DATI, Carlo. Esequie della maestà christianiss. di Luigi XIII il giusto rè di Francia, e di Navarra. Celebrate in Firenze dall’altezza serenis. di Ferdinando II Gran Duca di Toscana.

The King of France Mourned by the Grand Duke of Tuscany

DATI, Carlo. Esequie della maestà christianiss. di Luigi XIII il giusto rè di Francia, e di Navarra. Celebrate in Firenze dall’altezza serenis. di Ferdinando II Gran Duca di Toscana. Florence: Nella Stamperia di S [ ua ] A [ ltezza ] S[erenissima]. 1644.

4to. Recased in Roman mid-eighteenth-century brown morocco, covers richly tooled in gilt, with outer roll-tooled border and shield cornerpieces painted and gilt to a diaper pattern, central gilt and painted armorial arms of Cardinal Alessandro Albani over silver Maltese cross, borders roll-tooled in gilt, flat spine gilt in compartments, gilt black morocco lettering-piece to spine, pink pastedowns; pp. [2], 58; bound without first and final blanks; copper-engraved and letterpress titles, 3 folding copper-engraved plates by Francesco Cecchi Conti after Paolo Parigi; woodcut Medici arms to title, woodcut initial, typographic ornaments; boards slightly rubbed, spine a little worn, spine ends and corners expertly repaired; light foxing (heavier to engraved title and first few leaves); overall a very good, crisp copy; contemporary manuscript corrections in ink to pp. 20, 21, 36, 37, and 52, contemporary foliation in ink.

First edition of this illustrated account of the funeral rites performed in Florence for Louis XIII by Florentine scholar Carlo Dati (1619–1676), a disciple of Galileo, this copy wide-margined and in a splendid Roman rococo remboîtage binding with the arms of Cardinal Alessandro Albani (1692–1779).

Louis XIII, son of Marie de’ Medici and Henry IV, died of tuberculosis in Paris on 14 May 1643. Ferdinando II de’ Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany (r. 1621–1670), was the French king’s first cousin through his father, Cosimo II de’ Medici, Marie’s brother. In September 1643 he organised elaborate funerary celebrations for his cousin at the church of San Lorenzo in Florence. The church was lavishly decorated with ephemeral ornaments and structures designed by the architect and stage designer Paolo Parigi; the three plates depict the purpose-built catafalque, the great altar, and the chapel.

The philologist, scientist, and nobleman Carlo Dati was a disciple both of Galileo (1564–1642) and Evangelista Torricelli (1608–1647). His academic interests, however, leaned more towards humanities than sciences. He was a member of both the Accademia del Cimento and the Accademia della Crusca, contributing to the third edition of the Vocabolario della Crusca and to an unpublished Dizionario etimologico della lingua Toscana . He was also a poet, author of the collection La Pace (1660), written for the marriage of Louis XIV, Louis XIII’s son, to Maria Theresa of Spain.

Cardinal Alessandro Albani, a noted art collector and patron, inherited from his uncle Pope Clement XI (r. 1700–1721) his vast library, which he greatly expanded. The dispersal of the Albani library began following the French invasion of Rome in 1797, after which it was sold in several stages. A similar rococo binding, most likely by the same Roman workshop, is found on the dedication copy to Pope Clement XIV of the 1770 first edition of Claudio Todeschi’s Saggi di agricoltura, manifattura, e commercio (Christie’s New York, 19 December 2002, lot 130).

OCLC finds seven copies in the US ( Cleveland Museum of Art, Frick, Getty, Harvard, Metropolitan, National Gallery of Art, Yale ) and three in the UK ( BL, Courtauld, V&A ).

Cicognara 1450 (‘Prezioso libretto); Gamba 2750 (‘Di questo raro libro s’hanno esemplari in carta grande ’); Moreni I, 315 (‘raro libro’ ).

SKU: 2123409