VILLANI, Filippo, edited by Giammaria MAZZUCHELLI. ~ Le vite d’uomini illustri fiorentini, scritte da Filippo Villani, ora per la prima volta date alla luce colle annotazioni del conte Giammaria Mazzuchelli Accademico della Crusca. Venice: Giambatista Pasquali, 1747.
Small 4to (230 × 160 mm), pp. 36, CII. Woodcut vignette to title, talipieces and initials. Contemporary polished calf, gilt, sides with large gilt arms, panelled spine, red morocco label. Small old library stamp to inner margin of title: “Bibl. Einsiedel. Reibersd.” Old and faded red inkstain to upper cover. A handsome copy.
First edition of these edited extracts from the Florentine chronicler Villani, with lives of Boccaccio, Bardi, Giotto, Paulus Geometrus (the mathematician and tutor to Boccaccio) and Cavalcanti, among others. There are several accounts of Italian medical practitioners, including Taddeo, Torrigiano and Dino and Tommaso del Garbo. The Villani family were the leading contemporary chroniclers of fourteenth-century Florence and Filippo was responsible for extending the chronicles of his father and uncle, adding famous portraits of his contemporaries. Towards the end of his life he was appointed public reader of the Divine Comedy and he died in 1404. His chronicle remained in manuscript before being published by the Brescian historian Mazzuchelli in 1747 in this version which was several times reprinted.