficiency rather than any moral imperative. In the present work, composed in 1526, he "rejected Machiavelli's pro-Roman bias by pointing out that the Venetian state enjoyed more 'tranquility and peace' than did Rome. He compared its constitution to a pyramid, at the base of which was the Consiglio Maggiore, surmounted by the senate, the Collegio... and at the summit the elected Doge. No single element could gain control; both the patricians and the popoli were content, and sedition was thus avoided" (Brand and Pertile, Cambridge History of Italian Literaure, p. 197). Giannotti modified his views in his later works, proposing for Florence a more restricted republicanism than that practiced in Venice.
BM/STC Italian, p. 300.