Details
VESPASIANO DA BISTICCI (ca 1422-1498). La Vita della Alessandra di Bardo de' Bardi. Manuscrit enluminé, dédié et donné par le plus célèbre libraire de la Renaissance à Giovanni de' Bardi [Florence, vers 1480]. Avec la reliure originale.
in Italian, ILLUMINATED MANUSCRIPT ON VELLUM
[Florence, ca. 1480]
207 x 143mm. 62 leaves; 12, 2-510, 68, 712, COMPLETE, abbreviated catchwords in the inner lower corner of the ruling, 18 lines written in brown-black ink in an upright humanistic bookhand between two pairs of vertical and 18 horizontal lines ruled in brown ink, justification: 123 x 73mm, dedication and prefatory title in lines alternately of burnished gold and blue capitals, subsequent titles in red capitals, marginal titles in pink in humanistic minuscule, PAGE- OPENING WITH ILLUMINATED DEDICATORY TITLEPIECE, ILLUMINATED INITIAL, BORDER AND COAT OF ARMS SUPPORTED BY TWO PUTTI, of burnished gold with foliage and flowers of green, blue and pink, interspersed with gold disks with penwork tendrils, a similar four-line ILLUMINATED INITIAL (some thumbing to lower corner of first three folios, slight offsetting of pigment on opening spread, blue inital on f. 51 smudged). ORIGINAL BINDING of panelled brown goatskin, tooled in blind with rope-work border, sections and central roundels, some annular dots and disks in painted gold, upper cover with four brass studs securing remains of green silk-covered clasps, lower cover with brass shell-shaped catches, spine in four compartments (small losses to both covers, corners rubbed, upper clasps missing, spine worn over bands and loss at head and foot), modern black morocco box.
THIS IS A REMARKABLE AND EVOCATIVE BOOK, ESSENTIALLY UNALTERED SINCE IT LEFT VESPASIANO'S HANDS. The substantial vellum used for the dedication titlepage still has untrimmed hairs left by the parchment maker.
PROVENANCE:
1. Giovanni de Bardi: although the copy of the Vita dell'Alessandra de' Bardi in Florence (Arch. di Stato, Strozzi Ugoccioni 39) also contains the Bardi arms, the present copy is the more extensively decorated and is evidently THE DEDICATION MANUSCRIPT.
2. Agnolo di Barnardo de Bardi; ownership note and notarial mark on final endpaper, this is presumably the Agnolo di Barnardo who was the grandson of Giovanni de Bardi.
3. Hoepli, 1959
4. Martin Bodmer
5. H.P. Kraus, New York, Cat.126, 1971, no.20.
CONTENTS:
f.2v Title and dedication; ff.3-7 Prohemio di Vespasiano a Giovanni de Bardi; ff.9-50v Vita della Alessandra de Bardi; ff.51-62v Brieve descritione di Vespasiano di tutti quegli anno composte vite
Vespasiano da Bisticci was the pre-eminent Florentine bookseller and by 1460 the main provider of manuscripts to princes, prelates and scholars across Europe. The manuscripts he supplied to Federigo da Montefeltro, Duke of Urbino and Mathias Corvinus, King of Hungary were the most extensive, prestigious and famous examples of such undertakings, but he also produced more modest books - some on commission, others speculatively - and, although humanistic books were his preferred product they were by no means all of this type. From early on in his career Vespasiano had a reputation as a collector and disseminator of news and to some extent his biographies of illustrious contemporaries could be seen as an extension of that. The 105 Vite include Popes, rulers, statesmen, prelates and scholars. Alessandra de' Bardi's Life is thought to be one of the earliest and is the longest of a woman. In the dedicatory prohemio Vespasiano explains how he came to write about her after discussing her with Giovanni and Alessandro de' Bardi as an example of temperance and integrity. Alessandra (ca. 1412-65), the daughter of Bardo di Alessandro de' Bardi, was a noted beauty who was one of the well-born young women chosen to act as hostesses to the Ambassadors of the Emperor Sigismond on their visit to Florence in 1432. In the same year she married Palla Strozzi but within two years both their families were adversely affected by Cosimo de' Medici's political ascendancy and her father, father-in-law and then her husband were all exiled. Her father died in Padua in 1441 and in 1451 her husband was killed in Gubbio by his unruly ward. Alessandra coped with her misfortunes with fortitude and resourcefulness and was presented by Vespasiano as a model to all Florentine women. She was to be especially recommended as an example to the mothers of daughters; they should forbid the reading of the Cento Novelle, the stories of Boccaccio or the sonnets of Petrarch, which in spite of their literary polish Vespasiano considered unsuitable for the pure minds of young women who should think only of God and their husbands.
The work concludes with a survey of earlier biographies, from Plutarch - newly available in Latin thanks to Leonardo Bruni - to Donato Acciaiuoli, which incorporates an account of the revival of Latin and Greek and the achievements of Italian humanism. It ends with Vespasiano defending himself against accusations of having maligned women, claiming that he has never spoken ill of virtuous women who bring up their children in fear of God and keep quiet in church. To show that good women please him he offers his Lives of those women of Florence who could be thought the equal of those of antiquity.
SCRIBE AND ILLUMINATOR:
This manuscript was written by the scribe who, in 1461, signed himself 'Sinnibaldus C' in Chrysostom's Contra vituperatores vitae monasticae (Laur. Fies. 43). He was one of the humanist scribes most closely associated with Vespasiano; in the 1470s Sinnibaldus copied at least 17 manuscripts for the library of Federigo da Montefeltro and around 1480-1 he made fair and presentation copies of several of Vespasiano's early works, including this one. He was also responsible for writing 25ff. and some of the corrections in the first part of the other copy of Alessandra's life.
The illumination is by an anonymous collaborator of the leading Florentine illuminator of this date, Francesco d'Antonio del Chierico.
BINDING:
The binding is characteristically Florentine and very similar to some of those that Vespasiano had made for Federigo da Montefeltro before 1482, see for example Tammaro de Marinis, La Legatura artistica in Italia nei secoli XV e XVI, i, nos 965 & 968. The pattern left by the catches on no. 952 shows that they were originally the same as the delicate engraved shells on the present manuscript.
A. de la Mare "New Research on Humanistic Scribes in Florence", in Miniatura fiorentina del Rinascimento ed. Annarosa Garzelli (Florence, 1985) pp.432 & 537
in Italian, ILLUMINATED MANUSCRIPT ON VELLUM
[Florence, ca. 1480]
207 x 143mm. 62 leaves; 12, 2-510, 68, 712, COMPLETE, abbreviated catchwords in the inner lower corner of the ruling, 18 lines written in brown-black ink in an upright humanistic bookhand between two pairs of vertical and 18 horizontal lines ruled in brown ink, justification: 123 x 73mm, dedication and prefatory title in lines alternately of burnished gold and blue capitals, subsequent titles in red capitals, marginal titles in pink in humanistic minuscule, PAGE- OPENING WITH ILLUMINATED DEDICATORY TITLEPIECE, ILLUMINATED INITIAL, BORDER AND COAT OF ARMS SUPPORTED BY TWO PUTTI, of burnished gold with foliage and flowers of green, blue and pink, interspersed with gold disks with penwork tendrils, a similar four-line ILLUMINATED INITIAL (some thumbing to lower corner of first three folios, slight offsetting of pigment on opening spread, blue inital on f. 51 smudged). ORIGINAL BINDING of panelled brown goatskin, tooled in blind with rope-work border, sections and central roundels, some annular dots and disks in painted gold, upper cover with four brass studs securing remains of green silk-covered clasps, lower cover with brass shell-shaped catches, spine in four compartments (small losses to both covers, corners rubbed, upper clasps missing, spine worn over bands and loss at head and foot), modern black morocco box.
THIS IS A REMARKABLE AND EVOCATIVE BOOK, ESSENTIALLY UNALTERED SINCE IT LEFT VESPASIANO'S HANDS. The substantial vellum used for the dedication titlepage still has untrimmed hairs left by the parchment maker.
PROVENANCE:
1. Giovanni de Bardi: although the copy of the Vita dell'Alessandra de' Bardi in Florence (Arch. di Stato, Strozzi Ugoccioni 39) also contains the Bardi arms, the present copy is the more extensively decorated and is evidently THE DEDICATION MANUSCRIPT.
2. Agnolo di Barnardo de Bardi; ownership note and notarial mark on final endpaper, this is presumably the Agnolo di Barnardo who was the grandson of Giovanni de Bardi.
3. Hoepli, 1959
4. Martin Bodmer
5. H.P. Kraus, New York, Cat.126, 1971, no.20.
CONTENTS:
f.2v Title and dedication; ff.3-7 Prohemio di Vespasiano a Giovanni de Bardi; ff.9-50v Vita della Alessandra de Bardi; ff.51-62v Brieve descritione di Vespasiano di tutti quegli anno composte vite
Vespasiano da Bisticci was the pre-eminent Florentine bookseller and by 1460 the main provider of manuscripts to princes, prelates and scholars across Europe. The manuscripts he supplied to Federigo da Montefeltro, Duke of Urbino and Mathias Corvinus, King of Hungary were the most extensive, prestigious and famous examples of such undertakings, but he also produced more modest books - some on commission, others speculatively - and, although humanistic books were his preferred product they were by no means all of this type. From early on in his career Vespasiano had a reputation as a collector and disseminator of news and to some extent his biographies of illustrious contemporaries could be seen as an extension of that. The 105 Vite include Popes, rulers, statesmen, prelates and scholars. Alessandra de' Bardi's Life is thought to be one of the earliest and is the longest of a woman. In the dedicatory prohemio Vespasiano explains how he came to write about her after discussing her with Giovanni and Alessandro de' Bardi as an example of temperance and integrity. Alessandra (ca. 1412-65), the daughter of Bardo di Alessandro de' Bardi, was a noted beauty who was one of the well-born young women chosen to act as hostesses to the Ambassadors of the Emperor Sigismond on their visit to Florence in 1432. In the same year she married Palla Strozzi but within two years both their families were adversely affected by Cosimo de' Medici's political ascendancy and her father, father-in-law and then her husband were all exiled. Her father died in Padua in 1441 and in 1451 her husband was killed in Gubbio by his unruly ward. Alessandra coped with her misfortunes with fortitude and resourcefulness and was presented by Vespasiano as a model to all Florentine women. She was to be especially recommended as an example to the mothers of daughters; they should forbid the reading of the Cento Novelle, the stories of Boccaccio or the sonnets of Petrarch, which in spite of their literary polish Vespasiano considered unsuitable for the pure minds of young women who should think only of God and their husbands.
The work concludes with a survey of earlier biographies, from Plutarch - newly available in Latin thanks to Leonardo Bruni - to Donato Acciaiuoli, which incorporates an account of the revival of Latin and Greek and the achievements of Italian humanism. It ends with Vespasiano defending himself against accusations of having maligned women, claiming that he has never spoken ill of virtuous women who bring up their children in fear of God and keep quiet in church. To show that good women please him he offers his Lives of those women of Florence who could be thought the equal of those of antiquity.
SCRIBE AND ILLUMINATOR:
This manuscript was written by the scribe who, in 1461, signed himself 'Sinnibaldus C' in Chrysostom's Contra vituperatores vitae monasticae (Laur. Fies. 43). He was one of the humanist scribes most closely associated with Vespasiano; in the 1470s Sinnibaldus copied at least 17 manuscripts for the library of Federigo da Montefeltro and around 1480-1 he made fair and presentation copies of several of Vespasiano's early works, including this one. He was also responsible for writing 25ff. and some of the corrections in the first part of the other copy of Alessandra's life.
The illumination is by an anonymous collaborator of the leading Florentine illuminator of this date, Francesco d'Antonio del Chierico.
BINDING:
The binding is characteristically Florentine and very similar to some of those that Vespasiano had made for Federigo da Montefeltro before 1482, see for example Tammaro de Marinis, La Legatura artistica in Italia nei secoli XV e XVI, i, nos 965 & 968. The pattern left by the catches on no. 952 shows that they were originally the same as the delicate engraved shells on the present manuscript.
A. de la Mare "New Research on Humanistic Scribes in Florence", in Miniatura fiorentina del Rinascimento ed. Annarosa Garzelli (Florence, 1985) pp.432 & 537