Andrea Alciato / Virgil Solis - Emblemata (Emblems Book) - 1618

RARE EDITION WITH 211 EMBLEMS by ANDREA ALCIATO or ALCIATI (1492-1550) and engravings by Ferroverde Filippo (active 1600-1647) after illustrations by Virgil Solis (1514-1562). A FINE COPY of 'the most extensive commentated of Alciati's edition' (Landwehr), and one of the most influential examples of the genre "Emblem Literature". These elegant emblems with moral meanings, richly illustrated, were created especially for scholars and students of Greek and Latin classics. This collection of emblems and short text in Latin and Greek created an entire European genre, and a great sociological and historical document of European culture. The images and emblems are commented and expanded by Claude Mignault (1536-1606), a French scholar who taught canon law, Greek and Latin literature in Reims and Paris. The binding is antique, sturdy, and in good condition, with titles on the spine. References; World Cat OCLC n°797922380; USTC n°4029121; British Museum Catalogue of Printed Books, Italian 17th Century, p. 13; Landwehr Romanic, 99; Duplessis, 108; Praz, 251; Catálogo Colectivo Patrimonio Bibliográfico Español n°CCPB000053525-7; OPAC SBN n°RMRE001125; Alciati, Andrea (2004). A Book of Emblems: The Emblematum Liber in Latin and English, Moffitt, F. John; Henry Green, Andrea Alciati and his emblems: a biographical and bibliographical study (London: Trübner, 1872); Alison Saunders, 'Sixteenth-Century French Translations of Alciati's Emblemata', French Studies 44 (1990), 271-288; D.S. Russell, Alciato, Andrea, in C. Nativel, Centuriae latinae. Cent une figures humanistes de la Renaissance aux Lumières offertes à Jacques Chomarat, Genève 1997.

One of the best editions of Alciati's Emblems with illustrations by the great German artist Virgil Solis (Brunet Vol. I, Col 148) and engraved by Ferroverde Filippo. These illustrators transformed the aesthetics of the Renaissance book and inaugurated the Baroque era of layout, organizing innovative typographical and decorative materials, promoting illustration with copperplate engravings, combining visual appeal, readability and effectiveness. Each emblem is made up of a symbolic image and a very short text that matches the illustration. The inventor of the emblem genre was Andrea Alciati, a jurist and university professor. He owes his fame to the book "Emblematun Liber", written as a pleasant diversion from his professional commitments. First published in Augsburg in 1531, Alciati drew on proverbs, myths, and hieroglyphics from ancient historians, building a veritable figurative repertoire of images of ancient deities, symbols, and antiquarian vestiges, from which painters, engravers, and goldsmiths could draw. At the beginning of the book there is a short biography of Alciati written by Claude Mignault.

TITLE: Emblemata cum imaginibus plerisque restitutis ad mentem auctoris. Adiecta compendiosa explicatione Claudii Minois Divionensis, et notulis extemporariis Laurentii Pignorii Patavini. (Emblems with images mostly restored to the author's intention. With the added concise explanation of Claude Mignault of Dijon, and extemporary notes by Lorenzo Pignoria of Padova).
AUTHORS: Andrea Alciato - Alciati or Andreas Alciatus (1492-1550), with comments by Claude Mignault or Claudium Minoem (1536-1606), engraver Ferroverde Filippo (active 1600-1647) after illustrations by Virgil Solis (1514-1562)
PUBLISHER: Pet. Paulum Tozzium or Pietro Paolo Tozzi and editing/notes by Lorenzo Pignoria (1571-1631)
DATE: MDCXIIX (1618), text in Latin and Greek

DESCRIPTION: In 8vo size, height 153 x width 107 mm (6.1 by 4.3 inches). Pages [48], 283 (i.e. 383), [1]. The book contains 211 emblems, text and illustrations are clean, intact and well engraved, rare small stains or defects. Original ancient parchment of the time with laces, solid and in perfect working order, with slight signs of external wear. Titles of the work and author on the spine. Title-frontispiece framed with decorations and grotesque figures. Work of woodworm on the lower external margin of the text for 15 sheets. Repeated in the numbering on pages 275-283. All in very good overall condition. COMPLETE EDITION.

AUTHOR: Andrea Alciato also known as Alciati or Andreas Alciatus (1492-1550), was an Italian jurist and writer. He is regarded as the founder of the French school of legal humanists. Alciati is most famous for his Emblemata, published in dozens of editions from 1531 onward. This collection of short Latin verse texts and accompanying woodcuts created an entire European genre, the emblem book, which attained enormous popularity in continental Europe and Great Britain.

ILLUSTRATOR: Virgil Solis or Virgilius Solis (1514-1562), a member of a prolific family of artists, was a German draughtsman and printmaker in engraving, etching and woodcut who worked in his native city of Nuremberg. His prints were sold separately (mainly the etchings and engravings) or formed the illustrations of books (normally the woodcuts); many prints signed by him are probably by assistants. After his death his widow married his assistant and continued the workshop into the early seventeenth century.

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