Brunus and Poggius, Historia Fiorentina, Venice, 1476, contemporary half calf over wooden boards

Leonardus Brunus Aretinus and Poggius Florentinus [Bracciolini]

A volume containing their histories of Florence, in Italian translation, 1476, comprising:

BRUNUS. Historiae Florentini populi [Italian, translated by Donatus Acciaiolus]. Venice: Jacobus Rubeus, 12 February 1476, 218 leaves, a–k¹⁰ kk⁶ l–p¹⁰ q¹² r–x¹⁰, 41 lines, roman type, initials with later decoration in gold and colours, first leaf of text with a gilt armorial with leafy decoration at foot, some manuscript annotations (seemingly in the hand of Rodulphus), small hole in margin of first three leaves

POGGIUS. Historia Florentina [Italian, translated by Jacopo di Poggio]. Venice: Jacobus Rubeus, 8 March 1476, 116 leaves, a¹⁰ b-c⁸ d–h¹⁰ i k⁶ l m¹⁰ n⁸, 41 lines, roman type, first initial with later decoration in gold and colours

2 works in one volume, Median folio (332 x 228mm.), contemporary red calf-backed wooden boards, two clasps (probably with later straps), early manuscript vellum endleaves from a twelfth-century Italian lectionary, in modern drop-backed brown buckram box, occasional light foxing, wormholes in binding, spine slighty torn and repaired at ends

BOTH FIRST EDITIONS. A LARGE CRISP COPY. These two works were issued in close succession by Rubeus and therefore often found bound together. The commissioning of the translations is recorded in the account books of the Florentine merchant Girolamo Strozzi, while he was resident in Venice; he paid for scribal copies of the two translations in 1475, from the scribes Niccolò Fonzio and Ser Antonio di Jacopo. At the same time he also commissioned the more substantial Italian translation of Pliny's Historia naturalis which Jenson printed in 1478.

Bruni's official history of Florence was written in 1416 and paid for through a tax exemption for Bruni and his heirs; it served to provide the state of Florence with a solid historical foundation and basis for its independence. It was translated by the humanist scholar Donato Acciaiuoli (1429-1478), a member of the Medicean ruling elite in the 1460s and 1470s who was granted a state funeral in 1478. His translation into Italian of this Florentine history was commissioned by the Florentine state, as stated by Acciaiuoli in the preface; Bruni's text appeared in print in Italian several times before the original Latin, which was finally printed in the seventeenth century.

Poggio's near-contemporary history of Florence, somewhat shorter and written with an emphasis on military matters, was translated into Italian by his son Jacopo. The manuscript made for Girolamo Strozzi was used by the printers to set the text; this manuscript is now in Yale and was used by Hellinga to describe the printing process (see below). Although printed in Venice, the text was to be sold in Florence and to Florentines living elsewhere; the Strozzi account books indicate that copies went to the Medici bank in Bruges and to Marco Strozzi in London, as well as to Florence, Rome, Siena, and family members elsewhere (F. Edler de Roover, "Per la storia dell'arte della stampa in Italia. Come furono stampati a Venezia tre dei primi libri in volgare", La Bibliofilia 55 (1953), 107-115).

LITERATURE:

ISTC ib01247000 & ip00873000; Lotte Hellinga, "Poggio Bracciolini's Historia Fiorentina in manuscript and print", La Bibliofilia 115 (2013), 119-134

PROVENANCE:

Bought in 1540 by Ludovicus Rodulphus, elegant inscription on flyleaf (possibly Luigi Ridolfi, 1495-1556, the older brother of Cardinal Niccolò Ridolfi, both nephews of Leo X?); later armorial of the Riccardi family (of Florence) at foot of first leaf; [from the Villa Guicciardini Corsi Salviati, Castello, Florence]; Baron Horace de Landau, bookplate (but not found in his sale)