A Presentation Copy From Estaço to Madruzzo
PLINY the Younger.
In hoc volumine continentur. C. Plinii Caecilii Secundi epistolarum libri novem. Eiusdem Plinii libellus epistolarum ad Traianum cum rescriptis eiusdem principis. Eiusdem panagyricus Caesari dictus cum enarrationibus Joannis Mariae Catanaei. [(Colophon:) Venice, Giovanni and Bernardino Rosso, 14 December 1510.]
Folio, ff. 230; woodcut initials, roman letter, text in Latin with substantial sections in Greek; light browning to title-page, quires a and c somewhat stained, small ink stains to a9v and c2r, slight dampstaining at foot, h4–5, l1.8 and s3.6 browned, quires m and v and r6–7 spotted, a few small marginal wormholes (just touching text on [con]6); bound in later limp vellum, title lettered twice in ink on spine, stubs from two pairs of ties; pastedowns a little torn; sixteenth-century annotations to c. 7 pp., inscription by Giovanni Federico Madruzzo on title-page dated Borgo (Rome), 29 November 1578; blue duplicate stamp of the Vittorio Emanuele library, Rome.
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In hoc volumine continentur. C. Plinii Caecilii Secundi epistolarum libri novem. Eiusdem Plinii libellus epistolarum ad Traianum cum rescriptis eiusdem principis. Eiusdem panagyricus Caesari dictus cum enarrationibus Joannis Mariae Catanaei.
A presentation copy from the Portuguese scholar Aquiles Estaço to the notable bibliophile Giovanni Federico Madruzzo, of Pliny the Younger’s letters.
The classical scholar Estaço (1524–1581, also known as Achilles Statius) studied across Europe before settling in Rome in 1559 and becoming part of the humanist circle in the Vatican, which is presumably where he met Madruzzo, who calls him ‘doctiss. optim. viro. amiciss. mihi’ (a most learned and excellent man, a very good friend to me). Giovanni Federico Madruzzo (1530/31–1586), from the aristocratic Trentino family, was in the service of Charles V and the duke of Savoy. A renowned bibliophile, he commissioned numerous fine bindings. In 1578 he was in Rome as ambassador for the duke of Savoy to the papal court, in Palazzo dei Penitenzieri in the Borgo. His inscriptions always include a Y inserted between the two parts of the date, ‘15Y78’. After his death, his books in Rome were inherited by his son Carlo Gaudenzio (1562–1629), and were inventoried after the latter’s death; two copies of Pliny’s letters were recorded in the inventory, but without any detail of the edition.
This edition of Pliny the Younger’s letters and his panegyric on Trajan was edited with a commentary by Giovanni Maria Cattaneo; despite the numerous editions of Pliny that had been printed since 1471, Cattaneo was the first to produce a commentary, originally published in Milan in 1506. This Venetian edition omits some of the prefatory poems in praise of Cattaneo and corrects the errata.
USTC records two copies in the US (Columbia and Chapel Hill) and four copies in the UK (BL, Bodley, St Andrews, and St John’s Oxford).
USTC 849907; EDIT16 CNCE 29654.