Cesare Baronio - Annales ecclesiastici. Tomus sextus - 1596

BARONIO, Cesare. Annales ecclesiastici. Tomus sextus [solo].

Antwerp: Plantiniana press, 1596.

The first Plantin edition, the sole sixth volume, of Cardinal Cesare Baronio's foundational work (1538–1607), father of Catholic historiography. A beautiful genuine copy illustrated with the engraved portrait of Cardinal Baronio and a magnificent architectural title page engraved. The Annales Ecclesiastici, published in twelve volumes from 1588, cover the first twelve centuries of the history of the Catholic Church, in evident polemic with Historia Ecclesiae Christi, composed by a group of Lutheran Magdeburg scholars starting in 1559. It is thus the official response of the Church of Rome to Protestant historiography, in full Counter-Reformation spirit.

In-folio (330×225 mm). Pp. [16], 704, [68 of index and colophon]. Beautiful architectural allegorical title page engraved in copper with the title at the center. Fine engraved portrait of Baronio halfway down within a cartouche, on leaf a8r, some coins in woodcut on leaves 218, 256, 307, 687. Unbound, title page partially detached at the inner margin, small hole at the inner white margin of the second leaf, small restoration to the title page, but the copy clean and excellently preserved, without internal defects.