Andrea Fulvio ; Guillaume Postel - Delle antichità della città di Roma (relié avec Postel, Libro de magistrati de gli Atheniesi) - 1543

FULVIO (Andrea). Work by Andrea Fulvio on the antiquities of the city of Rome, & of the memorable buildings there. Translated again from Latin into Tuscan by Paulo dal Rosso, a Florentine citizen. In Venice, [Michele Tramezzino], M.D.XLIII. With the privilege of the supreme Pontiff Paul III and of the most illustrious Venetian Senate. [At the end:] In Venice by Michele Tramezino, MDXLIII.

[RELIÉ AVEC :] POSTEL (Guillaume). Book of magistrates of the Athenians, composed by Guillaume Postel, Barenton French. Newly translated from Latin into our vernacular by M. Giovanni Tatti. In Venice, by Baldasar di Costantini, M.D.XLIII.

Two works in one small 8vo volume: 232 pp. (signatures A-Z, AA-FF, all in eight quires); text up to f. 41 (“Il fine”).

FIRST EDITION OF THE ITALIAN TRANSLATION of the “Antiquitates Urbis” (1527) by Andrea Fulvio, the Roman humanist who collaborates with Raphael on the survey of ancient Rome, by the Florentine Paolo del Rosso. The first great archaeological guide to the Eternal City, in five books: walls and gates, hills, temples, theatres, circuses, baths, aqueducts, obelisks, columns, triumphal arches, and what Renaissance Rome preserved. Published by Michele Tramezzino, the Venetian publisher of Rome’s antiquaries and cartographers.

It is bound following THE FIRST ITALIAN EDITION of Guillaume Postel’s treaty (1510-1581), the Norman Orientalist and visionary, on the magistracies of Athens, which appeared in the same year in Latin in Basel at Oporin.

Large Tramezzino woodcut on the title and repeated at the end of the volume (the Sibyl, “Sibilla,” holding a book); woodcut on the title of Postel (a knight subduing a dragon); italic type.

Provenance: old ink signatures at the bottom of the title.

Contemporary full flexible vellum binding, traces of cords.

Condition: good; vellum stained and slightly warped, light marginal damp stains, some old annotations.