Caesar, I commentarii, illustrated by Palladio, Venice, 1575, contemporary limp vellum

CAESAR, GAIUS JULIUS

I commentarii con le figure in rame de gli alloggiamenti, de' fatti d'arme, delle circonvallationi delle città, & di molte altre cose notabili descritte in essi. Fatte da Andrea Palladio. Venice: Pietro de' Franceschi, 1575

4to (218 x 160mm.), woodcut initials and headpieces, 42 engravings (maps and plans) with letterpress captions on versos (bound as double-page plates), with blank leaf *4, contemporary limp vellum, foot of title-page excised (just touching date), a few captions shaved, lacking 2 pairs of ties

Palladio explains in his introduction that while fortifications are all very well, a determined army will always overcome them and it is better to train an army properly along the lines of the Roman army (as Machiavelli had also stated), just as in architecture the Romans had not been surpassed by later generations. (For a fuller discussion, see J.R. Hale, "Andrea Palladio, Polybius and Julius Caesar", Renaissance War Studies (1983), pp.471-486)

The plates depict most of Caesar's campaigns, including the famous siege of Alesia, and the translation used was the one by Francesco Baldelli. For a later edition, see lot 94.

LITERATURE:

Edit16 8188; Mortimer, Harvard Italian 97

PROVENANCE:

extract from English sale catalogue pasted to front flyleaf; Thomas Francis Fremantle, armorial bookplate, purchased from Pickering & Chatto, 2 August 1901, 12s