Details
MACHIAVELLI, Niccolò (1469-1527). Historie di Nicolò Machiavegli Cittadino, et Segretario Fiorentino. Rome: Antonio Blado, 25 March 1532.
8° (124 x 127 mm). Collation: +4 A-Y8 (+1r title, +1v blank, +2r papal privilege (of Pope Clement VII) dated 23 August 1531, +2v printer's dedication to Giovanni Gaddi, +3v author's dedication to Clement VII, +4v blank, A1r author's prologue, A2v blank, A3r text, Y7v register, Y8r colophon, Y8v blank). 180 leaves. Italic type. Woodcut printer's device on title, initial spaces with guide letters. (Title soiled and with minuscule marginal tear, marginal tear to I1-4 just catching text, marginal repair to last leaf, dampstaining to fore-margins of first 4 and last 12 leaves, affecting text in last quire, R8v-S1r stained.) 18th-century acid-stained patterned calf gilt, morocco lettering-piece on spine, edges mottled and gilt (extremities of spine chipped, joints and corners worn, inner hinges weak).
Provenance: full-page 16th-century note in French on final blank page, numerous marginalia in the same hand; other early marginalia, some in French (some cropped); pointing hand stamped in margin of Q6r; Giuseppe Martini, bookplate (sale, Part I, Lucerne: Hoepli, 27 August 1934, lot 116); Prince Piero Ginori Conti, bookplate; (Quaritch collation mark, 1924); E. M. Cox, bookplate.
FIRST EDITION, RARE. In 1519, at the suggestion of Cardinal Giulio de' Medici, the future Pope Clement VII, the officers of the Studdio pubblico in Florence commissioned Machiavelli to write a history of the city of Florence, for which they agreed to pay him 100 florins annually, expecting him to complete the work in two years. New diplomatic assignments prevented Machiavelli, however, from seriously commencing the work until 1523, and in 1525 he presented the first 8 books out of a projected much longer work to his sponsor, now Pope. Although Machiavelli died before completing the work, it stands on its own as a landmark in the development of historiography. "It is not so much a chronicle of Florentine affairs, from the commencement of modern history to the death of Lorenzo de' Medici in 1492, as a critique of that chronicle from the point of view adopted by Machiavelli in his former writings. Having condensed his doctrines in the Principe and the Discorsi, he applies their abstract principles to the example of the Florentine republic. But the History of Florence is not a mere political pamphlet. It is the first example in Italian literature of a national biography, the first attempt in any literature to trace the vicissitudes of a people's life in their logical sequence..."(John Addington Symonds, Ency. Brit., 1911, 17, p. 236).
Still in possession of the papal privilege granted to him for the publication of the Discorsi, and still plagued by the competition of Bernardo Giunta, whom the Pope had exceptionally granted permission to print his own editions of Machiavelli's works following the confusion surrounding publication of the Discorsi in 1531 (see preceding lot), Antonio Blado was able to obtain a manuscript of the Historie in time to finish printing his edition just 2 days before Giunta issued his rival edition. Though also rare on the market, the latter remains less scarce than the present extremely rare first edition.
Bertelli & Innocenti 16; Fumagalli, Annali Blado, I: 26; Gerber II: 36-38.
8° (124 x 127 mm). Collation: +4 A-Y8 (+1r title, +1v blank, +2r papal privilege (of Pope Clement VII) dated 23 August 1531, +2v printer's dedication to Giovanni Gaddi, +3v author's dedication to Clement VII, +4v blank, A1r author's prologue, A2v blank, A3r text, Y7v register, Y8r colophon, Y8v blank). 180 leaves. Italic type. Woodcut printer's device on title, initial spaces with guide letters. (Title soiled and with minuscule marginal tear, marginal tear to I1-4 just catching text, marginal repair to last leaf, dampstaining to fore-margins of first 4 and last 12 leaves, affecting text in last quire, R8v-S1r stained.) 18th-century acid-stained patterned calf gilt, morocco lettering-piece on spine, edges mottled and gilt (extremities of spine chipped, joints and corners worn, inner hinges weak).
Provenance: full-page 16th-century note in French on final blank page, numerous marginalia in the same hand; other early marginalia, some in French (some cropped); pointing hand stamped in margin of Q6r; Giuseppe Martini, bookplate (sale, Part I, Lucerne: Hoepli, 27 August 1934, lot 116); Prince Piero Ginori Conti, bookplate; (Quaritch collation mark, 1924); E. M. Cox, bookplate.
FIRST EDITION, RARE. In 1519, at the suggestion of Cardinal Giulio de' Medici, the future Pope Clement VII, the officers of the Studdio pubblico in Florence commissioned Machiavelli to write a history of the city of Florence, for which they agreed to pay him 100 florins annually, expecting him to complete the work in two years. New diplomatic assignments prevented Machiavelli, however, from seriously commencing the work until 1523, and in 1525 he presented the first 8 books out of a projected much longer work to his sponsor, now Pope. Although Machiavelli died before completing the work, it stands on its own as a landmark in the development of historiography. "It is not so much a chronicle of Florentine affairs, from the commencement of modern history to the death of Lorenzo de' Medici in 1492, as a critique of that chronicle from the point of view adopted by Machiavelli in his former writings. Having condensed his doctrines in the Principe and the Discorsi, he applies their abstract principles to the example of the Florentine republic. But the History of Florence is not a mere political pamphlet. It is the first example in Italian literature of a national biography, the first attempt in any literature to trace the vicissitudes of a people's life in their logical sequence..."(John Addington Symonds, Ency. Brit., 1911, 17, p. 236).
Still in possession of the papal privilege granted to him for the publication of the Discorsi, and still plagued by the competition of Bernardo Giunta, whom the Pope had exceptionally granted permission to print his own editions of Machiavelli's works following the confusion surrounding publication of the Discorsi in 1531 (see preceding lot), Antonio Blado was able to obtain a manuscript of the Historie in time to finish printing his edition just 2 days before Giunta issued his rival edition. Though also rare on the market, the latter remains less scarce than the present extremely rare first edition.
Bertelli & Innocenti 16; Fumagalli, Annali Blado, I: 26; Gerber II: 36-38.