Description
Vasari Giorgio (1511-1574). Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects by Giorgio Vasari, painter and architect, from Arezzo. To the most illustrious Lord Cristino Martinelli. In Bologna, For the Manolessi, Court Printers. 1681.
Contemporary full leather binding, with gilded titles and decorations impressed on the spine. An ex-libris of ancient ownership is affixed to the front pastedown; the edges are sprinkled with red.
The title pages are printed in red and black ink, and the text is enriched by elegant historiated initials and decorative woodcut friezes that mark the layout.
The illustrative apparatus includes numerous portraits of the artists presented in the work, each enclosed within decorative woodcut frames; some of these are missing the central image, a circumstance already found at the origin of the printing.
This Bolognese edition reuses the same woodcut matrices for the portraits previously employed in the famous illustrated edition of the Lives from 1568, integrating them, however, with further matrices created subsequently, which enrich and expand the overall iconographic apparatus of the work.
Dimensions
8vo (221x156mm). 3 Volumes. Pages: [16], 76, 432; [2], 543, [1]; [44], 407, [129]
Provenance
Private Collection
Condition
Slight foxing and scattered browning. A small stain touches the engraving on the upper margin of the first few signatures of the first volume. Spines and hinges a bit worn and with small repairs. But overall a genuine copy.
