Caio Plinio Secondo / Cristoforo Landino - Historia Naturale di C. Plinio Secondo - 1542

Binding in full stiff parchment, a bit stained on the back board. The spine with gold tooling, paper label with library-nventory number, a compartment applied with the author and title in gold. Sprinkled edges.

1 blank sheet, [19], 1 blank sheet, DCCCCXXXIIII, [1], 1 blank sheet

Fine italic type, various historiated initials. Before the work lies a letter from Brucioli in which he begs Giolito, called Giangabriello, to publish the translation of Pliny by Landino; a letter from Landino and a Life of Pliny. Antonio Brucioli (Florence c. 1498 – Venice 1566) was a famous eclectic figure in the literary and cultural world of the XVI century: a frequenter of the Orti Oricellari, passionate about classical languages and translator of various other works, including the famous one of the New Testament from Greek; this and other works of religious exegesis (the Psalms and the entire Bible) cost him continual persecutions, the Inquisition process in 1548 on charges of heresy and finally imprisonment.

Title page in two colors with a beautiful Giolito-type mark (woodworm holes outside the text). Initial capital finely engraved. Numerous marginal notes in an ancient hand. Central gutter running the length of the volume. Woodworm hole in the text on the first 20 leaves. Otherwise leaves fairly clean, a bit distant from the spine. Restoration to the colophon (with a second typographic mark). Overall, fair condition. Complete and usable.