Machiavelli | Il principe, Rome, 1532, first edition, [bound with] Historie fiorentine, Florence, 1532, a previously unrecorded copy of the book where modern political thought began

Niccolò Machiavelli

First edition of The Prince and second edition of the Florentine Histories, in a seventeenth-century Italian binding, comprising:

Historie fiorentine di Niccolo Machiavelli cittadino, et segretario fiorentino. (Florence: Bernardo Giunta, 16 March) 1532, woodcut Giunta device on title-page, lacking final quire FF4, as often (containing errata, a blank and a printer’s device), small ink stain on I7, occasional slight damp-staining

[Il principe di Niccholo Machiavello al magnifico Lorenzo di Piero de Medici.] (Rome: Antonio Blado, 4 January 1532), with final blank leaf, lacking title-page, occasional slight damp-staining

2 works in one volume, 8vo & 4to (174 x 120mm.), early-seventeenth-century Italian (probably Roman) red morocco gilt over thin wooden boards, covers with a double frame of gilt fillets with gilt cornerpieces, centrepiece composed of the same stamp in a group of four, flat spine with the title lettered longitudinally within a double gilt fillet frame, remains of two clasps, edges gilt with dotted gauffering, binding and corners slightly worn, spine repaired at ends, spine and joints creased

A PREVIOUSLY UNKNOWN COPY OF THE EXCEPTIONALLY RARE FIRST EDITION OF MACHIAVELLI’S THE PRINCE, ONE OF THE MOST NOTORIOUS AND INFLUENTIAL BOOKS OF ALL TIME. ONLY 12 COPIES ARE RECORDED IN INSTITUTIONAL LIBRARIES, JUST SIX OF WHICH ARE OUTSIDE ITALY. WE CAN TRACE NO AUCTION RECORDS FOR THIS FIRST EDITION. 

The present volume is bound in an early-seventeenth-century, probably Roman, red morocco binding. A similar binding tool is found on Roman bindings from the Soresini workshop, circa 1600 (see Legature romane barocche 1565-1700, item 16), as well as later seventeenth-century bindings (ibid., item 22, and Legature papali, item 183). The presence of partially erased Bibliotheca Magliabechiana ink stamps on the first title-page (including an MD duplicate stamp) make it most likely that the volume remained in Italy until the mid-nineteenth century. The Magliabechiana library, which also contained numerous autograph manuscripts by Machiavelli, was the first public library in Florence; it eventually formed the nucleus of the Biblioteca nazionale centrale di Firenze. Later, the volume was owned by Henry Wheelwright Marsh (1860-1943), the American insurance magnate who co-founded Marsh McLennan, before it was acquired by an English private collector.

PROVENANCE:

Biblioteca Magliabechiana, Florence, partially erased ink stamps on first title-page, including MD duplicate stamp (the library was opened to the public in 1747, and books were sold or exchanged in 1855; this book not found in the sale catalogue); Henry Wheelwright Marsh (1860-1943, American insurance magnate who spent much of his adult life in England), armorial bookplate; English private collector, by descent

LITERATURE:

Historie fiorentine: Edit16 27967; Principe: Edit16 24013 (USTC lists 11 copies); for censorship of Machiavelli’s works in Italy, see Sydney Anglo, Machiavelli–The First Century (Oxford, 2005); quotations from the English translation of The Prince in the catalogue note below are taken from Niccolò Machiavelli: The Prince, translated by George Bull (London: Penguin, 1981)