CATTANI DA DIACCETO, Francesco.
Homelie … sopra la sequenza del corpo di Christo.
Florence, Lorenzo Ducale, 1559.
4to, pp. [8], 263, [9]; woodcut Medici arms to title and last leaf, initials; a little light foxing and marginal damp staining, a few quires slightly browned; overall very good in 18th-century calf, spine in compartments, lettered and decorated in gilt, edges sprinkled red; some wear to extremities and marks to covers; book label pasted to title verso ‘Monasterii S. Michaelis de Muriano Venetiar. ad usum D. Ioh. Benedicti Mittarelli Abbatis Benedictino-Camaldulen.’, notes to front free endpaper.
Uncommon first edition of a collection of eleven sermons by Francesco Cattani da Diacceto (1531–1595), bishop of Fiesole, dedicated to Cosimo I de’ Medici, the first Grand Duke of Tuscany.
The sermons, running from the first Sunday in Lent to Good Friday, take Christ and the sacraments as their subjects, in particular the Eucharist and transubstantiation. The final sermon is on the cross of Christ as ‘a mirror and a book in which the perfection of Christian life can be seen and read’.
Provenance: with the attractive bookplate of Gian Benedetto Mittarelli (1707–1777), abbot of the Camaldolese monastery of San Michele di Murano, near Venice.
EDIT16 CNCE 10326; USTC 819775. OCLC shows three copies in North America (Columbia University, Thomas Fisher Library, UCLA) and only one in the UK (Bodleian).
