Giovanni Savorgnano - Raccolta di diverse compositioni sopra le vittorie acquistate in Fiandra - 1586

RARISSIMO!!!!!

Collection of various compositions above the victories won in Flanders by the most serene Alessandro Farnese, Duke of Parma, and Piacenza, etc.

[4] , 168, [4]. 4*

Book in very good condition, floppy parchment cover, interior pages fresh without worming or tears, light stain of humidity on some central pages very marginal.

The book is a Parmense cinquecentina from 1586, a collection of Italian and Latin poems in honor of Alessandro Farnese’s victories in Flanders. The curator is Giovanni Savorgnan, also called Savorgnano; Alessandro Farnese is the celebrated figure, while the compositions are by various authors. Giovanni Savorgnan is a late 16th-century scholar about whom little is known. According to the cited study, in the collection he states that he served under Cardinal Alessandro Farnese, uncle of the celebrated duke. His belonging to the famous Friulian Savorgnan family is suggested as a possibility, without definitive confirmation; it is therefore not prudent to attribute precise biographical dates to him.

Among the authors documented in the collection are:

* Giuliano Goselini, present with eight sonnets.
* Girolamo Magagnati,
* Aurelio Orsi, with the Latin poem De bello Belgico,
* Giovanni Bartolomeo Marinoni, with a carme on the conquest of Maastricht

The collection was published the year after the conquest of Antwerp in 1585, one of Farnese’s greatest military successes. It brings together laudatory texts: poems intended to exalt the condottiere, the Farnese family, and the political and religious significance of his victories. It is therefore a testimony of court culture and Renaissance dynastic propaganda.

The Latin part also includes texts on the capture of Maastricht in 1579. The comparison of Farnese with the heroes of antiquity is recurring: on your page 57 the epithet “New Alexander” appears, which recalls Alexander the Great.

Alessandro Farnese (1545–1592), son of Ottavio Farnese and Margaret of Austria, was an important commander in the service of Philip II of Spain. He participated in the Battle of Lepanto in 1571 and assumed governance of the Netherlands in 1578. His military and diplomatic campaigns recovered to the Spanish crown large parts of the southern Netherlands.