A. Mascardi - Dell’Arte Historica - 1655

Dell’Arte Historica of Monsignor Agostino Mascardi. Treatises Five.
Venice, Per il Baba, 1655

Format in 12° (cm 8 × 14.5).
Complete: [10], 744, [40] pp.

With the beautiful engraved frontispiece (calcographic title page) depicting Saint George on horseback piercing the dragon, with the profile of Venice, the lighthouse and the harbor in the background; typographic device on the title page; numerous ornate woodcut initials, head- and tail-pieces.

Contemporary binding in full parchment with raised bands on the spine, a bit loosened on the first pages (wear and small cracks typical of the period, but solid and original).

Famous treatise in five parts, the major work of the orator, historian and literary figure Agostino Mascardi (Sarzana 1590 – 1640), professor of eloquence at the Sapienza in Rome.
The work, first published in Rome in 1636, is one of the most important Baroque theoretical texts on historiography: it defines the nature and origin of history, distinguishes between truth and probability, examines its relations with politics, civil philosophy, poetry and oratory, and devotes ample space to the style and structure of historical narrative. Mascardi conceives history as opus oratorium maxime, a tool of ethical and religious persuasion.

A fundamental text of seventeenth-century historiographical treatises, praised by contemporaries (including Gabriel Naudé) for the elegance of its language and its critical judgment. The Venetian edition of 1655 by Francesco Baba is one of the rare seventeenth-century reissues after the original Rome edition; complete copies in period binding, with the intact calcographic frontispiece, are sought after and not common on the antiquarian market.

A complete copy, first pages loosened but well preserved in its original characteristics."