Serafino Razzi - Giardino d'Essempi - 1599

RAZZI (Serafino) – Garden of Examples, or Flowers of the Vines of the Saints. By the Very Rev. Father Serafino Razzi, Dominican Theologian. Reprinted with the addition of One Hundred and Fifty Examples, written by the same Author. And in this latest Edition, enlarged by another One Hundred Examples... with summaries to each of them.

Venice, Daniel Zanetti, 1599. 4to bound in period full parchment, wood engravings and colophon printer's mark. 323 pages + table.

In-4° (approx. 20 x 14 cm). Italian imprint in roman and italic type, fine historiated initials, typographic bands and colophon featuring the printer's wood-engraved mark by Daniel Zanetti (on the title and on the colophon leaf).

Full period parchment rigid with visible raised nerves, spine adorned with gold fleurons by iron and double rule borders on the boards. Period parchment well preserved with a natural patina and rare time stains; interior on laid paper with faint marginal damp-stains and scattered foxing, title leaf torn at the margin without affecting the text or the printer's mark.

A Dominican friar and prolific mind of the 16th century in Italy, Frate Serafino Razzi gathers in this Giardino d'Essempi (Garden of Examples) a vast corpus of moral tales, hagiographic anecdotes and narratives of spiritual edification intended for preachers and the faithful of the Counter-Reformation.

The work enjoyed considerable success and was regularly enriched by its author through the Venetian reissues. Produced by the presses of Daniel Zanetti in 1599, this post-Tridentine edition offers a striking testimony of hagiographic and moral literature of the late Italian Renaissance.

The Venetian typography of Daniel Zanetti in the 16th century integrated a remarkable printer's mark depicting an Allegory of Faith surrounded by a richly carved grisaille frame and mascarons (wood-engraved) on the title page and the colophon leaf.