Cromwell Compared to Borgia and Richelieu
GALARDI, Ferdinand de. La tyrannie heureuse ou Cromwel politique.Aves ses artifices & intrigues dans rout le cours de sa conduite. "Leiden: Jan Pauwels" [i.e. Brussels: Foppens]. 1671.
12mo. Contemporary stiff vellum, spine lettered in ink, pp. [xxviii], 108, with additional copper-engraved title designed and engraved by Thaysses; vellum a little darkened, light toning, occasional light spotting; a very good copy.
Uncommon first edition, complete with the additional engraved title depicting Cromwell on horseback, this issue without errata and with Pauwels spelled ‘Pauvvels’ on the title-page.
Ferdinand (or Fernando) de Galardi was a Spanish diplomat at the French and English courts, author of several works on politics, diplomacy, and the role of the ambassador. In La tyrannie heureuse (The Fortunate Tyranny), he exposes Cromwell’s anti-Catholic policies and autocratic rule. The opening chapter compares Cromwell to Cesare Borgia and Cardinal Richelieu before offering a detailed, blow-by-blow account of his meteoric rise to power through the Civil War and the abolition of the monarchy. Subsequent chapters describe the devastations in Scotland and Ireland, as well as the persecution of Catholics.
The work is dedicated to Spanish nobleman Antonio Fernández de Córdoba y Mendoza, Governor and Captain-General of Panama and President of the Real Audiencia of Panama from 1671 to 1673, perhaps best known for spearheading Panama’s relocation after the 1671 destruction of Panama Viejo following a raid by Welsh privateer Henry Morgan.
The engraved frontispiece by S. Thayasses, about whom little is known, shows Cromwell as commander on horseback, his depiction bearing a striking resemblance to the Monument to Philip IV of Spain by Pietro Tacca (Madrid, begun 1634). Cromwell is here surrounded by roundels bearing quotes in Latin on tyranny from the likes of Seneca (’Power is well purchased at any price’), Euripides (‘Be just, unless a kingdom tempts to break the laws’, elsewhere attributed to Suetonius), Justinian (’With him there was no dishonourable method of winning’), and Grotius (’no less subtilly politike, than truly valiant, and one that would not think any thing dishonest that was profitable’, trans. Manley (1665)).
STCN 063561476; USTC 1807967; Hazlitt, p. 164; Willems, Annexes 2065.
SKU: 2122596