Corio - Historia di Milano - 1554

MILAN IS TOLD AS ETERNAL: CHRONICLE AND POWER IN THE HEART OF THE Lombard RENAISSANCE
L’Historia di Milano by Bernardino Corio, printed in Venice in 1554 by Giovan Maria Bonelli, represents one of the foundational texts of Milanese historical identity in the Renaissance era. Written in the vernacular, the work blends humanistic erudition, civic memory, and the political construction of the past, offering a continuous narrative from the city’s mythical origins to the imperial age. In an era marked by tensions between imperial power and local autonomies, Corio constructs a Milan that is ancient, noble, and central in the Italian and European scene. The edition is adorned with a typographic mark on the title page and, at the end, in an elegant seventeenth-century parchment binding with a gilded spine plaque.
MARKET VALUE
Copies of the Venetian edition of 1554, complete and in good condition, with antique binding, generally fetch between 3,000 and 6,000 euros, with variations tied to the state of preservation, the presence of ancient manuscript provenance, and the freshness of the paper. Especially wide margins or contemporaneous bindings of quality can exceed this range.

PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION AND CONDITION
Frontispiece with an engraved typographic mark; mark repeated at the end of the volume. Text in roman type, arranged in two columns. Volume in seventeenth-century full parchment binding, smooth spine with title in gold on a plaque; sober boards, solid structure. Slight signs of use and handling consistent with the volume’s age; occasional marginal foxing. Leaves (1); 34; 557; (1)
Overall good conservation. In old books with a centuries-long history, some imperfections may be present, not always noted in the description.

FULL TITLE AND AUTHOR
L’Historia di Milano volgarmente scritta dall’eccellentissimo oratore M. Bernardino Corio gentil’huomo milanese. Nella quale non solamente si veggono l’origine, i fatti, & le fortune di essa Città nello spazio di duo mille e cento anni; ma gli accidenti, & le revolutioni di quasi tutta l’Italia, & di molte Provincie, & Regni del Mondo ancora. Con le vite insieme di tutti gli Imperatori, incominciando da Giulio Cesare fino a Federico Barbarossa.
In Vinegia, per Giovan Maria Bonelli, 1554.
Bernardino Corio

CONTEXT AND SIGNIFICANCE
L’Historia di Milano is considered one of the most important historiographical works of Milan during the Renaissance. Written in the vernacular, it sits within the tradition of great Italian city histories, alongside the Florentine and Venetian chronicles, yet with an approach that aspires to a nearly universal dimension. Corio does not limit himself to local narration: the history of Milan becomes a mirror of the transformations of Italy and Europe, intertwining imperial affairs, conflicts among communes, dynastic struggles, and major political changes.
The second edition of 1554 solidifies the work’s fortune, spreading it at a moment when municipal historical memory takes on identity and political value. The choice of the vernacular broadens the audience and contributes to the construction of a shared civic consciousness. The Venetian typographic mark also testifies to the work’s insertion into the great publishing circuit of la Serenissima, the nerve center of European printing in the sixteenth century.

BIOGRAPHY OF THE AUTHOR
Bernardino Corio (1459–1519), a Milanese humanist and historian, served the Sforzas and was deeply tied to the ducal court. Trained in the Lombard humanist milieu, he composed his Historia as both celebration and critical reflection on the city’s vicissitudes. His work, the product of archival research and earlier chronicle tradition, contributed decisively to defining Milan’s historical image in the modern era.

PRINTING HISTORY AND CIRCULATION
The first edition of the Historia appeared in 1503. The Venetian reprint of 1554, described as “newly printed, and many places revised,” attests to the lasting popularity of the text and its editorial updating. Venice, the printing capital of the time, guaranteed broad diffusion within the Italian and European context. The sixteenth-century editions of Corio are today sought after for both their historiographical value and their importance in the panorama of Italian municipal histories.

BIBLIOGRAPHY AND REFERENCES
EDIT16 – Istituto Centrale per il Catalogo Unico, CORIO Bernardino, L’Historia di Milano, Venezia, Giovan Maria Bonelli, 1554 (censuses and exemplar localizations).
ICCU – OPAC SBN, record of the 1554 Venetian edition with information on the conserving libraries.
Graesse, Trésor de livres rares et précieux, II, Dresden 1863, p. 274 (sub Corio).
Brunet, Manuel du libraire et de l’amateur de livres, II, Paris 1860, col. 273–274 (sub Corio).
Gamba, Serie dei testi di lingua e di altre opere importanti nella italiana letteratura, Venezia 1839, p. 203–204.
Tiraboschi, Storia della letteratura italiana, VII, Modena 1789, pp. 121–123 (on Corio’s historical-literary profile).