Marian Biography
CATTANI DA DIACCETO, Francesco.
La vita dell’immaculata et gloriosissima sempre vergine Santa Maria madre di Dio et signor nostro Giesu Christo … Al serenissimo signore il S. Cosimo de Medici Gran Duca di Toscana … Florence, Bartolomeo Sermartelli, 1570.
4to, pp. [8], 260, [4]; woodcut device to title, woodcut initials; foot of title-page stained and worn where paper covering inscription partially removed, marginal worming particularly to lower margins often extensive but never affecting text, some dampstaining and foxing; in nineteenth-century green roan-backed boards with marbled sides, spine decorated in gilt with red morocco lettering-piece, decorative patterned endpapers; some wormholes to joints and wear to extremities; seventeenth-century inscription at foot of title-page (partly obscured) ‘Addi 21 dicembre 1639 in firenze questo libro …’, ink stamp ‘Bibliothèque Capucins Toulouse’ to p. [3], occasional early marginalia and underlining.
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La vita dell’immaculata et gloriosissima sempre vergine Santa Maria madre di Dio et signor nostro Giesu Christo … Al serenissimo signore il S. Cosimo de Medici Gran Duca di Toscana …
First edition of a life of the Virgin Mary by Francesco Cattani da Diacceto (1531–1595), bishop of Fiesole and grandson of the noted Florentine Neoplatonist philosopher of the same name, dedicated to Cosimo I de’ Medici, the first Grand Duke of Tuscany.
Cattani arranges his biography in nineteen chapters from the Virgin’s birth to the Assumption via her marriage to Joseph, the birth of Christ, the flight into Egypt, the wedding at Cana, and the Resurrection, emphasising Mary’s greatness, compassion, and patience. Cattani also wrote lives of Christ, St Dominic, and St Catherine de’ Ricci.
Where Cattani discusses the senses at pp. 233–4 our annotator has drawn marginal pictures of an eye, ear, nose, mouth, and hand; he has also attempted to render flames on p. 235.
EDIT16 CNCE 10332; USTC 819782. OCLC records two copies in the UK (BL, John Rylands) and three in North America (California State, Smith College, University of Toronto).