BEMBO, Pietro. Della historia vinitiana … volgarmente scrita. Libri XII.

Polemical Posthumous Publication

BEMBO, Pietro. Della historia vinitiana … volgarmente scrita. Libri XII. Venice : [ Gualtero Scotto .] 1552.

8vo. Eighteenth-century half vellum with floral patterned paper sides, edges speckled red, gilt grey morocco lettering-piece to spine; ff. [14], 179, [1]; lettering-piece chipped, some fraying to patterned paper at extremities; uniform light toning, sporadic light dampstaining; a very good copy; 1808 ink inscription to front free endpaper ‘Di P. Giovanni Romani di Casalmag[giore] per acquisto fattone del di lui cugino Alessandro Bellaura.

First edition in Italian of Bembo’s history of the Venetian Republic from 1487 to 1513, written whilst Bembo was official state historiographer, posthumously published in the vernacular at the behest of the dedicatee, Elisabetta Querini, Bembo’s close friend and muse.

Venetian humanist Pietro Bembo (1470–1547) was appointed historiographer of the Republic of Venice in 1529, and this history – first published posthumously in 1551 by the sons of Aldus Manutius for Gualtiero Scoto as Historiae Venetae libri XII – draws upon special material Bembo consulted from the chancellery as well as records from the Council of Ten. The sixth book includes a narrative of Columbus’s travels until 1502, as well as a section on Magellan’s travels; the seventh book includes a reference to the first recorded Indigenous people brought from North America to France, in 1508: he describes a group of seven broad-faced people wearing clothes made of fish skin who ate raw meat and drank blood ‘as we drink wine’ (p. 100, trans .). Six of the seven captives, generally thought to have been Miꞌkmaq or St Lawrence Iroquoians, did not survive, according to Bembo’s account.

This edition is dedicated to noblewoman Elisabetta Querini (d. 1559), wife of the Venetian patrician Lorenzo Massolo. Bembo famously commissioned a portrait of Querini from Titian, as did Giovanni della Casa; one of these portraits, now lost, was the inspiration for a sonnet by Pietro Aretino, in which he praises ‘the beautiful, golden, sacred face | Of the sacred, golden, and beautiful Massola’ ( trans .) as well as Titian’s ability to convey her grace and intelligence through his portrait. It was at Querini’s suggestion that Bembo had his Historiae translated into Italian, and Bembo ‘wrote on several occasions that it was she who had alerted him to the wider audience his work would reach and warned him against sloppy translators. These were things of which he was undoubtedly aware, but he graciously and rather remarkably deferred to Elisabetta in his correspondence’ (Sherman, p. 41). After Bembo’s death, Querini and her great-uncle, the aristocrat Girolamo Querini – Bembo’s close friend and executor – fought against Carlo Gualteruzzi, Bembo’s testamentary executor, to have this vernacular translation published.

Provenance : with the 1808 ownership inscription of Giovanni Romani, priest and author of a notable history of the Lombard town of Casalmaggiore. This copy was bought for Romani by his cousin Bellaura, born in Mantua but largely based in Vienna; this was the first time they had seen each other since 1799 (see Romani, Memorie private e personali II (2001)).

Adams B-599; Brunet I, col. 767; EDIT16 CNCE 5039; Gamba 130; USTC 813419. See Sherman, ‘Murder and Martyrdom: Titian’s Gesuiti Saint Lawrence as a Family Peace Offering’, in Artibus et Historiae 68:34 ( 2013 ), pp. 39–54 .

SKU: 2125229