DEDICATED TO ELIZABETH I AND MARY, QUEEN OF SCOTS
BIZZARRI, Pietro.
Petri Bizzari varia opuscula, quorum indicem sequens pagina demonstrabit.
Venice, [Paolo Manuzio], 1565.
Four parts in one volume, small 8vo, ff. 156, each part with its own title bearing woodcut Aldine device; faded ink splash to spread ff. 2v/3r, sporadic light staining, intermittent minor wormtrack in the gutter of ff. 8–44, nevertheless a good copy; bound in early nineteenth-century English panelled sheep, spine flat gilt in compartments, red morocco lettering-piece, edges marbled; joints and edges very slightly worn; contemporary manuscript correction to running title on f. 57v and to numbering on f. 58r, and small textual corrections to further 13 leaves (27v, 37v, 60v, 61r, 68r, 69r, 82r, 113v, 116r, 127r, 150r, 153r, 153v); contemporary purchase price and ownership inscription of Francis Yates (‘ffranciscus yates’) to title.
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Petri Bizzari varia opuscula, quorum indicem sequens pagina demonstrabit.
First edition of a collection of treatises, verses, and declamations in the classical style by the Italian Protestant scholar and spy Pietro Bizzarri, including two works dedicated respectively to Queen Elizabeth I and Mary, Queen of Scots; with contemporary English provenance and manuscript corrections.
Bizzarri (or Bizari, 1525–c. 1586; see ODNB) adopted the Protestant faith, came to England, and was admitted as a fellow of St John’s College, Cambridge through the patronage of Francis Russell, second earl of Bedford. In 1562 Queen Elizabeth I granted him a pension for life after he dedicated to her his treatise De optimo principe, which appeared in print for the first time in the present work. By 1572 Bizzarri was travelling throughout Europe, staying in Basel, Augsburg, Venice, and finally Antwerp, where he settled. In Antwerp he acted as a foreign agent for members of Queen Elizabeth’s government, occasionally sending reports back to England.
Besides De optimo principe, the work contains De bello et pace, dedicated to Mary, Queen of Scots; De philosophia et eloquentia, dedicated to Russell; Aemilii accusatio, dedicated to William Cecil, Lord Burghley; and Oratio pro L. Virginio, contra Ap. Claudium, dedicated to the courtier and diplomat William Maitland of Lethington. The last part contains poems, many of them dedicated to prominent English or Scottish figures, some of which would be reprinted in Gruter’s Delitiæ 200 Italorum Poetarum (1608).
‘In return for [De optimo principe] – essentially a collection of commonplaces on the ideal ruler, heavily influenced by Erasmian eirenic principles – [Bizzarri] received a pension from the crown and the living of Alton Pancras, Dorset, from Bishop Jewel of Salisbury, through the mediation of Archbishop Parker, whom Bizzarri had certainly known at Cambridge. Moreover, he seems to have re-established his connection with [Francis] Russell, now earl of Bedford. In February 1564 Bedford was appointed governor of Berwick and took Bizzarri north with him. Consequently, Bizzarri became associated with the court of Mary Stuart, and in the hope of acquiring the patronage of the Scottish queen as well he presented to her a Latin treatise, De bello et pace. This is a much more original tract than the one which he presented to Elizabeth. Bizzarri had himself seen and experienced the effects of civil and foreign conflict, both in England and on the continent, and this gives urgency to his discussion of the horrors that result from war. Peace, he argues, should be the highest ambition of any ruler, since peace is Christ’s message. War, by contrast, is an affront to God, causing true religion to be neglected and making resistance to the Turks impossible. […] Bizzarri also frequented the literary circles of Venice. He solicited poems in praise of Elizabeth for his first volume, Varia opuscula, printed by Aldus in 1565, which not only contained his earlier poems to English courtiers but also included the works dedicated to Elizabeth and Mary Stuart’ (ODNB).
Adams B 2090; Ahmanson-Murphy 736; Renouard, p. 198 (‘rare’).
