Tesauro - Patriarchae - 1645

PATRIARCHS, SHIELDS AND ROYAL BLOOD: THE GENEALOGY OF CHRIST AS ARCHITECTURE OF POWER
A work conceived as a true symbolic architecture of sacred history and power, the Patriarchae sive Christi Salvatoris Genealogia translates into images and texts the entire lineage of Christ, from biblical patriarchs to the kings and princes of the world. In a refined balance between theology, heraldry, emblematic, and Baroque political culture, the volume offers a genealogical reading of the universal order, where the line of divine blood becomes the legitimate foundation of temporal authority. The high-quality incised apparatus makes the work one of the most fascinating examples of Italian seventeenth-century symbolic books.
MARKET VALUE
On the international market complete copies generally range between 700 and 1,000 euros, with higher prices for well-preserved contemporaneous bindings and fresh engravings; copies with an intact engraved title page and no invasive restorations to the plates are among the most sought after by collectors of emblem books, sacred history, and Baroque political iconography.

PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION AND CONDITION
Contemporary full parchment binding, spine with raised bands and gilt title on a label. Dry stamps on both covers: at the center of the front and rear board is pressed a devotional Christological monogram within an ornamental cartouche, accompanied by coordinated corner fleurons, produced with the same tools. Typographic title page and engraved title page, numerous full-page engravings within elaborate architectural and allegorical frames, figurative drop caps. The copy shows some browning, foxing. As with all ancient books, with a multi-century history, small imperfections may be present that are not always noted in the description. Pp. 14nn; 224; (2).

FULL TITLE AND AUTHOR
Patriarchae sive Christi Salvatoris Genealogia.
Mediolani, apud Bidellium, 1645.
Emanuele Tesauro.

CONTEXT AND SIGNIFICANCE
This work sits squarely at the heart of European Baroque culture, where genealogy is not merely erudite exercise but a political, theological, and symbolic instrument. Tesauro builds a genuine “machine of meaning,” in which Christ’s descent becomes the interpretive key to universal history. The allegorical figures, the coats of arms, the engraved architectures and Latin mottos all contribute to transforming the book into an atlas of legitimate power: the genealogical Christ is at once the foundation of salvation and the paradigm of sovereign authority. The work dialogues directly with the tradition of the moral and political emblem and sits alongside the great symbolic repertoires of Italian Seicento.

BIOGRAPHY OF THE AUTHOR
Emanuele Tesauro (1592–1675), a Jesuit, writer and theorist of the Baroque, is one of the central figures of the symbolic culture of the Seicento. Renowned especially for the Cannocchiale Aristotelico, he was a master of the art of wit, allegory, and metaphor, applied not only to literature but also to theology, politics, and history. The Genealogia di Cristo represents one of the highest outcomes of his vision of the world as a system of signs and correspondences.

PRINTING HISTORY AND CIRCULATION
Printed in Milan in the first half of the seventeenth century, the work experienced a selective circulation, addressed to an educated audience of clerics, nobles, and scholars of heraldry and sacred history. The complexity of the engraved apparatus and the specialist character of the contents limited its diffusion, contributing today to the relative rarity of complete copies on the market.

BIBLIOGRAPHY AND REFERENCES
Brunet, Manuel du libraire.
Praz, Studies in Seventeenth-Century Imagery.
De Backer – Sommervogel, Bibliothèque de la Compagnie de Jésus.
ICCU – censimenti e descrizioni bibliografiche.